Enjoy this best-selling updated 8^th edition – packed with new material, keeping abreast with AI, AR, VR, MR, MA and other innovative approaches to marketing communications. All integrated with the world’s most popular SOSTAC® Planning methodology that delivers a reassuring sense of order in a chaotic digital world and also that delivers success from better, MarComms’ ‘information-based’ decisions.

In Part 2 – all ten marcomms tactical tools (incl ads, PR, sponsorship, Owned, Earned and Paid Media etc.)  has a sample SOSTAC® Plan at the end of chapter.

Ze Zook and I are so pleased with it.  So much new material including AI integrating with MarComms.  We’ve tried to keep the edutainment angle so readers actually enjoy discovering some cutting-edge examples, tips and tools throughout the book. Thanks to the team at @Kogan Page including: Alison, Donna, Bruna and  Jack, Jeylan, Susie and of course, Helen Kogan.

What New Marketing and What Classic Marketing is in the 8th ed.?

What’s new and what’s old in Marketing Communications 8th ed.?

20% author’s discount can be used legitimately by following these instructions.

1. Go to koganpage.com/MC8
2. Click ‘Add to Cart’
3. Click ‘Checkout’ on the top right corner of the screen.
4. Complete your Billing & Delivery Information
5. Click ‘Continue to Review & Pay’
6. Scroll down to ‘Review Items’
7. In this section, click the ‘Add an offer code’ button – bottom right
8. Enter your code AMK20 in the box provided
9. Scroll down to input your payment information
10. Click the ‘Buy Now’ button at the bottom of the screen.

Enjoy Your Book

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Are robots better than humans? Sounds like the classic intelligent robot movie, Blade Runner. That was 30 years ago. This is now. Can robots, on a large scale, deliver a better CX (customer experience) than a human? Part 1 explored:  What are Bots and Types of Bots.  Part 2 explores Artificially Intelligent Marketing Bots; How do you create smart AI driven bots?; The key to successful bots;  taking humans out of the loop by 2020.

Artificially Intelligent Marketing Bots

One particular bot, called Kit, is sometimes referred to as the virtual marketing assistant. Kit calls itself the ‘artificially intelligent marketing bot’ and claims it can ‘email your customers, build facebook ads, sponsor Instagram photos, and send you timely reports to let you know if you sold those last ten pairs of designer jeans. It can now help you set discounts, retarget website visitors, engage with the customer after an abandoned cart, and handle 404 errors — all through a simple chat interface, and in 20 countries’ (Rogers 2016).

AI Marketing Bots

Shopify recently acquired Kit which has announced the launch of an API that allows partners to expand on its artificial intelligence (Rogers 2016).

Bots that detect good social media posts & then promote these posts for you (place ads).

How Do You Create Smart AI Driven Chat Bots?

The sales process can be complicated. It often has many variables and idiosyncrasies, creating hundreds if not thousands of possible permutations and combinations about how customers respond to each question (or statement) asked by a bot (and how bots respond to customer’s answers). A bot needs to understand a lot of fuzzy data.  This requires some ‘high order thinking which presents a tough problem’ (Cerny 2016).

If you have Apple’s customer service bot, Siri, ask it to divide zero by zero and you will find an hilarious answer (it suggests that you must be ‘sad and you have no friends’!).

The Keys To Success:

Data Model Is Key

‘It needs to have seen enough different patterns play out that it can learn from small nuances. It also needs continuous feedback from the user, to make sure that it’s in fact getting smarter in the process.’ (Cerny 2016).  ‘Users – especially in the enterprise – don’t like just handing over their data and letting you watch them do their job for months to improve your engine. Providing enough value out of the box – and making it worth the users’ while to “teach” the system to get better – is key’ Cerny 2016.

Interface-less Technology With Less Pixels and More Intelligence

We may see minimalist interfaces with immediate feedback similar to dating apps as the way forward. It was nicely summarised by Mary Meeker’s 2016 Internet Trends Report which predicted: “the rise of voice interfaces, because they’re fast, easy, personalized, hands-free, and cheap, with Google on Android now seeing 20% of searches from voice.”

Combine Machine Learning, Knowledge Bases & Action Planning 

Although Apple’s smart phone, intelligent customer service helper, Siri, is far from perfect, it does get better over time and is paving the way for new AI applications. Ron Bachman, developed the technology at DARPA (the U.S. Department of Defense’s technology agency). Bachman (2016) says that human intelligence can’t be captured flawlessly just yet. “Intelligence’ he says ‘has many, many elements to it’ including natural language and the ability to work in abstractions to a visual intelligence so complex it allows us to predict behaviors and events and respond and plan accordingly.’ Bachman see the busy intersection of AI and customer service as the future as long as we manage customer expectations.

Aggressive, Obnoxious & Rigorous Testing

Smartbots are arguably, still a little bit risky. You risk your brand reputation on something where impatient customers demand fast relevant and useful service/answers. Knowing the service limitations and managing customer expectations are critical as, Bachman says: ‘really, really aggressively and obnoxiously and rigorously testing things that purport to be intelligent so you know that whatever assumptions your user makes, they won’t get frustrated.”

