Brands have started to shift from campaigns to product innovation. The key areas of focus going forward will be product design and innovation. Campaigns will just become words in the wind, but useful products and services, will drive consumer adoption in the future.
Whilst we are trying to guess what the future looks like, we forget that we are in the business of creating that future for brands and shareholders. However, we can already see some innovations that will drive change in the short term.
Machine and Deep Learning
Many companies are already using this to drive solutions for customers and sales. Amazon and Google are already doing this. Google is however combining a few pieces of technology already, which makes what they offer to consumers seamless and compelling.
Amazon’s Recommendation Engine for example, uses math & statistics to generate a model of how a system works based on a defined feature or outcome.
Google Driverless Cars to Google Urban Planning, is another great example. It creates relationships between disparate models, understands their relationships and creates improvements to themselves based on this understanding.
Blockchain technology
Another innovation is the combination of blockchain with a GM fleet of self-driving cars. Venture Capitalists have invested roughly $1 billion into 120 blockchain related start-ups. 50% of that investment was made in 2015
Internet of Everything
The Internet of everything brings people, processes, data and things together. When devices are connected to the internet they can order supplies, inform decisions and help make our lives more efficient. This will make cities for efficient and urbanization faster.
Robotics – Forecast to be a US$80 billion industry by 2020
Dentsu and SoftBank Robotics created the world’s first robot that has its own emotions. The goal with Pepper is to see how talking, human-like robots might help people in a society where more and more people, including the elderly, live alone. This is especially relevant in Japan where more than 22 per cent of the population is already over the age of 65 and fertility rates are declining.
Virtual Reality
Virtual Reality glasses made a HUGE leap in quality this past year. They’re still not ready for consumers, but it is time to start using these in your business.
Virtual Reality is here and is not going away. If you’re in the media business, it is time to put big money into building content. There are a ton of new 360-degree cameras to enable just that.
IoT and Bluetooth connectivity keeps spreading to everything, which enables not just new products but new business models as well
