How Brands Can Rise to Meet Customer Expectation

By Emma Phipps

ANA

In a constantly shifting industry, it can be hard for marketers to keep an eye on the big picture and look to the future. Steve King, CEO at Publicis Media, shared his insight into the latest tech innovations, the evolving agency model, and driving consumer engagement with us ahead of his session at this year's ANA Media Conference, presented by Quantcast.

What sector(s) are successful in exceeding consumer expectations through leveraging data, technology, and/or creativity?

Our proprietary research points to a disparity between how well companies are delivering on consumer expectations – with 87 percent of execs believing they are meeting customer expectations and only 61 percent of customers saying their expectations are being met.

That same study identified that the sectors successfully exceeding consumer expectations include auto, financial services, streaming services and large online retailers. Companies who are able to build seamless, integrated experiences across touchpoints that are personalized and valuable for the end user will succeed.

What are the top technology innovations marketers should know about to stay ahead of the curve?

5G will certainly be a game changer as it will transform the way we communicate and the speed at which we receive information. At ten times faster than 4G, it will power everything from VR to smart cities and self-driving cars and change the face of so much ranging from medicine to creativity to commerce and more.

While new technology is important and changing the way we connect with consumers, the space to watch is how existing platforms connect in new and different ways. Voice assistance, computer vision and machine-learned recommendation engines and robotics are increasingly embedded into our everyday appliances and surfaces. Knowing the future will require us to understand how to link new technology with existing products to build better consumer experiences that make people's daily routines easier, more productive and enjoyable.

How do you see the agency model evolving given this rapidly changing landscape?

In today's environment, it is important to build models that put the client at the center and deliver simplicity, collaboration and end-to-end capabilities. That is what Publicis Groupe has done with our Power of One approach and the model has really resonated with clients, as evidenced by welcoming new clients over the past year such as GlaxoSmithKline, J.M. Smucker Company, Marriott and more.

It's also important to evolve the capabilities and talent you bring to the table. For example, as a Groupe, we continue to advance our data offering through Publicis PeopleCloud. In addition, Publicis Media accelerated rollout of global commerce capabilities, precision programmatic offering, and expanded content expertise. As for talent, we increased hires in transformative positions such as data sciences, performance, business transformation, programmatic content, and specialty digital roles. Many of these positions didn't exist years ago. Today they are nearly half of our hires.

What role(s) do the Publicis Groupe agencies play in helping brands drive consumer engagement through the intersection of technology, data and/or creativity?

To solve for the industry's most universal challenge of consumer engagement, brands must understand consumers' needs, find the right infrastructure to deliver on those needs, and have the right talent to achieve it. Our role is to be that partner who can deliver across all these areas and help marketers meet and exceed consumer expectations at every moment a person intersects with their brand.

The key is to be able to deliver one-to-one consumer engagement at scale through data expertise, dynamic creativity and digital business transformation — keeping data at the core, technology and transformation as a strategy, and maintaining creativity at the speed of culture.