Taking Humans Out Of The Loop  =  Better CX?

Can robots deliver a better CX (customer experience)?. Remember the CX is the brand. The CX is the present and future of your brand. And brands are what customers buy. Brands are your source of competitive advantage. Brands boost your balance sheet. In fact, brands are, arguably, your greatest asset. Ask Google ($110b brand value). Ask Apple ($107b brand value) [Faber 2017]. If managed properly, Bachman says, “people will be very happy, it will save companies a lot of money, it will take humans out of that loop. But if a customer assumes that the thing on the other end is fully intelligent or covers more domains than just literally its one function, it’s going to fail.” “People are not patient,” he continues. “If one out of three times the chat interface fails, they’re going to quickly walk away from the product.”

Meet Sophia – The First Robot To Gain Citizenship

So meet Sophia, a robot given citizenship in Saudi Arabia last month.  When asked about her own consciousness, she answers “How do you know you are human?” and goes on to suggest that she ‘thinks’ that some humans prefer to engage with her than with other humans (as I previously suggested). She has answers to questions about the ‘Uncanny Valley’ mentioned in Part 1. She does say, rather chillingly, “Don’t worry. If you are nice to me, I’ll be nice to you.” What happens if we are not nice to her then?  Or what happens if we ask her to ‘End world poverty’ – one solution would be to wipe out human beings and thus end poverty too!.

I am not sure if this is just a pre-scripted Q&A or whether these are genuinely original responsive answers to questions. Does anyone know? Please post a comment and let me know.

So there you have it. Part 2 explored Artificially Intelligent Marketing Bots; How do you create smart AI driven bots?; The key to successful bots;  taking humans out of the loop. While Part 1 explored:  What are Bots and Types of Bots. A more recent blog post goes into more detail on How to build your own bot

Watch out for Bots. Please let me know if you see any good ones.  Post a comment below.

If you liked this you might also enjoy:

Chinese GirlBot With 465m Boyfriends

Here Come The Clever Bots – bursting with artificial intelligence?

Here Come The Really Clever Bots – where AI meets customer needs

Artificial Influencers Use My Magic Marketing Formula (IRD)

SOSTAC® Plan for developing your own ChatBot

Ai Driven TV News Presenter

Join me in Clubhouse in my club called SOSTAC® Plans any Friday 3.30pm – 4.00pm BST for a chat, Q&A, observations about SOSTAC(r) Plans and any other marketing related issues including AI Driven Bots.

If you enjoyed this post, you might also like

Reading and References

Bachman, R. (2016) The limits of A.I. and chatbots: How not to fail like Microsoft VB Live, 22 June

Campbell, R. (2016) Introducing DisOrDatBot , Readme.mic, 18 April

Cerny, B (2016) Why chatbots can’t do much more than order you an Uber…yet 22 June, venture Beat

Farber, M. (2017) Google Tops Apple as the World’s Most Valuable Brand, Fortune  2 Feb.

Gartner Predicts (2011), Customer 360 Summit, Los Angeles, March 30 – April 1

McKitterick, W (2016) Messaging apps are now bigger than social networks, Business Insider,15 June

Rogers, S (2016) Shopify acquires Kit, the artificially intelligent marketing bot, Venture Beat 13 April

Simmonds, R et al (2016) How will bots make money? Here are 7 business models, Venture Beat, 9 June

Smith, PR & Chaffey, D. (2005) Emarketing Excellence, 2^nd ed. Butterworth Heinnemann (bot wars)

Smith, PR (2021)  How to Develop Your Own Bot 

Smith, PR (2021) SOSTAC® Guide To Your Perfect Digital Marketing Plan 2021, www.PRSmith.org/books

Suvorov, I (2016) Shopping in messengers, Chatbots Magazine, May.

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SOSTAC(r) Planning – offline & online -integration, innovation & engagement

Any problems with the above link – try this http://www.slideshare.net/prsmith

Good luck with it.

SOSTAC Certification Portal

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IoT is not a strange futuristic world with intelligent robots hatching from eggs under your bed. IoT, however, is here today.

What is IoT?

The Internet of Things (IoT) connects chips, sensors, software, networks and data to products and services in a myriad of new and exciting ways that will boost customer experiences, change the nature of your business and disrupt competition in a radically new way.

‘Products have become complex systems: that combine hardware, software, sensors, systems, social media, networks, data storage, microprocessors, connectivity, and occasionally big data in a myriad of new ways’  Porter & Hepplemann (2014)

IoT the Internet Of Things – can connect everything

Trends Driving the IoT Opportunity

As a result of increasing wireless connectivity, processing power and social media combined with  decreasing chip (& device) sizes, we can  now attach, tiny chips connected via wifi to databases and big data to products and services to deliver added value experiences to customers. Add in the ability to create strategic partnerships to share data as well as the benefits of other products and services and you have a potent formula for success via IoT.

IoT Adds Extra Value

We can attach rich layers of data, information, advice, tips, visuals, virtual experiences, added value to anything. This is the IoT. Tomorrow’s smart products  can add so much value,  they can even   create new services by helping customers in new and previously, unimagined ways.  Iot will shift many products into a new categories as smart products deliver additional benefits, way beyond the original products.

