Forget mobile. Think "neural marketing" and the new "robosumer" (Vicomte marketing predictions)

In 2012, the Wharton Furture of Advertising Program asked leading thinkers and doers in Marketing and Advertising to share their vision around 2 key questions

1. What could/should advertising look like in 2020?
2. What should we do now to make that future a reality?

You can read Vicomte's original contribution: "The why, who, what and how of marketing by 2020" via the link below:

http://wfoa.wharton.upenn.edu/perspective/chris-burggraeve/

So far, I stick with my predictions.

And after further digestion, the Wharton FOA program bundled all learnings in this book, now finally available, with some of our thoughts (especially related to measurement) reflected in it.

"Beyond Advertising: Creating Value Through All Customer Touchpoints"
by Yoram (Jerry) Wind, Catharine Findiesen Hays, and the Wharton Future of Advertising Innovation Network

http://wfoa.wharton.upenn.edu/ad2020/beyond-advertising/

As a further recommendation if you are passionate about thinking ahead, also read the stellar work done by Marc de Swaan Arons and his team at Effective Brands (now Millward Brown Vermeer) on a much broader and better quantfied global study related to Marketing 2020, summarised in one of the best selling Harvard Business Reviews Articles of the last years. I had the pleasure to be part of the M2020 Steering Committee, and i still work closely with Marc and MB Vermeer on a number of fascinating marketing challenges for their clients.

https://hbr.org/2014/07/the-ultimate-marketing-machine
http://mbvermeer.com/portfolio-itemmarketing2020/

But ladies and gentlemen: 2020 is really around the corner, so it is time we look further and start thinking about how marketing will reinvent itself again in a galactic age, where technology breakthroughs are more exponential than ever versus today.

I am still digesting Big Data, Hadoop, Could, Python, R, VR and all forms of so-called digital marketing snake oil. And I am just starting to reflect on the above. There is lots to ponder.

Just as one thought to get you started: what would happen to how we build, market and buy brands, if all your consumers had their brain augmented thanks to new nanochip technology? We are talking a lot about "mobile-first" marketing today. Few are already in it. And already we have major existential struggles with the notion of privacy.

But soon it seems we will need no more mobile at all. Will all Marketing be Neural? How would we handle the augmented new "Robosumer" ?

It would make for a completely new era of discussion and discomfort marketers will have to navigate through. Back in 1957, American journalist Vance Packard created a storm with his "Hidden Persuaders" classic. Any progress or even testing on "neuro-marketing" had to be done purposely under the radar since then. But it seems a new Pandora box is about to open anyway.

More than ever we need to understand what the fundamentals of the marketing "metier" are all about. We need to deeply understand the role of marketers, and why they need to exist in an era where everybody will become crazy smart. Or maybe the new currency wil be all about how smart you are, about how "augmented" you can be. We moved from Flinstones to Jetsons to Watsons. Today, there already tends to be a success gap between people depending on their access to knowledge and brain development. The new inequality may be even sharper between "smart and very smart"? Will brand health today still lead to pricing power and topline tomorrow in a neurally augmented smart Robo-sumer or Consu-Bot era? Or will the fundamentals of marketing be truly shocked in ways that no digital progress todate has done?

At this moment i only want to think as far as 2048, when i turn 84. According to the current best available actuarial and health statistics, that seems to be my average expected age (for a generally healthy man in the western world). There is not too much known about 2048 yet in terms of societal context. There is a Fibonacci like mindgame referring to the number. And there is a dystopian israeli movie predicting Israel may not celebrate its own 100th birhday.

The most salient general prediction about 2048 so far: it is the year the oceans are predicted to be empty - at current overfishing and ocean pollution rates. No more sushi after 2048. But that is of course unless mankind defeats again the linear thinking doomsayers. If there is enough existential threat, new Einsteins are bound to find new solutions to sustain the planet. At least, that is what i want to believe.

But maybe i am too optimistic about mankind's continued Da Vinci renaissance potential?

Let me know what you think about where marketing is going beyond 2020