CES 2020 Trends and Insights

Identity Takes New Meaning @ CES 2020

Another week in Vegas has come and gone. It seems fitting to enter a new year and a new decade at CES, which is the perfect time for us to look forward and approach marketing challenges with a new mindset and inventive spirit.

This year, the theme for our program was Identity 2020. The notion of identity has never been more important to our industry, brands, society, individuals and Publicis Groupe as an organization as we move towards a future balancing both privacy compliancy and personalization as vital imperatives. However, it’s the broader definition and underpinnings of identity that impact our abilities, as marketers, to know ourselves and our consumers better than ever and thereby drive deeper engagement with them.

Tim Jones | CEO
Publicis Media Americas

It’s how brands think of themselves – fine-tuning their identities to more closely align their actions (and products) with those of their consumers and the world around them. It’s about inclusion – how we as marketers need to rethink legacy practices to ensure all identities are captured and celebrated in our advertising efforts as we move to a multicultural future. And finally, it’s about data – capturing the right data and ensuring every single person is accounted for across all data sources.

At CES this year, we saw products enabling greater personalization and technology to help us better understand and speak to identity– whether it is ours as a consumer, how we relate to a brand or how we fit into society.

This report dives deeper into some of these products and technologies, giving you a glimpse into key trends we see emerging from CES into the year and decades ahead. Enjoy!

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Three Ps of Personalization

By Andrew Swinand, CEO, Leo Burnett & Publicis Communications Central Region

CES this year was about accessing the ability to know…know yourself (vitals and healthcare), know your customer, know their behavior and know how to utilize technology to better anticipate their needs. Three key areas of focus to take full advantage of these innovations include:

PURPOSE:

There are many technologies now available, but in the words of one client, “we need to make a pivot to relevance” and start by solving human problems. The key is to begin with an end in mind that improves outcomes and the consumer experience. We need to always remember that data exists to identify opportunities and issues. Creativity is the fuel that solves them and creates true value for people.

PRIVACY:

While facial recognition, IoT, and other technologies allow unprecedented knowledge, the “techlash” taking place around privacy is accelerating. We need to find the balance of providing a peak consumer experience with the growing knowledge that their behavior is being monitored. To address this, companies should focus on transparency and security. They need to be transparent with customers around how their data is being used and ensure that it is securely managed in a Customer Data Platform (CDP) or data-driven solution.

PRODUCT:

It is becoming clear that there are winners in the space of personalization who are able to manage, measure and integrate consumers and content across platforms and devices. In addition to a centralized CDP or collective data offering, companies need to have an identity management solution in place to leverage the data which ties to a Dynamic Content Optimization (DCO) engine, and this needs to be done at scale. Brands need to pick their platforms and chose a champion to be competitive in order to unlock the promise and potential that personalization has long promised.

See All, Reach All: Marketing To The Majority

Lisa Torres, President, Multicultural, Publicis Media

Census data projects that by 2045, the majority of the U.S. population will be multicultural. While we’ve spent the past decades educating clients and partners about the tremendous purchasing power that diverse audiences wield, the years between now and 2045 will be about taking action to prepare for the next frontier of inclusive marketing.

EVALUATE YOUR ADVERTISING EFFORTS

As the traditional definition of “multicultural” continues to broaden beyond ethnicity to encapsulate other under-represented segments (all ages, orientations, abilities and more), brands need to take stock of their advertising efforts to consider what margins of society they may be overlooking.

D&I WILL FUTURE-PROOF YOUR BUSINESS

Marketers that acknowledge and cater to under-represented groups will get recognition from consumers across the board. We saw ample inclusive/accessible tech on the show floor this year, including CES exhibitors showcasing products that specifically service minority audiences, such as healthcare tech created for people living with dementia. We also saw more discussions around the importance of inclusion and marketing to all, including a dedicated CES “Innovation for All” conference track created by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA). Companies are now thinking of diversity and inclusion as mainstays of their innovation and future-proofing efforts, which is a positive shift as we move towards a majority multicultural future.

Identity At The Core

Ric Elert, President and Chief Operating Officer, Epsilon

It’s critical for customer identity to flow through all aspects of communication. Today, consumers are constantly giving us signals—on their phones, in their cars, through their TVs and more. In exchange for these signals, customers expect marketers to know who they are and anticipate their needs in a privacy-compliant way. Anticipation requires identity.

