What the evolving Smart Home means for advertising

Friend of Cherryduck, Futurist at Unruly, and all round great guy, Simon Gosling, took time to answer some of our questions about his exciting new project ‘The Unruly Future Home’.

For Brand Marketers this is a timely and educational experience that shows just how the home of the future will impact the way brands communicate with their consumers. It’s a place to spark new ideas and fresh thinking and shows just how rapidly the way we consume advertising is changing and how brands need to step up!

What exactly is the ‘Unruly Future Home’?

I designed the The Unruly Home — a 2,000 square foot connected home based at Unruly’s new London HQ — to give marketers a synapse-tingling glimpse of the future, inspiring them to consider how they could use a new generation of technology to engage consumers within their homes, using the required emotional intelligence.

With all these new platforms for communication in our own homes, what changes do you believe we will see in the advertising industry as a result?

Mobile advertising is now 10 years old. Back in 2008 and the launch of BlackBerry, you couldn’t have dreamt of the mobile ad formats, programmatic distribution methods, messenger apps and social media platforms we take for granted today. We’re in the BlackBerry year of Voice, AI, Immersive Realities/ (AR, VR, MR), and Computer Vision. That explosion which took 10 years in Mobile is going to take 3 to 5 years on these new platforms.

Advertising was once one-way storytelling, which we observed. With recent Tech Trends, its become two-way storysharing and immersive.

In addition, we are doubling the data that we produce every two years and the number of items attached to the IOT will grow from 7Billion to 30Billion by 2020. The connected home is a key component of this increase and as a result new advertising platforms, which are yet to be invented, will increase the personalisation of messages, which future tech will assist us and, in some cases, help our well being. For example, the sleep aid market is set to grow to $66.5B by 2020, at a time when 22% of Americans claim to be insomniacs and spending 95% of our lives indoors. I believe that Tech will save us from Tech.

What impact will this have on the kind of video we consume?

It will become more interactive, advertising will become shoppable through touch or voice.

Advertising was once about that big 30" spot. Now it will be a more personalised story made of Micro Moments, across a new eco-system of screens, machines and devices. These Micro Moments, will comprise, ‘Want to Know’, ‘Want to Explore’ and ‘Want to Buy’ moments in the consumer journey towards purchase. Brands that focus only on ‘Want to Buy’, won’t survive.

It’s worth noting that last year, 20% of all internet searches were made by voice. This year it will rise to 33% and by 2020, between 50% to 60% of searches will be voiced based. Campaign magazine has described it as, ‘The Brandless Age of Voice’. Will radio kill the video star? Unlikely, but visual campaigns will need to be supported by voice. Brands need to make themselves part of the conversation.

What trends do you predict for the next few months?

Increased commercial use of Voice and AR.

Voice is becoming more natural and conversational. One of the best examples is The Trainline’s Voice App, powered by Google Assistant, as seen HERE.

When Apple released their new ARKit Software last year, CEO Tim Cook described it as,”the kind of world-changing technology that’s on a par with the introduction of the iPhone 10 years ago — as another, perhaps more literal, aspect of Apple’s long-standing mission to make the world better and a bit more magic”.

I love that he used the word magic! The only way to be truly creative is to be childlike and full of wonder, so it’s no surprise that this groundbreaking tech has stemed from Apple and it is already being used to incredible effect. Experience Ikea Place and Audi Quattro Coaster to see for yourself.
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What trends do you predict in the next 5 years?

Advancements in holographic tech and 5G will put an end to the mobile phone as we know it and we’ll use Smart Glasses or Smart Frame and Ear Piece sets instead. Thank goodness! Homosapiens will return to upright walking, rather than hunched over a small screen. Amazon’s first wearable device will be a pair of smart glasses with the Alexa voice assistant built in, according to a report in the Financial Times. The device will reportedly look like a regular pair of glasses and use bone-conduction technology so that the user can hear Alexa without the need for earphones or conventional speakers. Google Glass founder Babak Parviz has apparently been working on the project following his hiring by Amazon in 2014.
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Microsoft, Snapchat, Intel and Apple are all also working on Smart Glasses. As you walk down the street, the beautiful hologram that you see wrapped around Costa cafe, will be different to the one I see, because we follow different Artists, and the breakfast offer your see is different to mine too, because we like different breakfasts!

What can agencies/‘makers’ do to evolve with the changing trends and not get left behind?

Engage with these tech trends. Follow me on Twitter — @sigosling — as I constantly report on them. Or come for a tour of the Unruly Home. To book an experience, go to: https://home.unruly.co/#!#find-us — we work with groups of 10.
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We were lucky enough to get our own tour of this great space a whole separate blog on our thoughts coming soon.
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Kim French — Company Director — kim@cherryduck.com @kimlfrench