How to balance technology with emotions

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Group of young adults playing online game with phone outdoor in the summer

Royal Enfield brings out the adventurer in us, while Nike provides the much-needed adrenaline rush. We can now agree that Marketing 2.0 is about more than just selling a product and creating a purpose-driven connection with customers.

“People do not buy goods and services,” as a renowned entrepreneur and American author Seth Godin correctly stated. They purchase relationships, stories, and magic.”

Today, we stand on the verge of an era in which technology has progressed from being a medium for analyzing and communicating emotions to becoming a key catalyst in bringing such feelings/stories to life.

This transformational marketing is due to a massive shift in marketing technology. Channel-specific solutions, such as websites, social and mobile platforms, content management tools, and search engine optimization are quickly becoming obsolete.

Organizations are adopting a new generation of mar-tech systems to deliver unprecedented levels of customer intimacy, targeted engagement, and precision impact as part of the growing beyond marketing trend.

One very apt example that comes to mind is from Shanghai, where Starbucks offered its customers the opportunity to experience the roaster via augmented reality (AR) via their app. Simply pointing to critical features around the café, such as the cask, will display new information and act as a tour guide. Customers could also explore the environment and earn virtual badges. They will receive a custom roastery social media filter to share when they order everything.

This only emphasizes that by implementing new data collection and analysis approaches, businesses can now provide much more personalized and end-to-end customer experiences. These experiences, in turn, contribute to developing strong emotional attachments to products and brands, strengthening brand love and recall.

Combining technology and emotions necessitates brands to maintain a constant pulse on consumers and their changing preferences. An apt example of this combination is an intriguing pop-up that eBay launched last year.

The e-commerce company, in collaboration with the tech firm Lightwave, set up booths outfitted with bio-analytic technology and facial coding software. Guests were invited into a stall and asked to browse a selection of items from eBay’s “giving page,” The technology detected which things they liked and which they disliked. After leaving the booths, guests would receive a personalized emotion report to help them understand and choose the items they felt most connected with.

Several startups in India are also actively working to gauge consumer sentiment by detecting facial expressions, eye movements, and even brain wave mapping.

We celebrated Valentine’s Day with #HowFarWillYouGoToMakeThemBlush, our Cadbury Dairy Milk Silk campaign closer to home. We introduced real-time personalization through AR for our customers to create sweet moments of love. This allowed them to view custom messages sent by their loved ones in an immersive 360-degree virtual environment by unlocking TV spots, newspapers, billboards, and even open spaces at home.


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