Automakers, designers, and engineers are at the precipice of one of the most significant moments in their industry. The design of the automobile has remained largely unchanged since its inception in the late 1800s.

However, within the decade, we will realize a new automobile design. And with it, we’ll usher in a new understanding of something that was once only meant to get us from Point A to Point B.

Here are three ways that this new backseat and the evolution of mobility-as-a-service will open doors for marketers:

A more captive audience
The new automobile interior will look different. Not only will cars be electric (hooray!), they’ll be autonomous, which means steering wheels will become a reactive line of code. Vehicles won’t be laid out with the traditional seating that we’ve known. They could adopt a u-shape seating arrangement, or even just two seats that fully recline.

Everyone will become passengers with this new layout of interior design where there’s no driver. This will rewrite the paradigm of what’s a possible in-car activity when someone’s attention isn’t taken up by navigating themselves from Point A to Point B. Can that ride become more relaxing? Rewarding? Fun? Any of those things are certainly possible, and all will manifest as rides become experiences.

Host more in-depth & impactful experiences
Eight-four percent of millennials don’t trust traditional advertising, according to one study. But they do want authentic content and experiences.

This is great news, considering that with this mobility revolution, marketers will be able to achieve more experiential marketing at scale. What does this mean?

Here are examples of what these new immersive experiences could look like:
-- A full Continental breakfast bar available to you in the mornings on your way to work.
-- A gaming suite or arcade on wheels.
-- A karaoke studio with microphones, strobe lights, and alcohol on tap.
-- A spa so you can “zen-out” while you’re stuck in traffic.

Companies like Intel and Warner Brothers are imagining what this looks like with their Batman experience that premiered at CES earlier this year. Toyota has also been quite forward in reimagining not just how to maximize the productivity of that ride but, with its e-Palette concept, reimagines the vehicle’s form and function.

A new canvas to market on, focused on the five senses
The days of only buying impression-based ads are long gone. And even social media tactics are becoming old. A Harris Poll survey found that, “74 percent of 16- to 39-year-olds object to being singled out by brands in their social media feeds. Of those, 56 percent have cut back on or quit using social media sites due to advertisements in their news feeds.”  

Thoughtful brands will see mobility as a new medium to address this ad fatigue. A ride can engage all five senses and incorporate other contextual factors like starting point, destination, and direction of travel.

This type of canvas is a marketer’s dream. Brands will be able to extend their hospitality and, as Frog Design identified in its 2019 Tech Trends, use mobility as an amenity. This will allow brands to create meaningful, lasting relationships that add value to consumers and build brand affinity.  

When the vehicle form changes, a ride will be reimagined once again. Like a mobile piece of real estate, that first-class lounge, spa, or movie theater will all be on wheels. Brands will turn the new backseat into an experience that is contextual, interactive, and personalized.

The best ride experiences will provide true value to the passenger first -- and then to the marketer.

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Later this quarter, Snap plans to launch Select -- a new way for advertisers to buy and reserve “commercials” alongside the platform’s top Shows in Snapchat Discover.

Commercials are Snap’s non-skip, six-second, sound-on video ads, which the social giant says are presently seeing 1 cent average cost per completed view.

Snap is positioning Select as a new way to buy its most premium video inventory, via a fixed CPM.

This includes programming like Snap Originals -- which the company expanded earlier this month -- along with sports Shows and various partner offerings.

David Roter, vice president, global agency partnerships at Snap, can’t wait to start selling the new offering. “Snap Select gives marketers and agencies access to reserve inventory in the most premium, popular shows on Snapchat,” Roter stated.

Snapchat shows have been successful.

During the first quarter of the year, nearly half of Snap’s daily Discover viewers watched Discover every day of the week. Over the last year, the time spent watching shows on Snapchat every day more than tripled, per the company.

"Endless Summer," Snap’s first docu-series, reached over 28 million unique viewers in its first season, while its scripted series "The Dead Girls Detective Agency" reached more than 14 million unique viewers. Over 40% of the users that completed the first episode watched the entire first season.

