GDPR – Are We Ready For It?

You must have heard or seen the term “GDPR” before and quite often lately.

It is getting popular because this term is going to force changes in everything from technology, marketing, to medicine and banking, and because it finally goes into effect on this 25^th (25/06/2018) after seven years in the making.

So what exactly “GDPR” is?

GDPR stands for General Data Protection Regulation. As its name, the law protects customer data, allowing any individual to question and request a company to reveal and/or delete their personal data.

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This means EVERY European company or ANY business that is dealing with European customers, which harvests personal data is going to need prior customers’ permission.

Could GDPR be a death sentence for Digital Marketing and organisations that heavily rely on consumer data?

The answer is no!

Those type of organisations are more likely to go for a transparency approach, telling and showing customers for what purposes the company will use their information, giving customers control power over their privacy, rather than completely shutting down business.

For example, Spotify will also launch a Privacy Center and Data Protection Officer, allowing its users to manage their personal information as well as helping them with privacy concerns.

Google also stated its commitment to GDPR across all tools and services.

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However, it will not be a surprise when companies find some ways to bend the rules.

Facebook currently announced its compliance to the EU’s GDPR, and will roll out its new policy globally. Although using personal data for creating targeted advertising will be absolutely illegal, advertisers still can track users’ activities and behavior based on online activities and interaction, for example, posts you liked and shared or pages you visited.

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In my opinion, it could be easier to comply with GDPR than risking yourself and your organisation because the penalty will be significantly massive!

Thank you for reading.

 

 

Haptic Virtual Reality

Have you ever dreamed of experiencing all different types of cocktails without being drunk, or enjoying as many dishes as possible without gaining weights?

That could be possible with Haptic Virtual Reality (VR).

Many of us are familiar to Virtual Reality (VR), but the term Haptic VR is not something we hear every day. Haptic VR is VR with additional accessories such as gloves or even bodysuits. Haptic VR allows users to touch and feel virtual objects by sending vibration through skin-tight accessories.

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Currently, Haptic VR technology is used in many different industries. For example, Volkswagen brings sense of touch to virtual reality, to help design interior and exterior car parts; or Disney’s haptic VR jacket lets us feel snowball impacts and snakes slithering; and of course we cannot deny its benefit of VR in medical: Fundamental VR is developing VR training tools for the next generation of surgeons.

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Now, let’s get back to the opening questions of this post.

“Vocktail” is the name of this VR Cocktail, allows a user to experience different types at a touch of a button by using electrode strips send electric pulses to stimulate the taste, pumping scents from air pumps on the 3D-printed base to fine-tune these flavors.

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Similarly, with Haptic VR, we can cut off salt intake by electro-’shocking’ tongue with a fork, or sugary products by thermoelectric elements system. Moreover, Electric Food Texture System simulates the experience of chewing foods when there is no food present.

Applications in Digital Marketing:

Haptic VR helps increase customer engagement by providing virtual experiences. For example, we can try fragrances “online” before making a purchase or feeling the fabric of clothing without going to the mall and do on.  Also it would be possible to share those experiences with friends and family via social media platforms.

This emerging technology will bring digital marketing to the next level since normal VR is no longer sufficient and appealing to customers.

Leave a comment below to let me know what you think about this technology.

Thank you for your reading.

Why Augmented Reality (AR)?

I believe that many of us are aware of AR, whether it is; the IKEA app where we can see how a piece of furniture looks in all different settings, Sephora with their virtual cosmetic products which allow you to see how the cosmetics look before purchase, or the extensive use of AR in Snapchat, Instagram; and recently, Facebook tries lured more business through the capabilities of AR and AI.

Moreover, for those of us interested in the automotive industries, Porsche – Mission E and Mercedes-Benz dealership app, have also delved into AR.

AR has become significantly popular. With just two letters, “AR”, google search can generate more than 740 million results in “All” areas and 30 million results in the “News” section (as of 09/05/2018).

