Today, many brands are struggling to figure out the best ways to reach their audiences with consumers increasingly using smartphones while at the same time expecting more benefits from their phones. Wendy Clark, CEO of DDB North America said, “We cannot be ham-fisted anymore as a brand. It’s unacceptable and really diluted.
It’s not only if you don’t have a strategy, it’s actually negative and dilutive to your brand when you’re not taking advantage of just the basic table-stakes technology that’s out there and how consumers expect you to behave.”
Customers are increasingly shifting toward paying their bills via mobile instead of the plastic credit card and businesses have begun discussing how the shift to mobile is affecting their brands and how they need to start evolving with it. In a world dominated by mobile phones, credit cards are evolving fast and are now hardly looked upon as the ‘plastic money’ that had overwhelmed the market. Rather they are seen more as tech products offering smoother and faster payment solutions. Kim Kadlec, senior vice president, global marketing platform, Visa International, views legacy tech and telecom companies like AT&T, GE and IBM among others as the likely source of inspiration for her brand.
Kadlec said, “Mobility has become a much broader concept. And I think at the end of the day, creativity in any of those formats is important, and certainly from a user’s perspective, enabling seamless payment technologies is our game. And that’s what we’re focused on. Through your appliances, through your Alexa (Amazon’s voice assistant), running shoes—those are all things we’re working on.” However, DDB’s Clark reminds marketers that brands will increasingly begin to appear out of touch with the people they’re trying to reach if they don’t realize the importance of contextually targeting consumers demographically or on the basis of their interests. She spoke of a baby products brand targeting her even though as someone in her forties, she had no use for such products.