Category: Marketing

How marketing technology could transform healthcare

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I don’t know who  Mayur Gupta is but I’d give him a fist bump for this post. 

How marketing technology could transform healthcare

Convergence of Marketing Technology and Healthcare

The following is a guest post by Mayur Gupta, a pioneering chief marketing technologist and author of the Inspire Martech blog, who is now a senior vice president and head of digital atHealthGrades. Mayur is also on the board of advisors for the MarTech conference, and he will be one of our featured speakers at the San Francisco event, March 21-22. Check out the MarTech agenda and save $500 on registration before January 9.

We live in a digital world where, as a consumer, you now shop for fresh groceries on your phone and expect them to be delivered at your doorstep in less than four hours. You call for a luxury SUV or a taxi while you eat your last bite and expect your ride as you step out, without worrying if you have enough cash or a credit card in your pocket.

All this and more are part of our daily lives, thanks to the evolution and convergence of data, technology and consumer experiences. The last few years have witnessed exponential investment and growth at the intersection of marketing and technology, enabling experiences that successfully change consumer behavior and drive participation and engagement.

The world of marketing and storytelling is in a constant state of evolution as well: from multi-channel to channel agnostic and omni-channel thinking; from push and time-based campaigns to more always-on push & pull engagement; from pre-planned content to more automated and data-driven conversations. It is all happening in verticals like finance, retail, CPG, travel and hospitality.

But a key part of our lives that is still behind is the world of healthcare and healthcare services. A traditionally fragmented, slow, regulated and highly monopolized system that has been anything but consumer-focused. Most technology investments have been made to optimize the “health IT” systems to maximize the billing opportunities.

Even the most chronically ill patient spends only 1% of their lives in a hospital, but 80% of healthcare investment goes into the hospital infrastructure and not addressing the remaining 99% of the individual’s life. The focus has navigated around a “volume-driven” system: more interventions for more beds for more procedures for more people more often for more money.

But the future will not be the same

With the cost of care pushing towards the consumer, ever-narrowing networks and limited choices, and lack of transparency and communication, the consumer is finally pushing back. She now “owns her health” and is proactively looking for alternate solutions.

On top of that, the re-imbursement model has flipped on its head. The entire healthcare machinery will gradually be measured against outcome, the quality and success of a treatment leading to the positive health of an individual, instead of the sheer volume of treatment and utilization.

It’s a shift from volume to value, from sickness and treatment to health and wellness. The notion of “population health” has put the consumer at the center of a traditionally fragmented ecosystem, and consumer behavior is becoming the binding force. The health systems are now incentivized and rewarded based on how consumers behave in their daily lives, outside of hospital boundaries. And an urgent care hospitalization will represent an abject failure of the health management process, where the condition should have been predicted, prevented and managed higher up in the funnel.

Connected Healthcare Ecosystem

As a consumer, this is ripe for positive disruption — a transformation she has gotten used to in other parts of her life. But as a health system, provider, pharma or payer, I now have to fundamentally evolve my thinking, operations, and execution.

  • Always-on patient engagement
  • Behavior-based inter-visit conversations
  • Data-driven predictive models
  • Universal understanding of the consumer
  • Consumer insights and analytics
  • Omni-channel content strategies

…and a lot more.

“CMO” has another meaning in healthcare beyond Chief Medical Officer now: Chief Marketing Officer

For the first time, this industry is now looking at marketing as a strategic capability to drive top-line growth, brand loyalty, and better health outcomes.

Most health systems are now hiring chief marketing officers, especially from other verticals like CPG, finance and retail, where Marketing transformation is already driving consumer acquisition, maximizing lifetime value and top-line growth. This is taking the scope of marketing from the big hoardings, direct mail and television spots, to data-driven always-on digital engagement that influences behavioral change.

Convergence of Marketing and Technology

To accomplish this vision of “healthcare in a digital world”, marketing and information technology cannot continue to operate in isolation. The healthcare technology evolution cannot be limited to the EMRs and EHRs of the world or the advancement of technology equipment within the hospitals, OTs, or clinical data management. It has to include 99% of the consumer’s life when she is not being treated inside a hospital.

80% of a consumer’s health is determined by non-medical factors — what she eats, where she lives, does she own or rent, does she drive or ride, how much she runs, is she married or single, her educational background, how much TV does she watch, what time does she sleep — even what she reads for that matter.

This is forcing health systems brands and marketers to be in an “always listening” and “always communicating” mode. This would not be possible without marketing technology — the convergence of marketing and technology, as we know it from the other verticals.

