Biometrics & Personalization: A No So Distant Ad Expectation
Alex Santiago
Creative, Strategist, Branding Consultant, Coach, 100 Roses From Concrete Executive Board Member, New Author of STOP ASKING FOR LOGOS
Lately, I've been thinking a lot about a session I attended earlier this year at MAIP Summit 2020. It's called "Think Global, Perform Local: The Transformative Age Strategies Behind Global Digital Media" presented by Yessenia Morales, MBA, Kinesso.
I'm obsessing over it because out of so many "future of" trends, gizmos and gadgets that haven't taken, #biometrics is the clear future of the ad industry.
(Does that scare you?)
I can't stop thinking about it. In her talk, the three main takeaways hit me like a ??:
- People want personalization
- Desire for personalization trumps data concerns
- Data concerns are real, but lack of education is equally problematic
I've been doing personalization work for years around membership, loyalty and CRM journeys and environments from Zumba to BIOHM Health to Publix. And, I keep thinking back to how would those experiences have looked in a world where personalization was led, strategized and produced to individual's biometrics. How would it have influenced our research, strategies and concepts?
Most of our personalization campaigns succeeded in different ways, but it was clear that people loved them. Each person feeling like they're the center of the world; who wouldn't love that? Imagine having biometrics guiding those insights and ideas.
It's a wild thought. I honestly can't wrap my head around it.
In the talk, it was clear to me that there was no escaping this future. Yet, with that said, where do agencies fit when companies like Apple, Google and Amazon will technically house (and own?) this information, data, etc.
These groups are already taking some of our best people by building internal teams comparable or even superior to those in ad agencies. Is Professor Scott Galloway correct? Will there be just four companies left in our world?
What do you think? Are you doing this type of work already? Where can I find real case studies of this work being done?
I'm puzzled and interested in this area. Drop a comment or send me a message.