ONLINE + OFFLINE

Having a complete picture of each customer, not their devices, requires marketers to build customer profiles using online and offline data, with the richest data built on the foundation of what we purchase. Understanding each customer—who they are, what they need and where they want to go, while respecting their privacy—is the key to delivering the next interaction in a personalized and relevant way.

PERSONALIZE EVERYTHING

Personalization isn’t limited to what we say to a customer. It extends to where we say it. Stable identity ensures that brands know the best channel for talking to a customer and driving interaction. This is especially true with channels that may not immediately be in your consideration set. What you know about a person in the digital space can be used in TV and other linear channels to deliver more relevant messages.

EMPHASIS ON MEASUREMENT

Performance measurement cannot be delivered without the underpinning of sound identity. It enables marketers to understand who they are reaching and what outcomes their communication is driving. Stable plans for measurement that include constant testing and QA are important, especially as identity extends into linear channels.

According to a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Epsilon, at best only half of brands are capable of fundamental identity resolution capabilities. Download the study,
“Is Your Identity Program Built On A House Of Cards?”
to learn more.

Commerce 2020

Amy Lanzi, EVP, NA Practice Lead, Commerce, Publicis Media

With the explosion of IoT, combined with voice enablement, commerce is moving from automation to anticipation. Our ability to predict what consumers need based on their routine behavior will enable brands to truly provide utility (save me time, make me smarter, put me at ease) which will be what drives commercial value for brands in 2020 and beyond.

CONNECTED LIVING

Brands and devices continue to morph from selling products to creating experiences that enable consumers to live better lives. This concept came to life at Amazon where each of the curated experiences was designed to meet the consumer mindset (e.g. Busy Parent, Home Chef, etc), showcasing the power of all connected devices in providing collective utility. For example, take a smart in-home shelf that triggers a consumer to add a product to their shopping list when the weight reveals a refill moment. As marketers, we need to develop creative solutions that marry brand value proposition, connected experience and consumer problem solving on a routine basis.

EVERYTHING IS HOME AND EVERYTHING IS SHOPPABLE

Samsung, LG and others highlighted product solutions that are connected to meet your every need – smart mirrors that provide style recommendations customized for you; devices allowing you to monitor your home and refrigerator from afar; or screen-enabled voice assistants that let you stream any show of your choice. Self-driving cars are bringing the notion of the mobile living room to life, which means consumers can spend more time shopping for their needs – whether on the go or on their way home. This is a huge opportunity for brands to focus on the ever-changing need states of consumers throughout the flow of their day to provide true utility to them and ultimately drive a sale. With everything connected, every moment is now shoppable but context is critical.

BLENDED COMMERCE

Both Walmart Media Group (WMG) and Roundel revealed new product enhancements designed to service consumers that blended commerce behaviors. Consumers are omnichannel shoppers with the majority of transactions happening in the brick and mortar environment. Walmart continues to invest in their shopping app to ensure digital enablement of the shopping experience to meet the blended behavior that exists today. Roundel is partnering with Google to prove out the online to offline behavior of shoppers and provide a unified measurement approach for marketers. Both of these are huge opportunities for marketers to gain a better understanding of
how to partner with these retailers to truly meet consumers in the ways they shop their ecosystems.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution of Connected Consumer Technology

John Maeda, Chief Experience Officer, Publicis Sapient

Walking the CES floors, you’ll see companies from all over the globe exhibiting everything interesting from APIs to machine learning. We have to be aware that the entire world is innovating in this fourth industrial revolution and it will be easy for regions to fall behind and get disrupted by their global competitors.

LET AI HAPPEN

AI was integrated into almost every exhibition at CES. While its use cases may not always be clear, it’s something that will inevitably infiltrate our daily lives. AI is going to happen because the data already exists to make it happen. We’re living in an age where computers are interconnected, they’re on our bodies, in our cars, in our homes. We need to develop a positive relationship with AI because fear isn’t a driver for curiosity and creativity.

ROBOTICS ASSISTANT TECHNOLOGY ON THE RISE

The takeaway from seeing Samsung’s robotic companion Ballie was that robotics will do well in Asia because Asia thinks about robotics differently. Whether it’s anime culture or religious tendencies; robots are accepted. I’m optimistic about the robotic culture, especially for elder care, mental and physical care because that’s going to be a huge sector. The population pyramid will become a rectangle and robotics assistant technology will be a very big deal.