Context, Content & Care

The consumer journey in healthcare is a never-ending cycle with infinite ZMOT-like moments. There is indeed no funnel. The consumer could jump from being a completely passive and healthy individual to a patient looking for the best doctor, and the best hospital, in a flash. And on the flip side, she could be in a state of awareness and proactive health management for a very long time before an encounter.

Communication will be the next big intervention in healthcare

The “Right Content to the Right Person at the Right Time” cliché could not be applied in a more appropriate place than in healthcare. It will require a holistic communication strategy that may include personalized content around lifestyle, administrative, and healthcare needs. But none of this is possible without the adoption of a connected marketing technology and data ecosystem, the underlying machinery to deliver seamless omni-channel care experiences.

Capabilities such as:

  • Marketing Automation for Always-On Data-Driven Communication — Driving behavioral change and participation through rule-based, data-driven communication that could be anything from a reminder to book the next appointment or take a medicine or lifestyle content about the right food for that individual.
  • Web Experience Management Platforms for Personalized Relevant Healthcare Experiences— From generic pieces of content and mass communication to more personalized, relevant, and contextual experiences on a hospital.com site or any other third party platform.
  • CRM and Lifetime Value Management with Always-On Care — Establishing an always-on system of engagement that focuses on understanding consumer behavior and insights and leverages content across all channels to inspire behavioral change through participation. It also includes continuous listening to the consumer, both passive and active listening, to get her the care and information she needs even before she knows she needs it.
  • Predictive Models for Various Health Conditions — Leveraging big data across clinical, claims, financial, socio-economic, household, behavioral, personal and other areas to build predictive models that may signify an individual’s propensity against specific health conditions and using that insight to influence communication with that individual.
  • Data Management Platforms (DMPs) for Managing an Individual’s Universal Health Profile— None of this would be possible without a universal 360-degree view of the consumer across the offline and online world, across her clinical and non-clinical life. While the data has always existed, it has never been harmonized and connected. The DMPs not only provide this universal view along with consumer insights but can also feed that insight into various communication channels (pull & push) based on business rules, enabling the most seamless and connected healthcare experience.
  • Other Capabilities – Programmatic Buying, Social Monitoring and Consumer Engagement, Agile Mindset and Methodology — Everything that has been built to deliver immersive consumer experiences will now be applied in the world of healthcare, because the same consumer expects the same level of relevance, value, and storytelling in how they consumer healthcare services.

The human-centered technology ecosystem

Like any other vertical, the biggest opportunity lies in connecting these isolated pieces of “marketing and advertising technology” with the traditional healthcare IT systems to form the most connected technology ecosystem that puts the human at the center. This is where I believe the traditional definition and focus on healthcare IT is no longer enough.

That world has to converge with the world of marketing, advertising, and storytelling to deliver healthcare experiences that matter and to drive participation and behavioral change.

The “no baggage” healthcare industry will move fast

There is no doubt that healthcare is far behind in terms of digital adoption as compared to the other verticals. But healthcare has no historical marketing baggage. This offers healthcare brands and marketers an opportunity to adopt new capabilities and technologies with greater speed and agility, to deliver care experiences that are more connected, seamless, and immersive.

It’s no surprise that most leading health systems are already talking about “omni-channel experiences” and not just a “multi-channel” existence — a notion that took many years for all other verticals to understand and comprehend, let alone execute.

I am sure many will question the gap between today’s reality and tomorrow’s dream in healthcare. There are obvious questions around the broken ecosystem, conflicting business model with, let’s say, tele-health, lack of digital adoption, regulations, HIPAA compliance, and much more.

But the consumer is now at the helm. She is calling the shots, asking questions, and exercising choice. Healthcare brand builders have no option but to focus on consumer experiences as much as clinical output. And if they want to maximize the lifetime value of this consumer, brands will need to become data-driven and operate at the intersection of marketing, communication, technology, and healthcare.

Come meet Mayur in person at MarTech this March in San Francisco and hear him speak onThe Omni-Channel Reality with Marketing Technology & Integrated Experience Planning.

How Content Marketers Can Tell Better Stories with Data

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Post by HBR https://hbr.org/2015/12/how-content-marketers-can-tell-better-stories-
Content marketers have started to tell stories with data, and best practices are quickly emerging. The first step is to find the story you want to tell: how you approach data collection and analysis will determine what kind of content you’ll be able to develop. Once the story becomes clear, craft your message without letting the data overwhelm it.