You might be asking yourself, why does every company in different industries want to have its hands on AR? Here are some reasons:

1. High level of mobile phone usage facilitates AR and its company to be exposed to  customers:

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2. Research by Microsoft found that human attention span was approximately eight seconds and decreasing 88 percent every year but an AR video can capture people attention on an average of 75 seconds.

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3. Statistically, 77% of consumers would like to use AR to preview product diversities (colour, style, etc.).

• 61% of the consumers are more likely to make purchases at e-stores that offer AR.
• 40% of the customers are willing to pay more after preview a products via AR.
• 45% of customers admitted AR assists their decision making process.

 

4. Like other traditional marketing videos, AR video contents are sharable and have chances to go viral. Moreover, a company will get better brand awareness and recognition from electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) and “earned media”.

AR is playing an important role in this digital century. In my opinion, having AR today can help a company stay ahead from its competitors; however, having AR in the future will be a standard for almost every company.

Leave a comment below to let me know your opinion about this topic.

Thank you for your reading.

Dreams Come True – Customisable 3D Printed Cars

How many of us have ever dreamed of using a 3D printer to print out a full-size car and drive it around? Well, I have, and apparently, I am not the only one.

Polymaker and X Electrial Vehicle Limited have introduced their first world – mass produced 3D-printed electric car called “LSEV” in March, 2018. A LSEV will be printed within 3 days with RRP at $10,000USD in 2019, which is faster and cheaper than any traditional manufactured car. LSEV is intended for the global market with direct Customer-to-Manufacturer, where any customer can easily make an (online) order on their own; and so far they have received 7,000 orders.

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It sounds interesting, isn’t it? However, would I get one? Probably not!

Why would we go for a mass-produced vehicle, when we can actually get a customised one?

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Hackrod and Siemens PLM Software has formed a partnership to create opportunities for those customers who want to have their own design 3D printed car by leveraging VR and 3D printing. This electric vehicle called “La Bandita” and it has 3D-metal-printed components.

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Why La Bandita is in my favour? In one word: “Customisation”.

From a psychological point of view, human nature loves to have control, and customisation allows customers to achieve this. Whether the product contains the owners name, logo or other unique features, this allows the customer to reflect their personality and makes them feel as though they are a co-creator.

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Customisation also helps to increase user engagement especially in our digital century. We are likely to share photos of our customised products to friends, family or even share it to social media platforms and present it to the world. This is a win-win situation, as customers can fulfill their love/belonging or esteem needs (Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs), while the company gets “free” digital marketing works to raise its brand awareness.

There are numerous benefits of customisation in digital marketing. Leave a comment below to let me know if you have more ideas of how customisation can be useful in eMarketing.

Thank you for your reading.

Parallel Reality – The Next Level of AR

What if I told you, there is a real version of the “Mirror of Erised” from Harry Potter, the mirror that can reflect a person’s true desires when looking at it, and no one else will see the same thing. For example, when Harry tried to show Ron his parents in the mirror, Ron, instead, saw himself as a Quidditch team captain, holding the Quidditch cup.

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The truth is “Parallel Reality” is even a better version of that magical mirror. It is similar to Augmented Reality but without any assistance of tablets or special glasses. Unlike the “Mirror of Erised” which can only allow one viewer at a time, a Parallel Reality display, at the same time, can show thousands of people their own personalised information, advertising, and so on, in the viewer’s language.

NO! That is not from my imagination. The fact that in 2009, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill created a basis for calibrating future multi-view displays, providing “correct eye gaze for multiple users”. Moreover, Parallel Reality is now available at Misapplied Science.

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Parallel Reality can be a fantastic marketing application for any company to reach its target customers by providing personalised advertising not only on public digital billboards, but also on mobile devices. On November 2016, there was a digital billboard in Moscow which changed the ads displayed, based on the brand of a car that drove past. This was achieved by utilising high-speed cameras to recognise the make, model, and year of vehicles. However, this can only be considered as an early version of Parallel Reality.

