“The Internet of Things has the potential to change the world, just as the internet did. Maybe even more so.” – Kevin Ashton
The Internet of Things (IoT), refers to the billions of physical devices around the world that are connected to the Internet, all collecting and sharing data (ZDNet 2020). Thanks to the rapid fall in costs of electric components, and the ubiquity of wireless networks, we can conveniently connect different objects by adding a level of digital intelligence to them, thus enabling real-time data communication.
In the digital era, marketers can jump on the bandwagon and develop innovative strategies to engage the audience better. For instance, in the context of domestic living, we can retrieve and interpret data from smart home devices (e.g. Speakers, LED bulbs, home systems, security cameras) to understand the consumers’ home routine, habits and tendencies, so that we can provide real time point-of-sale notifications at optimum timings via well-tailored advertisements to trigger their immediate purchase. In 2014, Google acquired Nest Labs, the home gadget maker company, at $3.2 billion (Wohlsen 2014). Google’s purchase intent is to understand people better through data collection from smart appliances, to maximize profitability. This reflects the importance of IoTs in the contemporary marketing landscape. Additionally, we can also obtain insights on the consumers’ latent motives by observing their daily living through smart speakers and home systems, and activate or suppress their problem recognition through informed advertising.
Marketers can also leverage on IoTs to uncover new opportunities, such as connecting with new communities. Wearable smart devices (e.g. Smart watch, fitness trackers, smart glasses) allows users to share posts generated by the devices on social media platforms, which eventuate in the development of new communities centered around the users of such devices. Once these communities are uncovered, we can connect with these like-minded groups and convert them into customers further down the road.
Although the IoTs is growing at a compounded annual growth rate of 19% from 2017 to 2022, and is estimated to be US$1.5 trillion by 2022 (Inforcomm Media Development Authority 2020), the implications of smart appliances such as hacking and personal privacy intrusion can impede the diffusion of IoTs. As such, it is important for marketers to understand the consumer perceptions on all the relevant IoTs, to determine which are the best mediums for data collection.
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Hao Zhen's Digital Marketing Journey 