Finding your story
Start with your dream headline. When I work on a data-driven content marketing project, I like to start by imagining my dream headlines or tweets: the discoveries that I would love my data to yield. When I was looking at child-related security risks, for example, I hoped to discover the security practices that led to the biggest reduction in online misdeeds—something like “good passwords cut hacks perpetrated by kids by 50%.” While the data rarely turns out to support that dream headline, starting there lets me figure out how to tackle my research. What data would I need if I wanted to produce that dream story? How would I go about getting it? Looking for the data that would yield my best-case outcome helps me figure out what kind of data is going to be relevant to my audience, and gives me a clear focus when I’m plowing through a mountain of survey results or social media analytics.

Recognize your bias. Part of the appeal of data-driven content is that we think of data as unbiased and objective. But when you’re using data for marketing purposes, you often do have a bias, because you want data that helps deliver your key message or that shores up your particular brand story. As a marketer, you can and should let that bias shape the questions you ask, the topics you pursue, and the parts of your data you highlight. To make sure that bias isn’t leading you astray, however, ask yourself whether your ultimate story and insights accurately reflect the data you’re working from: a good test is to think about what someone would conclude if they had access to your full data set. If they’d likely come to a different conclusion, you’ve done too much cherry picking, and need to rethink the basic story you’re telling.

Look for patterns. There are times when we just want to tell an interesting story—we’re not interested in it proving something specific. I doubt that Jawbone cares whether New Yorkers go to bed at 10 or at midnight, or that Facebook cares about whether we “LOL” or merely “haha,” but sharing data on those patterns lets brands catch the attention of the media and potential customers. Sometimes it’s the absence of a pattern that’s interesting, like OKCupid’s data showing that gay and straight people have the same number of sexual partners. The easiest way to get started with data storytelling is through stories like these: stories that are quirky and interesting, but where your brand has no particular stake in what the data shows.

Look for surprises. The most compelling data-driven content tells the reader something they don’t already know. Sometimes that surprise lies in finding an unexpected correlation: you might expect younger workers to be more likely to communicate online and less likely to meet in person, but actually, the reverse is true. If it’s not surprising, it’s going to be a boring story.

Telling your story
Once you know the story your data will tell, you need to structure that story in a way that makes it as clear and compelling as possible. To do that:

Choose the right format. Despite the impression you might get from looking at data on Pinterest, one long infographic isn’t always the best way to tell your data-driven story. A white paper, a blog post, or even a simple tweeted-out graphic can all be effective ways of telling a story with data, depending on your goal and audience. If you have a lot of data or a complex story to tell, a long piece that fully explains your results is more effective than trying to fit all that complexity into the margins of a single graphic; if your heart is set on a short visual post, release it as a highlight or teaser for your full-length piece.

Articulate your key message. Whether you succeed in finding the dream story you started with, or find something totally different when you dive into your data, your final story should clearly communicate one key message. How would you summarize your story in a single sentence or tweet? Articulate that story very clearly at the top of your post or document, and use each section or chart to build on that story—just as you would in any other piece of persuasive writing.

Lead with one or two numbers. One of the biggest pay-offs from data-driven content is the kind of media and social media attention it can earn. The surest way of attracting that attention is to highlight one or two surprising, memorable numbers. When Grant Thornton published its latest study on women in corporate leadership, it prominently noted the fact that close to a third of companies have no women in senior management. When Vision Critical released What Social Media Analytics Can’t Tell You About Your Customers, we emphasized the point that 85% of what you hear online comes from less than 30% of your social media audience. These are the kinds of facts that get tweeted out and picked up in news stories.

Balance text and visuals. A lot of data-driven content goes astray by sprinkling a few numbers into a big block of text, or conversely, by burying the reader in charts and graphics. The best content uses text and visuals synergistically: charts provide full context on the data you’re sharing, while text lets people understand how to interpret those charts, and why the numbers are relevant to their work. Make sure that text and visuals are balanced not only in terms of quantity, but in terms of quality: I often see beautifully designed infographics that are full of spelling errors, or that fail to explain what the colorfully presented numbers actually represent.

Illustrate your data with human examples. Whenever you’re telling a story with data, use real or hypothetical stories of specific people to translate the numbers into a human story. Our HBR article ”How Pinterest Puts People In Stores” showed that a third of people said that pinning their most recently purchased Pinterest item had “a lot” of influence on their decision to buy it—and that number was made a lot more tangible through the specific story of Claire, who got a sale alert based on an item she’d pinned. While “Claire” was an invented name, her story was based on the specific responses of a single survey respondent. That kind of example makes it easier for people to understand the story you are telling with your data, and also makes it more relatable.

