In the last few years of my career, I have seen an influx of marketing briefs asking for a mobile app. I just had to go through that a week ago… It feels like we think mobile apps are the solution to everything marketing. Don’t misunderstand me, I am not saying mobile apps aren’t good to have, but if it is a trend that doesn’t make it applicable to every case out there, and if it has no purpose then what are we trying to do here?
I am bracing myself for 2017, as I expect to be inundated with “I want a virtual reality experience,” “Make me a bot,” and the ultimate “how can we do it with AI?” briefs.
And it seems that this is not a local phenomenon. FP7 has been receiving such briefs on a regional level for the last year. And McCann has been getting them on a global level as well. So this is a global “lets app everything” phenomenon. Sean MacDonald, McCann Worldgroup’s global chief digital officer, spoke this year at Web Summit about this exact topic: Human-first in a Digital World.
The truth is that the thing we monitored as a trend has turned into one of the vital forces of the universe. Over the last 20 years, computers evolved into websites; which got augmented by social platforms; and now are being shrunk into apps. Yet all this feels very yesterday at the same time as our focus turns to bots, internet of things, augmented/virtual reality and, of course, artificial intelligence.
But that doesn’t mean that as marketers we should be jumping from one technology to the next willy-nilly. Yes, we need to understand it, but it doesn’t mean we should do it all.
Technological innovation is often driven by what is possible from a technical standpoint. But something is missing. We stopped asking ourselves the most important question: should we? After all, if we
can do something, it doesn’t mean we should.
The discussion should not be whether we need a bot, but rather, how do we earn the right to be in people’s lives? How do we help, inspire, and make an impact on people who are, or should be, our most loyal customers? Or how do we make whatever it is that we do as a company be more seamless, helpful, inspiring? And, finally, what’s the role of technology to help us do so?
We need to shift from a technology-first conversation to a human-first conversation.
In the old world of marketing, we needed to understand the relationship between two things: a brand and a human. In today’s world, we have to understand the sweet spot between three: brand, human,
and technology.
In other words, no longer is technology a trend; it’s a core aspect of what we all do. It is no longer enough to know how your products and brand can drive people to buy or behave. We need to understand it all.
I for one can’t pay any parking meter in Dubai without the “Dubai Now” app. With it, I can figure out in which zone I parked my car, how much I need to pay, and pay. The same applies to most of the government-related functions. Dubai government figured out where the tension is between its government entities and its residents and used technology to solve a human need.
Do you think the brief there was: we need a mobile app? It was more about figuring what the problem is, understanding human behaviour and then introducing technology to provide the right solution.
We still have to start with the human: a human-first approach to understanding how natural human behaviour informs technology and brand relationships. And how technology evolves human attitudes and behaviours in turn. Our premise is this: to earn that meaningful role in people’s lives we need to understand all of the elements: Human, Brand and Technology.
Who are the people we most want to earn that meaningful role with? What makes them tick, how do they live their lives and how does our brand, product, service or experience connect with them?
Emirates NBD went the extra mile when it combined health and savings with its mobile app. By downloading its mobile app, opening a “Fitness Account” and linking the app to any wearable, it transforms the steps we make into an increased interest rate. The more we walk, the higher the interest rate. After all, who doesn’t want to be healthy and wealthy? Was that an “I want a mobile app” brief? They used technology to empower a new product offering that is based on a growing human need.
Finally, we need to remember that marketing evolves as we evolve as a society, and with it our behaviour changes. Technology affects how we evolve and changes our behaviour. Our job as marketers when it comes to technology is to figure out how it fulfils our human needs and enriches, as well as simplifies, our brand experiences.
Jad Hindy, Regional head of digital, MENA, at FP7