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Parallel Reality utilises Artificial Intelligence for facial recognition and data collection techniques, to provide the optimal information to the viewer. There will be no longer be any irrelevant information shown. People will only see what they want to see.

However, will that be a good thing? Will customers miss out things that would be interesting to them and will a company lose its potential customers?

This is something we need to consider.

 

Sharing Economy – The Fast Fish Eats The Slow Fish

If changing different car models as often as you want with Car Service Subscription discussed in my previous blog is not what you are looking for, I have another good news for you. Luxury car manufactures Daimler and BMW plan to merge their Car-Sharing units and is waiting for EU approval. Both companies have reach to an agreement of 50-50 share of Daimler’s Car2Go and BMW’s DriveNow including car-sharing, smartphone apps for calling taxis, locating parking spots and recharging electric autos.

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Sharing Economy has shaped consumer behaviors in certain ways that urges companies to adapt to this trend. Uber Technologies Inc. and Airbnb Inc. are the two successful companies in this fast pace tech-focused industry. Thanks to technology and the IoT that create platforms for managing business easily, many new players has been entering this high demand and profitable industry. These days, there is no longer the big fish eats the small fish; it is the fast fish eats the slow one. To stave off competition, the two long-term rivals Daimler and BMW have decided to become a joint venture in the mobility services industry.

Number of car sharing users worldwide from 2006 to 2025 (in millions)

So what does that mean to a consumer? Daimler and BMW will become biggest competitor of Uber, which will definitely benefits us in term of more available options, competitive prices, and additional values, for example ‘Uber Pool’ with up to 50 percent discounts will be launched in Sydney from April 3 and Melbourne by early June.

That also means customers will set higher expectations, creating opportunities but also challenges for an eMarketer to find out the unique selling points and how to promote his company in this competitive industry.

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What do you think about this? Will SEO and Paid Search Marketing be helpful?

Leave a comment below to let me know. Thank you for your reading.

A Bright Future for Car Lovers

Do you have a huge interest in cars and prefer not to be tied down to a single one? If the answer is YES, then welcome to the Car Subscription Service industry. If you happen to live in Nashville then congratulations, you are the target of Porsche and BMW. Yes, BMW is testing its subscription service in Tennessee starting today (01/APR/2018).

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The car subscription service – Access is offered by a local BMW dealership. However, BMW is not the trendsetter of this market. In October last year, Porsche launched its car subscription – Porsche Passport. By paying a fix amount starting from $2,000USD monthly, a customer can have an access to a number of SUVs and sport cars; he then can change different models as often as desired. Similarly, Care by Volvo, Book by Cadillac and other third-party services offer leasing, insurance and maintenance in one monthly payment.

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Car Subscription Services target consumers that are familiar to the Sharing Economy. These services allow them to switch to different models of cars easily via a mobile app. Moreover, the monthly payment will cover all insurance and maintenance costs giving its customers a more stress-free experience.

Once again, BMW is not the trendsetter in this market and it will not be the last one.

I believe in the near future, any car manufacturers that do not offer these services, will be left behind. As a Digital Marketer, what would you do to make your company stand out? What other marketing strategies can be used, besides having a user-friendly app? How about freemium? A person can upgrade to own a car after using the subscription service for a specific period of time?

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Do not hesitate to leave a comment below to share your ideas. Thank you for your reading.

Humans no longer have Privacy

Have you ever felt like your technology devices overhear the conversations of you and people around you? I have! I once discussed with my friends in person about a consideration of doing Pilates. Surprisingly, we received an advertising on the next day, without any previous attempt at searching…

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It is an undeniable fact that technology has been putting a huge impact on Digital Marketing. On one hand, advance technology and IoT assist an eMarketer in tracking customer browsing trends and online behaviors, and then transferring that ‘big data’ into strategies and implementation. It also benefits customers in a way of creating more personalised ads that could exactly meet their needs and wants, saving them from struggling in the bombardment of information.