Make recommendations. If you’re delving deep into a data set, you may see the relevance of your data to a range of business or consumer decisions—but that doesn’t mean the relevance will be obvious to your readers. Once you’ve done your data analysis, step back and think about how you would make difference business or purchasing decisions based on the data you’ve uncovered. Then spell out those insights in a separate “recommendations” or “key insights” section.

The more you follow these best practices, the more they’ll feel like a natural extension of the communications skills you’ve honed in other aspects of your work. And that’s exactly the point: if you’re doing a good job of telling stories with data, it’s the story—not the numbers—that will shine through.

Infographic: Engaging Content Has Everything to Do With Emotion

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http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/infographic-engaging-content-has-everything-do-emotion-168561
As content accounts for more of marketers’ budgets, finding direct paths to target audiences becomes increasingly important. AOL Insights analyzed over 7,300 moments when a person engaged with specific content and uncovered new findings that can help marketers better develop content.

“Marketers are good at knowing when and where consumers access content,” said AOL consumer analytics and research vp Christian Kugel. “This research illuminates some of the missing pieces and gives insight into how and why consumers interact with content. Smart marketers can add this knowledge to their toolset to develop content that matches the motivation of viewers, ultimately resulting in a deeper, better and more impactful connections with consumers on any device.”

Some focus on the user because it’s in their DNA. Others because the have to

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2016 Year in Preview: Ad blocking will force the industry to put the user experience first
Ricardo Bilton @rbilton 11 hours ago
This essay is just one in a series of 10 produced by Digiday’s staff of reporters and editors in which we look to the major trends of 2016. We’ll be releasing a full series download with all 10 essays on Thursday. Sign up here for a copy.

If publishers weren’t thinking about the user before, they will in the coming year.

Spurred by Apple’s introduction of ad blocking to iOS in September, publishers and advertisers spent much of 2015 wavering between muted concern and outright panic over ad blocking’s potential effect on the future of the industry. Over 198 million people globally run ad blockers each month, according to anti-ad blocking firm PageFair, and Apple’s support risked increasing the magnitude of that existential threat even further.

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But while the industry has obsessed over various wrinkles of ad blocking — how to fight the tech, whether ad blocking is unethical, etc — the ad blocking story’s actual importance became clear when it started forcing the hard questions about the role of the user experience in digital advertising, and whether the industry has completely forgotten about the people on the other side of the screen. In 2016, the discussion about ad blocking will expand beyond ad blocking to include user experience overall.

“Digital advertising has grown up a like a weed,” said Quartz publisher Jay Lauf. “We built all these sites and places for ads to live but rather than give real thought to the landscaping, we just let everything grow. Now, everyone is saying, ‘we’ve got kind of a mess here so we need to take a step back and clean things up.’”

Even the IAB conceded that the industry “messed up” by chasing automation and data collection at the expense the user experience. “Looking back now, our scraping of dimes may have cost us dollars in consumer loyalty,” wrote IAB senior VP of technology and ad operations Sean Cunningham in October. At the same time the IAB introduced its “LEAN” program, a new set of creative standards meant to produce ads that are lighter, less resource intensive and, hopefully, less likely to encourage people to install ad blockers. This tack made sense to those who argued that the most effective way to fix ad blockers is to make better ads.

But while intrusive ads have borne the brunt of the industry’s blame for ad blocking’s rise, efforts to improve the user experience have gone beyond just ads. Vox Media, GQ and The Verge, for example, have taken deep looks at their sites, making small tweaks to various features that have had major effects on the sites overall. The result: page loading times for these sites have been cut by as much as 80 percent.

The problem is that spending the time and money to rebuild and optimize their sites is a frill that many publishers don’t feel they have. “When the next 90 days of the quarter are staring you in the face and you have to make numbers, it’s hard to take the long view,” said Washington Post chief revenue officer Jed Hartman. “It can be hard to find that balance.”

In other words, the realities of the business today mean that most publishers are more concerned with optimizing their ad yield than optimizing their site load times.

But the idea that publishers have to think about their bottom lines before their users is a false choice, said Lauf at Quartz. “You have to serve your real customer, your audience, first so you can have the foundation for a solid business. No one has the luxury anymore of ignoring the user experience.”

