What’s this? You’re getting this email because you seem like the type of person who likes to stay on top of digital trends. If not, no worries, just go to the unsubscribe button on the bottom of the page and you’re free forever. At Dressler, we are always reading about new technologies that are either being applied to marketing or will be applied to marketing in the near future. So we want to share some of those with you. In each section, we’ll briefly describe the new idea or innovation, what application that idea or innovation might have to marketing and a guess for when that technology might be commercially available. Then a link to an article from the technology industry press that explains things in greater detail. We hope you have the chance to throw all this newfound technology knowledge in the face of an annoying colleague in the near future! Future emails will be sent out every two weeks. It’s time to get serious about Facial Recognition Both Google and Facebook are releasing products that take advantage of advances in machine learning technology that allow facial recognition software to be far more accurate. However, issues remain around privacy and the services will probably not be available in Europe due to previous agreements with regulators. Application to Marketing: Despite the privacy concerns, the ability to identify digital visitors through photographs will eventually allow advertisers to tailor messages to a person’s unique interests and perhaps market services to a wider circle of friends. So, if someone has their picture taken at Disney World, Disney could use facial recognition technology to identify that person on Facebook and then send them targeted messages about Disney vacation packages. Availability: It will be at least 3 years before Facial Recognition is being applied to marketing on a large scale. Read More UI made easy. User Interface design is fundamental to conversion and the stickiness of your digital properties. While this is an evolving field with new best practices emerging all the time, some things have been proven out by experience. This site is an excellent guide to the existing best practices for UI (and, by extension, UX) in language anyone can understand. Application to Marketing: Everything. Availability: All of this applies right now. Read More Truly immersive Virtual Reality. Virtual reality has been a feature of science fiction for almost a century (think of the Star Trek Holodeck), but the technology has always been something of a disappointment. Now companies like Oculus and Magic Leap are starting to figure out how to introduce high-quality VR to the consumer market. Not to be left behind, gaming company Valve Software is introducing Steam VR, a VR system that encourages you to stand (instead of sit) and interact with a virtual world in which your body’s actions are transmitted to VR. Application to Marketing: Immersive experiences in VR will allow consumers to “test drive” a vacation location, a car or a new design for the kitchen, without leaving their home. In the next 3 years, cutting edge marketers will find as many applications for VR as for the internet itself. Availability: Test cases of using this type of VR in marketing will begin to come up over the next year. Widespread adoption is 3-5 years off, pending legal restrictions. Read More Saleforce Expands Marketing Capabilities Sales and marketing automation software company, Salesforce has continued to expand the marketing capabilities in their industry-leading software products. Now the product has a drag and drop interface that allows clients to manage customer interactions and customer data can be attached to online ad campaigns. All of this means that the customer journey can be mapped, monitored and leveraged more directly. Application to Marketing: These systems (Salesforce, Marketo, Eloqua, etc.) try to sell themselves as DIY marketing automation systems. The truth is that they allow a savvy marketer to tie individual efforts much more closely to sales and establish real ROI measures. However, they are not simple and require extensive training. Ideally, access is shared between agency and client so that both sides can understand the underlying value of marketing efforts. Availability: This is in market right now. Read More Block that Ad! Adblock Plus is the most popular Ad blocking technology now on the market. The technology, which is available as a Chrome browser extension, allows users to not view banner ads on their desktop or smartphone. In addition, Adblock Plus can now be deployed by IT administrators across their entire network. Why would an IT person be interested in blocking ads? Well, by some measures ad viewing uses up batteries up to 30% faster and clogs up download speeds for companies. So, allowing your employees to see ads is actually a drain on resources. Application to Marketing: It should be noted that ad blockers only work on banner ads and pop-ups. Advertising content served from the publications own servers (native advertising) is not blocked by this technology. However, rates of adoption of this technology and demographic data on adopters should be closely monitored. This may be a canary in the coal mine situation. Availability: This is in market right now. If businesses are going to adopt this, it will be 2-4 years before we see much adoption. Read More