Tear Down Marketing’s Old Walls to See the Future of Your Business

Fundamental categories that form the bedrock of marketing strategy and customer insights simply no longer exist. You need to understand the new landscape of consumer behavior so you don’t get left in the dust. In this fast-moving program you will learn:

• How you can reach today’s consumers, who plug into a “hive mind” that tells them what to buy.
• Why the debate about “offline versus online” marketing strategies is useless.
• How to market with rather than market to your customers.
• Why your customers rely upon your brands to tell them who they are.
• How to develop new killer products and services by demolishing your industry’s walls.

Persuasive Salesbots and Tomorrow’s Customer Experience

Everyone is buzzing about Artificial Intelligence these days, as well as they should. Machines that “think” for us already are transforming how we work, play – and shop. McKinsey tells us that some 29 million U.S. homes used some form of smart technology last year, and that number grows by over 30 percent a year.

Many organizations now deploy robots, avatars and chatbots to perform tasks we used to ask flesh-and-blood people to do. This suddenly makes the age-old question of what makes us human much less theoretical. Self-driving cars threaten to replace truck drivers. IBM’s Watson beats chess masters and veteran Jeopardy game show contestants. Movies and TV shows like Blade Runner, Westworld, and Humans that focus on the civil rights of synths, replicants and androids are center stage in popular culture. Alexa and Siri are our new guardian angels.

Very soon, the rise of the machines will become the race of the machines.

Don’t be left at the starting line. In this thought-provoking presentation we will ask:

• How does the physical appearance of a robot or avatar sales advisor affect the likelihood that customers will trust and follow its’ recommendations about what to buy?
• How will chatbots and affective computing (where software detects a consumer’s emotional state) impact sales interactions?
• As advertisers use machine learning to generate artificial images for their messages, how will AI influence ideals of beauty and the fashion industry?
• What will be the impact of dating apps, sexbots and other smart devices on interpersonal relationships?
• How will facial recognition and wearable computer technologies meld with AI to create “markets of one?”

How The Psychology of Fashion Influences Consumer Behavior

In this presentation, we’ll look at some of the powerful cultural forces that influence how consumers use a range of products to make “statements” about themselves.

Michael Solomon will examine some of the important factors that influence what that “self-portrait” looks like, including feelings about the body, peer pressure, celebrity endorsements and the messages our culture sends about what men and women need to look like.

Michael Solomon will also consider how new technologies such as social media communities, wearable computing and augmented reality will color this picture in the near future.