Few understand that dynamic better than the big tech companies, which have used the “spear of the consumer,” as Lauf put it, to battle each other as they pitch their new publisher initiatives this year. Facebook’s Instant Articles, for example, was premised on the idea that the sluggishness of publishers’ sites is driving users away. Likewise, Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) project was created to help publishers speed up their sites by trimming them of slow and unnecessary elements.

All of this should be a lesson to publishers. “The companies that are going to be successful down the line understand that content is a big differentiator but the entire experience is a part of that content as well,” said Digital Content Next CEO Jason Kint. “It’s all about the entire package of speed and performance and technology. The consumer doesn’t differentiate between publishers based on content alone.”

Hang W/ launches successful crowdfunding campaign

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https://www.crowdfunder.com/hangwith/invest

Please help spread the word, Hang W/ is an awesome technology.

Disclaimer: I am an advisor.

Hang w/ sits at the intersection of several powerful digital, social and pop culture trends. Live streaming video has burst into the technology scene and is resonating at the next big trend. Monetized digital video and mobile advertising are already a multi-billion dollar industry looking for better engagement with audiences. And the cult of personality is at an all time high. Hang w/ has the technology, the team and the track record to weave all three trends together into a product that generates significant revenue through monetized live content.

What is the difference between Hang w/ and Periscope?

Hang w/ aims to occupy a very different space from Periscope. They are a live social media app with no monetization strategy – and no opportunity for users to generate revenue. We are a live content distribution platform – with an opportunity for users to generate revenue from their own content.

How does Hang w/ make money?

Today, Hang w/ generates revenue in three ways. • Pre- and Post-roll advertising generates a CPM (cost per thousand views) from advertisers and ad networks. • Pay Per View Digital Tickets allow users to sell tickets to digital content. Hang w/ keeps a percentage of all ticket sales. • Digital Tipping allows users to gift one another digital coins with real monetary value. Hang w/ keeps a percentage of the value of gifted coins.

How can a Hang w/ user make money?

Broadcasters keep a percentage of revenue from the Pre- and Post-roll advertising shown on their channel. • Broadcasters keep a percentage of revenue from their own Pay Per View Digital Tickets. • Broadcasters keep a percentage of revenue by redeeming their gifted coins for cash. • All payments are made to users using PayPal.

What will the funds raised be used for?

• Deepen our focus on music and grow the platform where it is strongest with events, sponsorships, and a focused marketing campaign. • Extend the Hang w/ platform into a number of targeted verticals. • Improve platform functionality with new features that can be implemented across the vertical ecosystem. • Build our our sales and business development team and create custom marketing integration opportunities. • Legal, Misc Fees, General Admin • Technology infrastructure, server costs, maintenance, streaming, etc.

What is the exit strategy?

The platform is expected to generate significant cash flow upon scale. The strategy is to exit through acquisition by a major media company, social media company, or content-based technology provider.

Why are you the team to do this?

Members of our team have collectively developed more than 300 mobile applications – with many of them reaching as high as #1 on the Apple App Store. • Our team has collectively driven tens of millions of downloads of mobile applications. • We have been innovating in the live streaming space and fine tuning our product for more than two years.

 

HIGHLIGHTS

  • Backed by 50 Cent, Timbaland, Elton Brand and Larry the Cable Guy
  • Millions of users with more than 3,000,000 live broadcasts
  • Average user session as high as 17+ minutes at 2-3 sessions per day

ELEVATOR PITCH

The most advanced live-streaming mobile platform – with major celebrity endorsement, millions of users and revenue generation built into the model.

TRACTION

Millions of users with more than 3,000,000 live broadcasts

NOVEMBER, 2015

Achieved 1 Million users in the first 9 months – faster than Twitter and Facebook

NOVEMBER, 2015

Average user session as high as 17+ minutes at 2-3 sessions per day

NOVEMBER, 2015

Patents filed over 2 years ago ahead of Twitter’s Periscope and other live streaming services

NOVEMBER, 2015

Users were found to be 361x more likely to “Tune In” on Hang w/ than to “retweet” on Twitter

NOVEMBER, 2015

A Hang w/ 50 Cent concert from SXSW resulted in 50,000+ simultaneous live streams

NOVEMBER, 2015

Official Live Streaming Partner for events such as Style Fashion Week, Cupid’s Undie Run, Bottle Rocket and Mysteryland

NOVEMBER, 2015

WE HAVE BEEN SAYING IT FOR A WHILE NOW- B2B IS STILL PERSONAL

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Few B2B companies are implementing truly effective customer experience programs and achieving higher revenue growth, with the majority surviving but not exactly thriving according to a new study.