In March, Snap’s partners increased their total mobile monthly audience in the U.S. by an average of more than 30% just by publishing to Discover, as measured by Comscore.

With Select, Snap also plans to invite advertisers to pick and choose ahead of time when they want their commercials to run -- at a fixed price.

The new offering with also include what Snap is calling “proposals” -- a one-click tool for media buyers to review and approve a Snap Select plan.

A 2018 Maritz study revealed that nearly 70% of consumers identified themselves as “transient” loyalists to brands. This means they can be convinced to buy a competitor’s brand. Only 29% of consumers considered themselves to be “resolute” loyalists who only buy their favorite brands.

Brand Loyalty: Dead or Alive?

These are telling numbers for brands who might have thought brand loyalty was stronger than that. It begs the question: Is brand loyalty dead? Or, if it’s not dead, can it be purchased by the brand that offers the most?

To get more insights, I spoke to several leaders in the space, including Barry Kirk, vice president of Maritz Loyalty, and Eliot Hamlisch, senior vice president, worldwide loyalty & partnerships for Wyndham Hotels & Resorts.

I also chatted with Jigar Shah, CEO of Miles, a rewards app and platform that's quickly building momentum. Miles allows anyone with a smartphone to earn miles for all their daily travels — redeemable for exclusive rewards with leading brands across categories.

Building a Multi-Loyalty Strategy

Simply having a rewards program and getting members enrolled doesn’t translate to engagement for brands, with 53% of consumers having ditched at least one loyalty program within the last year (all stats in this post come from the Maritz study previously cited).

Kirk believes too many companies are still relying on legacy or “points-based” loyalty program that "simply chase the lowest price vs. having a differentiated strategy.

“You need a multi-loyalty strategy focused on creating the best experiences and connecting with customers in a social and values-based manner,” notes Kirk.

Personalization is also important. “Brands need to think about personalization holistically over the course of the entire customer journey, finding new ways to deepen and strengthen that connection,” says Hamlisch.

Bridging The Gap

Consumers today have a higher fatigue factor for individual loyalty programs or apps. More than half of millennials also actively block ads on mobile.

So brands are having to rethink their loyalty programs and explore new types of partnerships. Miles, which offers rewards from more than 75 major brands, retailers and transportation providers, is a good example.

“To date, loyalty programs and travel rewards have been siloed and often limited to one form of travel – with consumers facing exclusions when it comes to earning and redeeming rewards,” says Miles’ Shah.

With Miles, the more sustainable the mode of transportation you choose, the bigger the reward. Miles is also partnering with several cities (as well as retail brands and merchants) to boost customer loyalty, while promoting greener travel.

Strengthening Loyalty

Hotels, airlines and financial institutions are also improving their loyalty programs and partnerships to create stronger connections with customers.

“Driving differentiation through experience also shows a brand knows what their customer values,” says Hamlisch. “For example, a free hotel night continues to be the number one reward that travelers covet most. Yet, the reality for many travelers is that getting to that free night may feel impossible. With Wyndham rewards, we’re increasing the ways our members can earn points towards their free night.” 

Partnerships with the like of DoorDash and Marathon Gas allow Wyndham rewards program members to rack up their points faster than just getting them for hotel stays.

Tailoring Loyalty Programs to Younger Consumers

“Millennials are 40% more likely than boomers to spend their loyalty points as soon as possible versus saving them,” according to the Maritz study. “Second, when millennials do redeem the points, they are doing so for lower-valued rewards, especially low-denomination gift cards.”

Another trend is that younger customers want to redeem their points for experiences versus things. For example, they show a preference for concert tickets or spa appointments versus merchandise rewards or cash.

Kirk explains, “This is clearly a reflection of the overall experience economic trend where consumers are now spending four times as much on experience-related services versus hard goods. When a unique experience is redeemed through a loyalty program and then shared on Facebook or Instagram, it can provide that consumer with a sense of status and earn attention. You really can’t accomplish this by redeeming a gift card.”