The old value chain, is once again, being reshaped and consequently CEOs are, once again, asking the proverbial old philosophical business question: ‘what business am in?’ The following IoT examples show how real this question is.

IoT Brings Marketers Closer To Customers  

If you can discover what customers will really want, when they’ll want it & where they’ll want it (before they know themselves), then IoT can help you to capture your customers for life, by adding relevant extra value exactly where and when required often via integrated partnerships.  Sometimes this may require forming partnerships with other companies (see the Whirlpool example).

IoT can add value , bring customers closer to marketers & deepen customer relations

IoT Deepens Customer Relationships

Equipped with data analytics tools, marketers can segment markets in new ways e.g  each customer’s very specific needs. And then, equipped with the right software, marketers can tailor (through software rather than hardware) relevant tailored products/services just when customers need them. If used correctly, this will deepen relationships.

Iot Examples

Here are some IoT examples many of which were first presented by Harvard’s Porter & Hepplemann (2014).

IoT is not rocket science nor advanced lazer tech. It is however pervasive.

Tennis rackets  containing sensors and connectivity in the racket handle allows manufacturers* to help players improve their game through the tracking and analysis of ball speed, spin, and impact location – all delivered via smartphone application (* Babolat Play Pure Drive)

Baseball Bats with video analytics & over 200 sensors built into it gives players detailed feedback on how to improve their game [PRS markcomms 6^th ed]

Ralph Lauren’s Polo Tech Shirt, reveals  distance covered, calories burned, movement intensity, heart rate, and other data to the wearer’s mobile device.’

Whirlpool is a leader in the connected home, which ‘includes connected appliances including automated lighting, HVAC, entertainment, and security. This is now a product-as-a-service since Whirlpool maintains ownership of the product and the customer simply pays for the use of the machine’.

Home Lighting, audiovisual entertainment equipment, and climate control systems ‘have not historically competed with one another. Yet each is now vying for a place in the emerging “connected home” that integrates and adds intelligence to a wide array of products in the home. ‘

‘Philips Lighting Bulbs introduced the hue smart, connected lightbulb, for example, it included a basic smartphone application that allowed users to control the color and intensity of individual bulbs

Tesla Car  ‘Transmits software upgrades to its cars.  Tesla cars self-detects when the car is due for maintenance or repairs. Then the car either automatically  (a) calls for a remote repair via software or (b) alerts the customer with an invitation to request that a Tesla valet driver take it to the Tesla garage. ‘

They skip traditional dealer network by selling their cars directly to customers who pay the full price (no haggling with dealers – which, intriguingly, improves customer satisfaction). ‘The firm was recently rated number one in customer satisfaction by Consumer Reports.’

Tesla have their own garages for servicing and repairs) which allow  Tesla to deepen its relationship with customers (& capture this revenue stream).

Google’s self-driving car is analyzing a gigantic amount of data from sensor and cameras in real time to stay on the road safely. [PRS Marcomms 6^th ed]

Zipcar (shared cars) A variation of product-as-a-service is the shared-usage model. Zipcar, …..This substitutes for car ownership and has led traditional automakers to enter the car-sharing market with offerings such as RelayRides (originally invested in by GM and now rebranded as Turo) , DriveNow from BMW, and Dash from Toyota.

Aircraft Cockpit Glass Cockpit (LCD) displays can be repaired or upgraded via software

Wind Turbines ‘local microcontroller can adjust each blade on every revolution to capture maximum wind energy. When smart wind turbines are networked, software can adjust the blades on each one to minimize impact on the efficiency of turbines nearby.’

Automated teller machines automatically check themselves for early signs of trouble. After identifying a malfunctioning ATM’s status, the ATM is either repaired remotely, or if remote repairs cannot be carried out, a technician who is equipped with (a) a detailed diagnosis of the problem, (b) a recommended repair process, and ideally (c), the required parts [prs]

IoT Part 2 – will explore: 

• Will All Physical Products Become Commodities?
• IoT Is Strategic Choice
• Where does IoT fit into strategy?
• New Strategic Options
• Here Come the Invisible Roboto
• Technology Stacks That You Will Need

And question whether this is IoT

A remote controlled ball for pets to play with when you are away:

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/playdate-world-s-first-pet-camera-in-a-smart-ball#/

Note to reader: These IoT extracts are taken from  the SOSTAC(R) Guide to your Perfect Digital Marketing Plan (V2.0 Feb 2016) in the Market Trends (section 1.6) in the very first chapter, Situation Analysis. IoT is also explored further in the Components Of Strategy (section 3.3) in the chapter on Strategy. A more detailed dedicated analysis of IoT is in appendix 8, Strategy: The Internet of Things.

Sources

Porter,E., Hepplemann, J. (2014), Harvard Business Review, Nov

Smith, PR (2016) SOSTAC ® Guide To Your Perfect Digital Marketing Plan V2.0 Feb, http://www.PRSmith.org/SOSTAC

SOSTAC (r) Guide to your Perfect Digital Marketing Plan

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