An Accenture Strategy report, 2015 B2B Customer Experience, surveyed 1,350 B2B sales and customer service executives in ten countries and found that only 23% could claim to be achieving a strong return on their customer experience investment.

Some 20% were generating little or no return with the remaining 57% somewhere in between.

These three groups were categorised as Leaders, Strivers and Laggards. Accenture’s research indicated that Leaders generated an average of 13% annual revenue growth and Strivers managed 6% while Laggards recorded a decline of -1%.

“B2B companies overwhelmingly recognise the importance of customer experience to their corporate strategy and bottom line, but the majority are wasting their investments on changes that are delivering mediocre results,” said Robert Wollan, senior managing director, Accenture Strategy.

“With consumer-like expectations and a substantial threat from new entrants, B2B companies must be ready to design and execute a transformed customer experience or not invest in such improvements at all,” he declared.

More than three quarters of survey respondents thought higher customer expectations for tailored B2B solutions would have a substantial impact (78%) and that customers are now more knowledgeable, self-directed, and continually evaluating suppliers (76%).

But only one third (32%) of executives felt they were equipped with the skills, tools, and resources necessary to deliver the desired B2B customer experience.

They pointed to a lack of C-suite attention, customer experience processes, and necessary cross-organisational integration as factors that needed to be addressed.

“Strivers are ‘racing to become average’ and average is a precarious position to be in these days,” observed Wollan.

“Leaders see after-sales service as a critical part of the customer lifecycle and they invest not just in new digital technologies, but in traditional customer connection points too,” he said.

“Leaders realize that a multi-channel approach is needed to reach B2B customers seamlessly and consistently.”

NOT SO FAST BRANDS! YOU CAN’T IGNORE VR AND AR

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AUGMENTED REALITY WILL ‘REPLACE THE SMARTPHONE’: The future of mobile technology is in augmented reality (AR) — not virtual reality (VR), according to a recent report by Citi. While much of the recent commotion surrounding wearable headset devices has been focused on VR, AR technologies will likely be the most likely to disrupt major digital markets like e-commerce and m-commerce, gaming, and even smartphone hardware.

Citi estimates that, by 2025, the combined VR/AR industry will represent $674 billion. The AR industry alone is predicted to be worth $120 billion in 2020, while VR will be worth $30 billion, according to separate predictions made by Digi-Capital. Eventually, AR technologies will replace smartphone handsets, notes Citi.

Two reasons in particular explain why AR is a much greater potential disruptor to the current mobile market than VR, according to the report:

Prospects are good for AR applications. While VR content may give users a fully immersive experience for gaming and entertainment, AR technology is better suited to integrate digitized reality into the settings of the physical world; meaning, AR systems can be used without wholly interfering with work and everyday life. This could be compared to using a smartphone to watch a movie, rather than going to the cinema.
AR will prove particularly useful in enterprise settings. Although gaming and other entertainment-oriented content may be the immediately obvious use case for AR technology, enterprise and commercial applications present a much more lucrative industry in the long term. Furthermore, they are much more suited to AR. The benefits of using AR in the workplace could include facilitating work in factories and manufacturing plants, operating machinery and electronic equipment, and in areas such as material handling in warehouses and at distribution hubs.
For the time being, AR hardware is too cost prohibitive for mass consumption. While VR headsets are slightly better, they’re still too expensive for most consumers. The average price of VR headsets will likely range between $350 and $500. This price may not include other parts or the cost of a computer powerful enough to run the headset. Meanwhile, Microsoft’s promising AR device, the HoloLens, is priced at a whopping $3,000. As the prices of these devices decline over the next several years, they’ll become more popular in the consumer market.

Rishad Tobaccowala Pinpoints the Beginnings of a Tectonic Change in Marketing | Adweek

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1. The title CMO needs to be done away with. Chief marketing officers need to become chief facilitating officers.

2. Marketers need to stop advertising—they need to offer utility. “People don’t want to see your stupid message,” he said (clearly implicating himself in his message as much as the audience).

3. Video will indeed be everywhere, but he encouraged marketers to look more at the YouTubes and Netflixes of the world than the CBS’s or NBCs. “The future more often comes from the slime than the heavens,” he said.

4. Owning data is an obsolete idea. The secret of success with data is how to access it and use it.

5. Mobility: “Where you are is just as important as who you are.”

6. Finally, one thing all marketers need to remember: “In a silicon world, we are still talking to carbon life-forms.” In other words, be human and tell stories.

http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/rishad-tobaccowala-pinpoints-beginnings-tectonic-change-marketing-167917