Still Alive, But In Need of Reinvention

Although brand loyalty programs appears to still have a pulse, it takes commitment and differentiation to defy the odds and build long-term brand affinity. 

Ultimately companies need a variety of talents and skill sets to run a successful customer loyalty program – from product and digital marketing teams to analytics and customer service. They also need to be open to new ideas and partnerships that help to deliver differentiation and value, versus a race to the bottom to offer discounts.

From posting fake sponsored content to pretending to fly on private jets, influencer culture has sometimes been guilty of fakeness, but the next wave of virtual influencers reaches a new level of illusion. Lil Miquela is one such star, with 1.5 million followers on Instagram. She has partnered with GIPHY and Prada, posed wearing Diesel and Moncler, and even moonlighted as a contributing arts editor to Dazed Magazine.

Investors are in. After closing a round of financing earlier this year, Brud, the AI company who created Lil Miquela, became worth $125 million. Brud isn’t alone, either. Venture-backed companies like Shadows, SuperPlastic and Toonstar are also developing virtual influencers.

“One of the things that excites us about synthetic characters is the ability for either startups or even for individuals to create these characters that they can use to create media that is high quality and enjoyable,” Peter Rojas, a partner at the investment firm Betaworks Ventures and investor in SuperPlastic, told me during an interview for a forthcoming podcast.

“It’s partly a form of self-expression, but also, if people are going to pay increasing amounts of time and attention to [synthetic characters], how is that going to change the media landscape? How’s it going to change entertainment?” Rojas said.

Surprise, surprise, games have led the way. Game designer Richard Garriott coined the term “avatar” in games with Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar, released in 1985. Since then, avatar customization has become a key entertainment feature in video games, especially massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs), and non-gaming virtual worlds, such as Second Life.

One of the earliest virtual avatars was Max Headroom, a fictional AI character portrayed as “the world’s first computer-generated T.V. host” but who was really a man in prosthetic makeup. In 1998, Gorillaz debuted as a virtual band created by musician Damon Albarn and artist Jamie Hewlett, inspired by sci-fi, anime, and rock videos. Created by Crypton Future Media, the virtual Japanese pop star Hatsune Miku was “born” in 2007 and has since performed sold-out concerts all over the world. Today, you can see her influence on virtual YouTubers, which are blowing up in Japan.

As you can see, Lil Miquela’s predecessors have made their respective marks on everything from music to TV. So, it’s only natural that artificial characters would step into the spotlight on social media.

Coherence tops realness. Social theorist and media scholar Rob Cover asserts as much in his work, which frames the use of social media as a way that individuals perform their identities online. According to Cover, someone’s identity isn’t static but something an individual reinforces through categorization. Gender, for example, is a common way someone defines themselves.

Sometimes, people police each other’s identities. For example, if someone is dressed as a punk but only listens to classical music, that person is confusing to other people, potentially causing a negative reaction. Cover calls this “coherence.” It’s the key to understanding why virtual influencers have the potential to take off in the future: As long as a virtual influencer is “coherent,” it doesn’t matter if they are real.

When it comes to “authenticity,” Lil Miquela’s popularity shows that when people follow an influencer on Instagram, they care more about a persona than authenticity. Brands already have an established voice, so they could easily create a virtual character with an “authentic” personality. It can be as simple as establishing what a character will or will not do. For a similar relationship, look no further than fandom to find rabid fans who are attached to fictional characters.

Realistic avatars will push us toward the virtual. Last month, Facebook revealed that it is investing in realistic face-tracking avatars as the key to VR’s future. Even if avatars trend toward being as realistic as possible, that could still mean people will become more comfortable with more anonymous virtual characters.

The Facemoji app easily allows you to turn your face into a 3D emoji with one tap. Its selling point, though, is to “make your Facemoji look a lot like you—or whoever you want to be.” Modulate is going even further with the development of “voice skins,” which transforms users’ voices live by filtering them through artificial intelligence software. The outgoing voice can be set to resemble a certain gender, speaking style, or celebrity.

