Marketing Technology and IOT - Applications and Use Cases

Martech - Insanely Complex !

Coming from the field of performance marketing, I have had significant experience in advising and designing Marketing Technology stacks for clients. I also had the privilege of attending Scott Brinker's Martech conference in 2015 where I was saw for myself the magnificient complexity of the ecosystem that is captured in the latest Martech Landscape. The complexity maps the complexity of marketing to a complex consumer in a fragmented media landscape.

ARC - IOT Application Platform

At www.rudralabs.com we build Consumer IOT Application Platforms, and our current range of applications are all consumer IOT Apps. ARC - or Automated Replenishment Concierge features Smart Dispensers for LIPS (Low Involvement Products like Rice, flour, pulses, cooking oil, washing powder) as well as Smart Scoopers for HIPS (High Involvement Products like baby food, ice cream). These are targetted at FMCG/ Food and Grocery clients as they prepare for the ensuing existential battle for a direct relationship with the consumer.

Flipping focus to the larger Consumer Brand outside of Food and Grocery:

Now, what if we flipped the focus to the benefits the IOT could build for an existing consumer brand like say Starbucks ? How could IOT help Starbucks navigate the complexity inherent in communicating to today's consumer ?

Here are my list of top IOT Applications for Consumer brands, in descending order of implementability and immediate traction for clients:

1. Build direct, AI based relationships with consumers

Starbucks can built a direct to consumer relationship with their consumer in the form of a Consumer IOT Application. Lets call this the Smart Coffee Flask. This is a cool looking coffee flask that measures volume and time of coffee drunk.

This device, with a sophisticated 32-Bit Micro-controller on board is capable of many things. In addition to measuring coffee consumption, temperature, rate of sipping, it can simulate a sentient being that builds a deep and lasting relationship with the consumer in the broader context of Coffee consumption. It measures movement, location, and based on incremental hardware can do even more complex things like behaving like a Pokemon. It can sing, vibrate, talk and debit your wallet. Douglass Karr outlines a potential scenario in this post.

Let’s take it a step further. What if, instead, Starbucks offered a commuter mug with IoT technology that communicated directly with your car, its global positioning, its sensors, and the commuter mug let you know your drink was ordered and to pull over at the next exit. Now, Starbucks isn’t depending on a gateway to pay and communicate with the consumer, they can communicate directly with the consumer.

The capability of the device in conjunction with other consumer artefacts and data is only limited by the imagination.

You could extend coffee to beer, beverages, milk food, water. Its a large addressable market.

2. Visual CRM - Geo-fenced Facial Recognition in-store

AI based Facial recognition has reached a tipping point in the last several quarters with extremely high accuracy as well as highly efficient cloud computing with in-expensive in-site cameras. While Facial recognition is being applied now to mainly security applications, we think that the time is ripe for marketers to adopt this technique within a retail environment.

Lets say KFC or Pizza Hut set up this system. It would feature

• 4 - 10 cameras, low cost mounted unobtrusively
• A geofenced facial recognition system which figures out who is coming into the store and uses this data to personalise the offering made by the tiller (cashier) to them.
• The Identity is measured, encrypted and checked and mapped to the cloud. In return, we will send the personalised instruction to the tiller for maximisation of customer delight at that sales aperture. This delight is amplified since their identity is being measured in a sentient, human-like fashion.

This could have applications in physical retail (where I NEVER carry a loyalty card and hate using Mobile Apps)

3. Happiness Index Measurement

The same infrastructure that is being used for Visual CRM can have an interesting side benefit: measurement of consumer happiness in a scientific and granular way.

This has been done with rigour before and there are several scientific papers that attest to the accuracy and rigour of this practice. This article correlates happiness/joy specifically with Pizza. Some findings:

• Pizza Prep: When pizza went into the oven, everyone's mood improved, with joy increasing up to 18 percentage points.
• That Smells Great: As smell permeated the room, partygoers were happiest, with joy increasing up to 24 percentage points.
• It's Ready: Taking pizza out of the oven also had significant impact on the moods of partygoers, with an increase in joy up to 20 percentage points.
• Serving up Slices: When hosts cut the pizza, partygoers experienced up to an 11 percentage point increase in joy.
• Eating Pizza: As partygoers took their first bite and began eating pizza, increase in joy went up to 11 percentage points.

These indices could be measured at the aggregate and in a geo-fenced fashion. It could also be used to measure and improve staff morale and compensation.

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