In advertising and media, two of the fancier trends are the ability to answer and understand when consumers talk about it in real time. Content can be used as a trigger of conversation between the brand, our approach, and our online behavior; can give shape on what we receive from brands, what kind of content we are served, and last but not least how everything seems and if it is natural.
It seems really interesting that our actions start being the trigger to get kind of personalized ads and experience something we like. It is not disturbing and usually gives us exactly what we want: either information, an answer to a question we had, or a result to a search we did.
But in our days we go to the next level. We are that busy, or that flooded by information that we don’t have time even to search, to tailor-make our life’s preferences. Here is where smart connected devices can get into our lives. The ability to understand our habits, interpret the way we allocate time, and budget different needs can help us to have the best possible experience. It also allows us to have for the first time a passive conversation with really important things in our life.
Evian recently ran a project in France where people were able to order big family-size bottles of water by pressing a plastic water drop-shaped button on their fridge. The “drop” was connected to the Evian’s logistics center, and it could deliver the bottles of water the same business day. Based on this kind of information, Evian could understand not only the lifestyle of the family, but also other facts about the way they lived and take the whole flow to another level. They were able not only to predict the needs of the family for water but also to understand nutrition and lifestyle habits.
Smart devices are there not to make the existent model smarter or fancier. Connected devices add value only when they can disrupt the existent business model. Advertising is there not only to help people adopt a smarter way to interact with technology but also to place more technology in our lives and make them easier and less complicated.