What do the microwave oven, Amazon.com, and the hula-hoop have in common? For one thing, each of these was a game changer in its particular category. Each is also a consumer product or service that you may have never known you needed until you saw it.
Predicting consumer trends is tricky, particularly in a time when rapid technological advancement is changing our world. In the last 15 years, technology has changed the way we communicate, play, shop, relate to one another, consume music, view movies and, fundamentally, how we access information.
Five years ago I was not thinking, "Damn, I wish there was some type of web-based social networking service that would allow people that I have not seen in the past 20 years to connect with me and send me status updates on what they had for breakfast." Ten years ago, I was not wishing for a device in my car's dashboard that would know exactly where I am and have the ability to guide me to a location of my choosing. Who knew that the direction-giving gas station attendants would become obsolete? And who knew back then that life would not be complete without the ability to snap a picture of the movie star spotted at the next table and instantly send it to my pals from my mobile phone. Thanks to "The Jetsons," the only futuristic technology that I could envision was a laundry-doing robot (I'm still waiting for that).
So what are the services that will arise in the next couple years that will change our lives? It is nearly impossible to predict, but two trends are emerging and merging: social networking and location-awareness. Some call the convergence of these two paradigms "social location," but for the average consumer, it's really just people and places. When the two come together, the possibilities for connecting to the people and the things that matter to you become very powerful. People is about you and the people who matter -- your friends, your family, your real and virtual communites, your mobile phone contacts, and your email contacts. It's about what they do for fun and for work, what they buy and what they are doing right now. Places is about where people do all of those things listed above, where their friends are, and where they are going next.
The real world is digitizing, and at the same time the virtual world is becoming three-dimensional. More and more people are walking around with a GPS-ready mobile phone in their pockets, which essentially plots them on a virtual map. Now, imagine what all this means for the interactive industry. Imagine pulling up a 3D map on a mobile phone to get a sense for where you are, where you are going, or where your friends are. In that map, you can see buildings and businesses, branded icons and virtual billboards, business listings, all of which are clickable for deeper information, such as the store hours, phone numbers, or special offers. You might be able to see the rates for a nearby hotel, the local stores which are having sales, or where you might get a coffee on the next block. You can begin to envision an ecosystem for location-based advertising that provides a means for small businesses to connect with potential customers who are in close proximity. For the consumer, they will no longer see just their destination pinpointed on a digital map; they will also see which retail locations, restaurants, cinemas, etc., are in the neighborhood. Suddenly, with the help of location awareness and context, advertising becomes so relevant that it is not seen as intrusive, but rather as a useful service.
Now, imagine bringing up a map view in Facebook to see exactly where your friends are at that given moment. Or getting a text message when one of your mobile phone contacts is within a one-mile radius. Or knowing when your kid wanders beyond a designated area. It goes without saying that social location will be permissions based, and people would have loads of control over who can see their location and when.
What does it all mean for advertisers? It means they can finally meet consumers where they are. It means deeper targeting than they've ever imagined based on a person's exact location at a given moment or the buying behaviors of that person's social contacts. For long-tail advertisers, contextual targeting will open doors to reaching the right customer in the right place, ultimately providing a means for cost-effective advertising.
For consumers it means that the line between advertising and useful services is blurring.
It will be very exciting to see the technological advances that change the way we interact with the world and the people around us. But, I'm still holding on for the laundry-doing robot. Are you listening, Whirlpool?
Diana LaGattuta is global head of marketing for Nokia Interactive.
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