It is not about being the best brand with the best product, it is about being the brand that resonates best with its consumers writes Abhishek Sharma, Chairman, Akkado.

Unless you have been living a very isolated life, your world is digital and has been for a while. We as Akkado have seen the evolution of marketing take many different forms. Now marketers need to be on top of what is trending and where their consumers are. Interestingly, the brand messaging that provides the most impact is the one that truly connects with consumers, provides human engagement and has real impact on individuals and their lifestyle.

Akkado with its keenness and curiosity driven sense of vision, is always on a hunt for new technologies that would help in creating that extra zeal in engaging with the consumers and leave an everlasting impact.

With an agenda to stay updated and ahead of the race, we have a portal of millennials (Curious Minds) who are well aware of the trends and the future developments. We get inspired by the latest trending technologies and adapt it according to the client’s need and take the experience a notch up.

With Akkado being an integrated marketing solution provider, we need to be pro-active in all areas of our expertise, be it Loyalty, Merchandising and find new & relevant technologies that would increase the reach of the brand.

Recently, we have seen the rise of personalised campaigns and content and the increase use of mobile devices and smartphones. With rising consumer engagement on the smaller screen, mobile is set to take a big piece of consumer interaction in 2018.

We believe that it is not about being the best brand with the best product -- it is about being the brand that resonates best with its consumers. This is where technology combined with influencer marketing has proven successful.

Understanding the statistics 73% of marketing executives see AI or a technology dependent on AI as critical to the future of marketing. 20% think that bots, chatbots, or smart assistants are core. And 63.5% believe that big data will (finally) be transformative for marketers in 2018.

As artificial intelligence and machine learning continues to make their way into marketing automation in 2018, individualization will become the new personalization experience.

Artificial Intelligence/Chat Bots

Artificial Intelligence is the new booming technology that the entire industry is going gaga about. With the idea of personalizing the entire show, AI gives the perfect platform for all our verticals to create an engaging and interactive experience. We see bots and assistants as transformative technologies that would connect brands and customers closer, in real time. Smart voice systems enable us to connect to customers from anywhere: Car, kitchen, the bedroom and even on the go. Convenience & creativity redefined.

“Consumers want to interact on their phones and are becoming more and more open to live chat systems and messaging bots.

XR-Extended Reality

With augmented reality & virtual reality creating wow moments, the new Extended Reality is a revolution in itself where real & virtual combined environments and human machine interaction creates mesmerizing experiences. Teleportation may not be a reality just yet, but immersive experiences through technologies like virtual and augmented reality are taking the consumers to faraway places and making distance a thing of the past. Extended reality is the first technology to “relocate” people in time and space, and we are here to create memorable experiences.

Big Data

Moving away from the traditional way of data analysis, big data is new and upgraded way of sorting out huge and complex data. With clients huge on having their own portal of data, so their email & mobile marketing continues, we as an agency needs to collect the data through our events, activations & loyalty and then create a campaign including the usage of the data called CTDL-Closing the Data Loop.

Geolocation

Geolocation has become the most used platform for event marketing industry to visualize and execute a perfect experience for the client. Starting with finding a unique venue for the event GEOPOINTE & GEOANALYSIS helps in efficiently analysing & visualizing locations and areas surrounding the prospective easily and thoroughly.

Once you select your venue, it’s time to promote the big event! And, you’ll be happy to learn that geolocation technology has made it easier than ever for marketers to promote their event with in depth demographic insights with the help of personalized content and audience segmentation.

A strategic follow up is mandatory. Their insights matter to us. Geolocation helps is in understanding the location and nature of the place where our guests are currently located and helps us ideating a perfect experience for them to send.

With new technologies coming into the market, we have created our archive/portal of the technology vendors who expertise in these technological advancements and providing the perfect solution to our clients. Without technology there is no change and we as Akkado are here to make a change.

(The writer is the Chairman of Akkado)

Disclaimer: The views expressed in the article above are those of the authors' and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of this publishing house