As co-founder and CEO of Ampersand Advisory Sandeep Joseph pointed out, there is a need to harness AI technology to enable greater personalisation of marketing.
This should not be too difficult. As Omnicom Media Group Malaysia CEO Eileen Ooi pointed out, AI outputs are already possible in everyday applications.
“What marketers need to do is start testing and incorporating AI technologies to enhance their products,” she told FMT Business.
“The reality is that we are now marketing to AI,” she said. “We just need to ensure that we hit the consumer the way we want.”
Sandeep and Ooi were speaking at the Petal Ads Summit 2023 hosted by Chinese multinational technology corporation Huawei Technologies Co Ltd on Thursday.
Ooi noted that as we approach Web3.0 and the internet becomes more decentralised and thereby more immersive, understanding the nuances that will motivate individual consumers to buy will become more important.
“You have to start looking at commerce beyond the conventional (way of) selling to people. Everyone has a different motivation, and there is growing evidence of impulse purchases,” she added.
Sandeep said digital advertising, fast-tracked by the Covid-19 pandemic, is now the primary medium for marketing in Malaysia. More than 60% of advertising is now delivered through digital platforms.
“There is therefore a huge potential for growth in marketing through mobile devices,” he said.
“Connecting an advertisement on a mobile device with digital out-of-home (DOOH) advertising will amplify and reinforce (a desire to buy) for consumers,” he added.
Sandeep said this meant that marketers should consider the possibility of connecting TV apps with addressable advertising, which is the ability to show different advertisements to different households watching the same programme.
Getting personal
Ooi said there is now a growing willingness among consumers to provide their personal data but only for a service they value.
“Therefore, it is important to maximise (the collection of) first party data, to scale it up and improve its quality,” she said.
This, she said, has become even more pertinent given that Google has announced it is phasing out the use of third-party cookies on its web browser by 2024.
Third party cookies, which carry information about your visit to a website, are deposited in a user’s hard disk by a website from a domain other than the one visited.
Ooi noted that the value of harnessing first-party data is now critical to maintain and grow brand equity in a world where information is increasingly filtered.
“As ‘walled gardens’ continue to proliferate, the era of mass marketing has become obsolete. Greater investment is now required to sustain a consumer’s loyalty,” she added.
Reaching a wider audience
Touching on the power of the creator economy in widening the consumer reach of brands, Ooi pointed out that creators are no longer limited to humans.
(The creator economy comprises individuals with the skills, talents and expertise to build and maintain businesses on the digital platform.)
“With Web3.0, you are going to have more avatar versions of creators,” she said.
Elaborating further on the use of influencers to induce the desire to purchase, Sandeep said that while it is one of the fastest growing areas in the digital marketing space, it was still difficult to tangibly measure the results.
Ultimately, changes in consumer behaviour are moving at lightning speed. Thanks to AI, they are now more empowered to make informed decisions than at any other time in history.
While the debate continues, it has become critical that businesses leverage on AI or get left behind.