3 ways to put the customer first Three experts share their outlook on how marketers can ensure their organisations use technological innovation to put their customers at the heart of future plans Alastair Harvey, chief solutions officer, AI solutions firm, Cortexica 1 Ziv Elul, CEO, mobile monetisation platform, Fyber 2 Geoff Wilson, brand strategy director, brand and experience agency, Household 3 AI innovations must make peoples lives easier The customer must be central to ad tech Experience the customers emotional journey Bespoke vision artificial intelligence (AI) technology can help blend the digital and physical into an omnichannel customer experience. Brands are using these applications to drive hyper-personalisation of their customers experiences producing highly tailored in-store experiences, as well as speeding up processes for the me-now customer. By using AI in streamlining search, brands are offering something more than just their products. AI allows brands to put each customers unique needs at the centre of their offering, rather than treating customers as a collective demographic, and this will lie at the heart of successful B2C organisations in the future. However, we also know that only the innovations that make peoples lives easier will be successful. Immediate, tailored results must be part of that. When it comes to making sure the customer is centre stage, the environment we foster as a business is important. In ad tech, ensuring transparency, and allowing fairness to thrive, is key to cleaning up and improving the industry whether for our own business customers or their consumers in turn. This means our monetisation products must ensure businesses have access to fair, transparent auctions, with equal access for all, and where the best price always wins. For their consumers, this should mean they only see content from brands they are interested in. Creative content then helps supply the very best ad environment and user experience possible. Whether through engaging interactive ads, video, targeted ads that minimise disruption, or the individual safety and quality guaranteed by screening inappropriate ads, the customer needs to be at the epicentre of ad tech. Many people who sell things dont really know what it is theyre selling. Its not that they dont have the full technical specs, or that theyre an uninterested sales-floor drone. Rather, its that at a brand level or even on a fundamental emotional level people dont know what their product or service means to customers. Take Airbnb. Essentially, it sells experience. The end product might be a bunk bed in someones box room, but for the customer at least initially the idea sold to them was that of being an intrepid explorer of the urban world. For organisations to really understand their customers, they should buy the product from their perspective and experience the emotional journey as they do. This will tell them about the what, how and when of what is emotionally true and important about their product or service. Only then can they talk honestly to their customers about what they really offer. cim.co.uk/exchange