As enterprises seek to increase their innovation IQs in the coming year, marketing leaders will need to redouble their efforts on helping their organizations apply a maniacal focus to customer experience–while operating at a new level of accountability as expectations from customers and regulators rise.
“The future of seamless customer experience design depends on not only unification of customer digital identities but also increased prioritization of data stewardship and control by consumers themselves,” writes Jaimy Szymansky, industry analyst at Kaleido Insights, in EdelmanDigital’s “Trends Report 2019.”
According to Szymansky, the marketing industry is on “the precipice of a power shift” when it comes to how consumer data is used and sold. At the same time that consumers are starting grow aware of how dependent brands are profiting on the information that makes up their digital identities, organizations are trying to evolve their customer experience ecosystems with ever-more data-driven business models. This is going to require organizations to walk a thin line.
“In an era of increased standards of accountability, brands must prepare for an inevitable shift in data power dynamics by providing transparency in data collection, customer protection as sound data stewards, and fair reward for data use,” Szymansky writes. “Consumer compensation must surpass simple personalization; that’s now table stakes.”
Szymansky’s analysis is one of almost a dozen different in-depth analyses by Kaleido and EdelmanDigital on where the digital marketing world will go in 2019.
