More than any other company, Amazon pioneered online retail, totally revolutionizing how people shop and in the process, disrupting countless retailers that came before it.
But it isn’t done yet and one of its most audacious projects launches today in Seattle, Washington, the home of its headquarters.
Each year I pick out marketing and digital trends and developments which I believe are interesting and will shape the industry and digital/marketing planning and thinking in the year ahead.
Looking at 2018 I have to say that I think pretty much all of what I wrote about in my 2017 trends piece still applies. So, either not that much has changed or I was ahead of myself last year.
2017 was a stellar year for charity campaigns, with many innovative, uplifting, and impactful examples to choose from.
Does Google have memory loss?
According to Tim Bray, a former Googler and one of the authors of the original XML specification, the answer is yes.
Last week, TD Bank, the second largest bank in Canada, announced that it is acquiring Layer 6, a prediction and personalization platform.
The deal highlights the growing importance of artificial intelligence (AI) to banks that are trying to stay ahead of the curve as they face digital disruption from fintechs.
I’m calling it – the time for future-gazing articles is over. At time of writing it’s already the end of January. If you’re still preparing for 2018 then you must have had a heavy New Year’s Eve.
Nevertheless, I thought it worthwhile to look over some of the prediction pieces we have published thus far (as well as some from Marketing Week), and produce a practical list of questions that marketers should ask themselves, this year or any other.
This past Saturday, new Open Banking rules that require big banks to share data with vetted third parties, including fintech upstarts, went into effect in the U.K.
Open Banking is more than anything else a reflection of the fact that the world is changing for big banks as regulators look to support fintech innovation.
Black Mirror might be intent on warning us about the dangers, but artificial intelligence does indeed appear to be taking over our lives.
Most of us seem pretty happy about it though, with voice technology increasingly growing in popularity. According to Kantar Worldpanel, 2.7m households in the UK currently own an Amazon Echo or Google Home device. Across the pond, usage is also on the up, with 55% of US households predicted to own one of these devices by 2020.
At the end of 2017 Google published some specific instructions relating to ‘eyes-free’ technology (such as voice assistants) in its Search Quality Rating Guidelines.
You can read the guidelines and Google’s accompanying blog post, but what I took from it was pretty simple:
Chatbots have gone in and out of favour during the past couple of years. First touted as the ‘next big thing’ for marketing, many brand examples have since died a death due to the tech lacking sophistication or failing to provide any real relevance for consumers.
That being said, the fashion and beauty industries still appear attached to the concept, with many more brands launching AI-powered chatbots in the past year or so.
Some predict that Artificial Intelligence will drive the next industrial revolution. What is certain is that over the next few years AI will become more important to marketers.
But to unlock AI’s huge potential you need an AI strategy. Here are five Ps to help you develop yours.