Both tools provide the freedom to express yourself any way you’d like and offer protection from online harassment based on gender. On Twitch, women who stream are regularly harassed and objectified, while men are met with discussions about their gaming skills, according to a 2016 study. Considering all this, anonymous avatars start to look pretty appealing, and the growth of anonymous avatars will normalize virtual influencers as well.

Brands, eye-track this: Consumers don’t necessarily need to follow an influencer who is real as long as its persona is interesting, consistent and authentic. In the future, every brand could potentially create their own virtual influencer, someone they can completely control, who never ages or dies. Not to mention, a virtual influencer means automatic brand safety.

Lead image: stock photos from De repente/Shutterstock

New technology infrastructure has transformed the physical store into a resource for the collection of valuable data that retailers and brands can leverage to improve their end-to-end operations, increase ROI and drive better customer experience. Much of that data, however, is off-limits without participation from shoppers.

In order to unlock these insights, companies must create a two-way value exchange that rewards shoppers for sharing their personal information and in-store activity. The following levers excerpted from PSFK’s recent Shopper Data Debrief report highlight the ways in which retailers and shoppers can both benefit from this new relationship:

Logged-In Recognition
Allowing shoppers to ‘check in’ via mobile upon entering a store in order to unlock a more personalized and responsive in-store experience, while providing the retailer with a means to create a comprehensive CRM system that syncs real world behavioral data with shoppers’ online profiles.

Visual Recommendation
Leveraging in-store AR and visual recognition technologies in order to provide targeted recommendations and foster moments of discovery and delight, while also providing the retailer with valuable data about product interactions.

Contextual Targeting
Using RFID and other technologies to detect items that shoppers are interacting with in order to provide recommendations for related products, while allowing the retailer to leverage real-time shopper data in order to target shoppers in the moment.

Behavioral Heat Mapping
Tracking shoppers’ real-time in-store movements and behaviors throughout the store in order to optimize store layout, pricing, merchandising and inventory management.

For access to the last two levers of shopper data exchange, download PSFK’s Shopper Data Debrief, available now for members.

The Shopper Data Debrief by business intelligence service PSFK outlines how retailers can leverage new tools to capture shopper data in the physical store, creating a mutually beneficial value exchange that allows them to refine operations and offer a more personalized in-store experience. This report is part of a series of reports focusing on retail innovation and customer experience to inspire the members of our business intelligence services.

Lead image: stock photos from George Rudy/Shutterstock

Marketers believe in personalization — 98% say it advances customer relationships, and 48% plan to spend more on it this year compared with 37% in 2018, according to 2019 Trends In Personalization, a study by Evergage. But that doesn’t mean they grasp it.

Only 18% are highly confident that their firm has a successful personalization strategy, the study found. In addition, 45% lack the data they need to drive effective personalization. And 65% give themselves a “C” or lower in the personalization skill sets.

What’s more, personalization doesn’t appear to very robust outside of the email channel.

Of the 314 B2B and B2C brands surveyed by Evergage, 78% personalize their email, and 58% do so with their websites. Yet only 42% deploy personalization in person, and 35% personalize in their online advertising 

Things are worse when it comes to apps — 28% personalize in mobile apps, and 19% through web applications.

Those are the negatives in this study. Now on to the positives.

For one, 85% believe customers and prospects expect a personalized experience. For another, 74% feel personalization should be a higher priority at their firms. And 70% believe it has a strong or extremely strong impact.

There is good reason for thinking this. Of the brands using personalization, 90% report a measurable improvement in results. For 58%, that boost is higher than 10%, and for 15% it tops 30%.

What are the primary reasons to deploy personalization?

For 88%, the goal is to deliver a better customer experience, while for 59% it is to increase loyalty and for 50% the goal is to generate measurable lift/ROI. 

Some of that is being achieved, if the list of benefits is any indicator. 

The top benefit, cited by 61% of the respondents, is increased conversion rates -- up from 51% last year. And 59% report improved visitor engagement, a jump from 55% in 2018.

Another 56% see an improved customer experience, versus 55% last year. And 56% enjoy increased lead generation/customer acquisition, a gain over 46% in the 2018 study.

