It’s hard to avoid the digital transformation that will soon be upon us. The metaverse, big data, AI and smart homes are widely talked about, but few people have stopped to consider what this will do for brands.
A brand lives inside someone’s head, it’s an emotional connection and a human concept. Brands are proxies of people, and we have relationships with them.
Now let’s consider AI, big data and the metaverse and smart homes and how this tech can affect brands.
Slowly, we are getting used to asking Alexa and Siri to turn off the lights or to wake us up and order our favourite toothpaste.
However, it won’t be long before Alexa becomes our AI based personal shopper and will be shopping for us based on our specific needs, searching out the best value. AI won’t care about brand, it won’t care about the TV adverts, billboards or how many dentists recommend that particular toothpaste. If an AI is shopping for you, it will only care about ingredients and price. It will know exactly what you need and what you don’t need and won’t be influenced by any marketing hype. It will choose your toothpaste based on the chemicals it contains and the price and will search way beyond the first few pages in google to find the ideal supplier.
Pharma, food and beverage and health and beauty could all be affected by this change. Our AI personal shoppers won’t care about the before and after pictures and celebrity endorsements of an anti-ageing cream it will only care about the chemicals. It will read all studies and science journals in a fraction of a second and choose the best products based on the science not the hype. In the not-too-distant future companies may succeed based only on innovation, efficiency and price and not marketing and brand.