KEEP AR & VR ON YOUR RADAR

I love AR and VR because we have all been waiting for VR and AR to actually work and be useful and now there are so many platforms out there, but use cases are not as clear. Is it just gaming? Is it training? We don’t know. But we need to be much more curious about how AR and VR technology become an assistant technology like robotics.

Digital Health Trends at CES

Andrea Palmer, President, Publicis Health

Health is the fastest-expanding sector at CES as evidenced by the growing presence of digital health solutions for both traditional and non-traditional health brands. With all the advances in digital health products, is tech poised to re-imagine its traditional reputation as a barrier to healthy behaviors?

VOICE TECH TRANSFORMING HEALTHCARE

One of the exciting developments for voice assistants this year is that they’re becoming more interactive and engaging with audiences, rather than simply following commands. This has important implications in health as voice assistants can do everything from helping patients stay adherent to medicines and exercise regimens in their homes to helping diagnose depression and fighting loneliness. One example of how voice can transform our lives is evidenced by the ability to help aging people stay in their homes and live healthier, more independent lives much longer.

RISE OF ADVANCED TELEMEDICINE DEVICES

This is a space we’ve been watching closely given its transformative potential for healthcare from a patient and provider perspective. We saw several advanced telemedicine diagnostic devices that integrate with smart phones, making access and personal connection between patient and provider much more seamless – an exciting development for multiple populations (rare disease, elder care, etc) and geographies in the US and abroad.

SEXUAL HEALTH IS DIGITAL HEALTH

After historically excluding sexual health devices, CES brought its own innovation to bear this year by including several women’s sexual health companies, which is an important pivot as sexual health plays a significant role in overall health and well-being. And better yet, women-owned business dominated the landscape in this category. We will see more on this topic in the future and the role these products have to play in normalizing conversations around sexual health and people’s well-being.

Q: What is the one tech/trend you saw @ CES 2020 that will matter most to brands?

MICHAEL KAHN

GLOBAL BRAND PRESIDENT, DIGITAS

Capture Moments

CES was a “moment maker” that offered brands the opportunity to leverage technology to establish more meaningful connections with consumers. For example, our client, Delta Air Lines, showcased technology that allows customers to see personalized content tailored to their travel journeys on terminal digital screens—at the exact same time and in their preferred language. They also unveiled the transformation of the “Fly Delta” app that streamlines day-of-travel from managing security queues to booking Lyft rides. Capturing these kinds of moments are a brand’s surest pathway to building better, sustainable connections.

BOHB BLAIR

GLOBAL CHIEF EXPERIENCES OFFICER, STARCOM

Recast of CPGs as Tech Co’s

I saw impressive tech that actually worked IRL. The P&G Life Lab had some of the most buzzed about innovations this year – with everything from the humorous Charmin bathroom sniffer that will tell you when it’s aromatically safe to enter, to the highly personal serum treatments of Opte that analyze your skin to distribute makeup only where it’s needed. Each area of their exhibit was fun, relevant and presented beautifully.

SOLANGE CLAUDIO

PRESIDENT/COO, ZENITH | MOXIE | MRY

Test & Learn Mentality

Technology is how people get things done, but it must be an effortless experience for our consumers for it to truly resonate and build brand trust and loyalty. To get to that seamless experience, brands must set aside resources for experimentation and innovation with new technologies so they can continuously refine those consumer experiences. Only with this test and learn approach will a brand be able to truly unlock the power of new technology.

GREG SWAN

DIRECTOR, DIGITAL, SOCIAL, PR AND INNOVATION, FALLON

Aftermarket Upgrade

Making daily life “smarter” no longer requires a huge investment or buying new appliances every few years. From aftermarket kitchen devices that control your old stove or slide into shelves to reorder your groceries, or a fingerprint lock for your front door, we’re starting to see more opportunities to make “dumb” devices smarter without huge cost. Leapfrogging competitors takes time and heavy investment, but brands can look for opportunities to plus-up existing products or create a low-cost marketing campaign product when “smart-lite” will do.

ALISON MCCONNELL

CMO, PUBLICIS HEALTH MEDIA

The Non-Healthcare Brand Health Revolution

Health is the new wealth and non-traditional health brands have gotten the memo. Notable at CES this year was the number of non-healthcare brands jumping into the health and wellness digital space. The increasing sophistication of sensors has allowed many brands to incorporate information about people’s physical and mental state into every aspect of life. From your car, to your underwear, to your mattress, people now have the ability to better monitor important physical attributes.