However, tracking online activities is different from overhearing and watching. Yes, you read it correctly; they are watching us! Nowadays, most shopping centers adopt advance technology to track our every move, detecting our identity features, age, race and even mood…

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Are we safe? When will the data management controllers use our information to go against us? Mark Zuckerberg has recently admitted Facebook “made mistakes” that led to millions of users having their data exploited by a political consultancy.  How dangerous it is if it is not just personal data but confidential information of a company or even a country are misused?

In my opinion, trust, loyalty and reputation are difficult to build but easy to breach. Therefore, as a Digital Marketer, protecting customer’s data is our prioritised responsibility. I believe in this Industry 4.0, privacy is the new luxury, a company that has an ability to protect customers privacy will become successful.

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Let me know what you think about this topic by leaving comments below. Thank you for reading.

Is AI taking over the world?

After sharing my first blog, I had an interesting discussion with my engineering colleague about AI. He showed me a video titled “Human need not apply”. This is a short film describing how automation has been replacing human labor, as exact same way we replaced horses with automobiles back in 19^th century.

If you are still wondering when AI will take over the world, it has already been doing that. However, the AI takeover is not the same as the Hollywood sci-fi movies are telling us. AI is not likely to develop its own consciousness to decide the world is better off without human and turning against us.

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In fact, it works in a different way. Countless jobs are being replaced due to automation and AI is becoming ubiquitous across enterprise software. People like myself who support these changes, argue that we created robots to complete manual, repetitive and time-consuming tasks, so that human can work in fields that are more creative. My colleague once again pointed out, machines can be programmed to be creative when a Japanese AI almost won a literary prize with its novel.

It is understandable that people are afraid of the uncertainty regarding the future of AI and automation. Instead of turning against them and their potential benefits to society. I suggest we should collaborate with AI to make our lives easier. Digital Marketing will definitely get benefits from this. For example, Chatbot can increase customer engagement with 24/7 availability. This is cost effective concept that make business become price competitive while having quality customer services. Moreover, AI can help companies capture customer insights based on previous browsing behaviors to make strategic decisions.

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I cannot deny the negative impacts that AI are putting on eMarketers, but I would love to discuss this topic in my next blog.

Leave a comment below if you agree with my opinion or would like to share your ideas of the collaboration between eMarketers and AI.

AI – The Cause of Doomsday?

I was doing some research when I came across a catchy article “AI is far more dangerous than nukes”. For as long as I’ve worked in the automotive industry, I’ve have a strong interest in technology and IoT; therefore, this AI topic totally got my attention.

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The article was written after an interview with Elon Musk at SXSW. During the conference, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO, more than once time emphasised the dangers of AI are far beyond those of nuclear weapons. Musk suggested doomsday could be right around the corner, if people continue to underestimate AI’s exponential improvements.

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If a random person said to me that robots and automation would take over the world soon, I would tell them to stop watching so many Hollywood sci-fi movies. However, this is Elon Musk, the person at the forefront of self-driving technology… Oh well, he must have a valid reason.

The Silicon Valley billionaire claimed that he was very close to the cutting edge in AI and was frightening by its capabilities. To be fair, if you ever want to put a chip in a human brain then you should of course be worried. Not because AI could develop a mind its own and turn against us, but worried about the indescribable power held by those that create, develop and control the AI in the first place.

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My point is AI is not dangerous; it is still a product of human design. AI does not have its own consciousness; it is designed to do what it is programmed to do. And if doomsday ever happens, we need to question the true purpose of those that created the AI in the first place.

This will be a huge challenge for digital marketers to approach customers and gaining their trust if customers are exposed to unclear information and refuse to use AI products. Therefore, I totally agree with Elon that AI development must be regulated for our safety.

What else can we do to overcome these challenges? Share your thoughts and ideas at the comments section below. I hope to have great further discussions.