Predictions: The Digital Customer Experience in 2010, 2015 and Beyond

Last week I managed to sneak out of the office for a few hours to attend some of the sessions at Toronto Tech Week, held at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

One of the many well-attended programs included a panel discussion hosted by Sequentia Environics: “Future Forward: the digital customer experience in 2010, 2015 and beyond.”

The panelists included:

• Parth Shukla, Director Interactive & MultiChannel Marketing, Bell.ca
• Sulemaan Ahmed, Director of Digital Marketing at Harlequin Enterprises
• Jay Goldman, Vice President, Marketing, Zerofootprint
• Steve Mast, Vice President and Managing Director, Delvinia
• Brendan Kenalty, Loyalty and Retention Programs, Research in Motion

The panelists were asked their opinions on a number of predictions about the state of the Internet in 2010, 2015 and beyond. Given the pace of change we’ve seen over the past decade and considering the current economic turmoil, it’s a pretty tall order to expect anyone to accurately predict what the world will be like less than 2 years from now, let alone in 7. However the panelists were up to the task and made their best guesses.

The first prediction related to the issue of privacy legislation: “Online behaviour tracking will be legislated against in 2010, unless consumers have given express consent to be tracked.”

On this prediction the panelists agreed that while such legislation is inevitable, it would not be introduced before 2010. Steve Mast suggested that if consumers knew the degree to which their movements are currently tracked public pressure could result in legislation sooner rather than later. Suleman Ahmed wasn’t so sure. He thought it an important issue and the government may eventually introduce legislation however social networking sites indicate that people are more than willing to share the minutiae of their daily lives with the rest of the world.

The next predication was about mobile gaming: “Mobile gaming will consume more time, attention and marketing budget than social networking by 2012.”

Panelists were divided on this one. Steve agreed based on the explosive growth of this market in Europe and Asia but qualified his enthusiasm by saying that the telecommunications infrastructure in North America needs to catch up with the rest of the world before it would take off here. Parth Shukla challenged this prediction by saying that in North America, and especially Canada social networking is far more popular than gaming and doesn’t see that changing significantly. Suleman agreed with him, pointing out that people have been making this prediction since 2001, but suggested that the iPhone could literally be the game-changer that advances the popularity of mobile gaming. Jay Goldman suggested that with more and more games being developed in social networks we would eventually see a hybridization of social networking and gaming.

The issue of data privacy was raised again with another prediction, "By 2015, consumers will be able to register a ‘data passport’ of information about their buying preferences and needs with corporations, allowing marketers to completely personalize marketing communications."

The panel thought that given technical, social and legal implications this is unlikely to happen by 2015. It was also agreed that it could conceivably work but would depend on getting consumers to opt-in and customize the benefits to their wants and needs. Jay pointed out that Microsoft tried this approach with its Passport service, but it didn't fly: consumers simply didn't trust handing over their information to Microsoft. Additionally, consumers would prefer to see relevant advertising but people are inherently lazy and usually won't make the effort to fill out a form to set it up.

Personally, I don’t think this is going to happen for two reasons:

1. Companies are loathe to share information about their customers with anyone else, and they’re not going to want to have to rely on – and pay - a single entity who stores, controls and distributes the information contained in these data passports

2. It would have happened already. For example, an Interac debit card is effectively a consumers’ digital passport, containing massive amounts of data about consumer behaviour, but as far as I know Interac has yet to market and monetize that data in some way to retailers (feel free to correct me if I’m wrong).

So, do you agree with the panelists? Don't be afraid to give your opinion. It's not like I'll prove you wrong by saving your answers in a time capsule to be opened in 2020 :-)

Read the rest of the predictions and the panel’s take on them at http://www.glengarrynet.com/clients/seq/SequentiaTTW.pdf