Think back to the last brainstorm you were in. Picture the first person who mentioned drones. If you know a person like this, channel your anger towards them as you read on as I'm here to tell you there's another way to embrace the innovations in tech that came to light at the recent CES tradeshow.
As an industry with a disproportionate amount of people who love tech and perhaps spend too much money on the latest shiny new toy, CES will naturally excite you. But for planners, global events such as this can often leave you wondering where to start in analysing and applying the innovations presented. If you're client-side, it's often hard to see how our attendance at events like this is justified – and how what comes out of the tech-fest can lead to tangible differences in how we plan.
With this in mind, here's a snapshot of how we at MEC will be making sense of the innovations and products CES revealed and how we will use them as a launch pad for writing our 2016 test and learn plans for clients.
Tech, data and content
We start by structuring the trends/products around three of the key drivers of change within our industry: tech, data, and content. We then write a clear articulation of our client's core business and marketing challenge and put it up on the wall along with the overarching plan for the key moments and campaigns across 2016. This helps us to identify the opportunities that might fit.
At first glance, tech is the easy one as there is plenty of it at CES. However, it's still a complicated endeavour. We start by going through each of the innovations that sparked our interest and work backwards to understand when they are likely to land, or, at least, be useful in some way in 2016. As we do this, we begin to see where the opportunities are and where we should focus our efforts.
Data starts with asking some simple questions. Pick any of the products showcased at CES - it could be a wearable like Moff, a slap-on bracelet that turns everything you touch into an instrument, or KeyMission 360, Nikon's action camera which shoots 360-degree video in 4K - and brainstorm the data you think that product could elicit. What could it tell you about the user's behaviour? How could that then be applied to a cross-channel data strategy that helps to answer the core business or marketing challenge you are trying to solve?
Content is a broad term, so what we do is map our content needs against the customer journey. From trigger to purchase, conversion rate optimisation (CRO) to branded content, where are we underperforming and what content do we need to improve?
For some clients, we will analyse the tech from CES to see if it could enhance their service proposition, with the content output most likely appearing in either a utility focused approach that informs and acts as a ‘how to', or a mid-funnel hero piece to celebrate the innovation you've put in place.
For our brand-focused clients, we will simply look at how the tech can be applied to augment brand and storytelling experiences; but again, we base this on where we need to optimise within the customer journey.
What next?
Once we have narrowed the list of trends that matter most to our clients, we group them under immediate opportunities, potential opportunities, long shots, and possible ‘Big Bets' for 2016. These will then get presented to our clients, revisited in decks throughout the year, and reviewed quarterly to make sure we are on target and applying the learnings.
From all of the great things to come from CES, we can’t forget, it is primarily your audience's adoption of the tech that dictates whether these advances make it into test and learn plans.
If an audience's expectations and demands on service are outpacing current capability, focus on the implications of CES. If they don't, simply think about how what you have seen can be used to create content so compelling that people will want to spend a little more time with your brand.
However, you choose to break down the innovations in tech from CES remember, drones – along with treasure hunts – have no place in any of your future brainstorming sessions.
James Graver is the National Head of Digital at MEC Australia.