Mastering The Seven Layers of Connectivity in the Era Of the Connected Individual

It’s marketing, that’s all it is.

It is easy to get distracted from the fundamentals of marketing with the vast number of new terms everyone is throwing around nowadays, but the fundamentals of marketing have not changed. Simply put, the job of the marketer is to help put a seller and buyer together (physically or digitally), as efficiently and effectively as possible, so that the two exchange value, e.g. attention for content, likes for exposure, entertainment for personal data, loyalty for liability reduction, product, and service for money.  =Once they’re in position to exchange value it is up to the sales process to take over and close the deal.

The connection between the buyer and seller is ideally powered by a system of cold fusion marketing, a self-sustaining situation where the buyer and seller can come together in a perpetually self-sustaining dance of give and take. The moment the individual has an implicit or explicit need, any need along Maslow’s hierarchy, the marketer can be present, in-real-time, with no excessive expenditure of effort, to serve the individual for the mutual benefit of each party.

Like cold fusion for energy cold fusion for marketing is years away from being a reality, but it will come. Gartner, predicts that productive real-time marketing is at least 10 years away; but, don’t wait. 

The world has changed far more in the past 100 years than in any other century in history. The reason is not political or economic but technological — technologies that flowed directly from advances in basic science. – Stephen Hawking

There are a fast number of fundamental technologies, including, materials, sensors, storage, power, screens, communications, data science, artificial intelligence and more converging to help marketers build brand, products, and companies that connect with and serve individuals, at scale, and on the individual’s terms.  These technologies shall converge over the next ten years and as they come together the practice of marketing a decade from will be unrecognizable.

We will see more change in marketing over the next ten years than we’ve seen the previous five.  The changes ahead of use are exponential. 

In fact, if you’re in the job of marketing communications, creating content, analyzing data, scheduling a campaign or executing a campaign, you’re going to be outsourced to the algorithm in the next three years.  Over the next decade, in order to thrive in the era of the connected individuals, marketers and their companies must learn to master the seven layers of connectivity.

Over the next ten years’ analysts estimate that 75b~500b connected devices are going to come online. Conservative estimates suggest that at least ten of these devices shall be associated directly with an individual, fifty or more in the individual’s household, and there will effectively be an infinite number of devices out in the world—driving to work, at work, shopping, eating at a restaurant, traveling, and more.  We are entering an era of constant connectedness.

From phones, watches, cars, speakers, TV, monitors, thermostats, refrigerators, desks, medications, glasses, contact lenses, toothbrushes and teeth we’re going to be connected. The vast majority of these devices will not have screens, they are going to be passive and active monitoring devices producing raw data about the world around them.  Just a few of these devices will have screen or interfaces (visual, audible, haptic) that the marketer can use to exchange information, communicate, with the individual.

1. Collection
2. Monitoring
3. Analysis
4. Prediction
5. Synchronization
6. Real-time Service

Image by truthseeker08 from Pixabay

Tags: Connected Marketing