Adding it all up, 97% are increasing or maintaining their personalization budgets.

How are brands approaching personalization? Of those surveyed, 68% are using rule-based targeting. Another 51% send triggered messages and 40% utilize machine learning/algorithmic personalization, a jump from 26% last year.  

These findings seem to support the results of other studies. For example, BRP recently reported that only 53% of retailers see personalization as a top priority. 

The trouble is that consumers want it — 79% in the case of retail. Clearly, some brands have to catch up with customer expectations.

The podcast company Cadence13 is branching into original programming, launching a new division tasked with developing original storytelling and IP.

The division, C13Originals, will be led by Chris Corcoran, Chief Content Officer of Cadence13, with Zak Levitt serving as executive vice president of production.

Levitt most recently served as the writer, director and producer of the podcast “Root of Evil: The True Story of the Hodel Family and the Black Dahlia,” which has led the podcast charts. That podcast was produced by the cable network TNT in partnership with Cadence13.

Cadence13 made a name by joining with high-profile partners to create and distribute podcasts. The company counts Kobe Bryant, Crooked Media, Conde Nast, Malcolm Gladwell, and Deepak Chopra among its hosts and partners.

Now, it wants to further expand its presence in the originals space.

The first C13Originals series will be “Gangster Capitalism,” a docs-series looking at white-collar crime in America. The series will be hosted by Andrew Jenks, who also hosts the Cadence13 podcast “What Really Happened?” The first season of the series will focus on the recent college-admissions scandal.

“Gangster Capitalism” will launch in May on most podcast platforms. The company plans to announce the next slate of programming for its originals roster later this spring.

Mobile marketers and media companies put a lot of stock in push notifications.

Yet, when consumers unlock their phones, push notifications rarely initiate content discovery.

That’s according to a new Verto Analytics report. It found -- in the context of a user’s daily unlocks -- less than 2% of all device unlocks involve consumers engaging with notifications from news apps, magazine apps, and entertainment apps.

By contrast, Facebook and other social apps that feature feeds of new content fare much better upon being relaunched at unlock. All told, about 16% of Facebook’s usage comes from it being the app that is relaunched at unlock.

More broadly, messaging and social each apps create more than 100 unlock engagement opportunities a month, per user, Verto Analytics found.

By contrast, browsers are relaunched at unlock about 50 times a month, while Web browsers rank 8 out of 10 among app categories relaunched by unlocking the device.

While, social and messaging apps most commonly command users’ attention immediately after unlocking their phones, there are some notable exceptions.

For example, Metro by T-Mobile’s MetroZONE and SmartNews actually perform better at unlock than Facebook, WhatsApp or Snapchat.

“Consumers unlock their devices almost 50 times a day, and because smartphones typically launch the app most recently used, it is very important to understand the beginning of the mobile unlock journey and how those apps can recapture user attention effectively,” Vinayak Nair, vice president, custom research and analytics at Verto Analytics, notes in the report.

To understand which apps tend to recapture and engage consumer attention from the start of the mobile journey, Verto Analytics measured Unlock Launch Rate -- how often an app is launched because it was the last app running when the phone was locked or because the user interface otherwise set to be activated after unlock.

Verto also measured Unlock Engagement Ratio -- the ratio comparing how often an app gets used for more than 10 seconds to how often it’s used for less than three seconds, when it’s the first app used after unlock.

For smartphones, the Unlock Engagement Ratio is a little over five, excluding the home screen.

Some app categories, such as sports and games, have a higher Unlock Engagement Ratio of between 11-12, indicating they are more likely to hold a user’s attention when given the opportunity at unlock.

Also of note, the report revealed significant differences across age groups when it comes to consumer behavior on smartphones. Verto’s data showed that among U.S. adults, post-millennials unlock their smartphones an average of 79 times per day -- the most often of any other age group.

This number dropped with every successive older age group. In comparison, baby boomers only unlock their smartphones an average of 30 times per day, which is less than half as often as post-millennials/Gen Z.