IBM Amplify Conference
At IBM’s recent Amplify conference, there was a heavy focus around cognitive technologies, an emerging area that integrates data mining, pattern recognition and natural language processing to mimic the way the human brain works. To better understand what it is and why CMOs should care, I consulted with Harriet Green, General Manager, Watson Internet of Things, Commerce and Education, IBM.
Kimberly Whitler: Before we dive into the cognitive waters, I have to ask about a recent announcement IBM made regarding Apple Pay. How does this impact marketers?
Harriet Green: Absolutely. This new Apple Pay on the web capability makes it easier and more secure for our Commerce clients to complete a transaction. That’s a big deal when you consider that four of the top five reasons users abandon the checkout process is due to the logistics of entering information through desktop or mobile according to BI Intelligence.
But that’s only part of the excitement. When you dig down, the impact is far greater. As with cognitive, it dramatically improves the shopping experience for customers and that’s one of the biggest, if not THE biggest, priority for CMOs today. When you make every step of a customer’s journey brilliant, they will come back for more, they will talk you up to their friends and become advocates for you in social media circles. That’s how you create loyal customers which is something every CMO cares about very deeply.
Whitler: You mentioned cognitive. At IBM’s recent Amplify conference there was a heavy focus around cognitive technologies. Why should marketers care about cognitive?
Green: For marketers, one thing has always remained constant, the customer. But today’s customers are sharing incredible amounts of information and they expect marketers to use each piece to personalize every little interaction on their journey. At first glance that sounds easy enough but consider this—every year hundreds of zettabytes of data are being generated. In fact, 90% of the data in the world today has been created in the last two years alone. That’s a huge number and much of it’s coming from consumers like you and me. Now of course we would all like this information served up in an easy-to-digest pie chart, but the reality marketers face is far different. Much of this is dark data, messy, human information and it’s passing right by marketers unnoticed and unused. To say this is a huge missed opportunity is a massive understatement. This is why cognitive computing is so incredibly important.
Cognitive technologies are unlike anything that’s come before. They use natural language processing and machine learning to understand, reason and learn and in doing so put each customer at the very center of every marketing campaign. We’ve seen this with Watson and now we are seeing it with marketers as well as merchandisers and ecommerce practitioners. By putting these same cognitive capabilities into the hands of marketers, this data is no longer hidden in the dark. Marketers can instantly gain a deeper view into the bigger world, discover new patterns, get to know each customer on unimaginable levels and be agile enough to shift campaigns on the fly. We can also combine this with data from other sources such as social media and weather which raises our understanding of customers to entirely new levels.
Whitler: Any examples of how cognitive could impact a retail business?
Green: When we were in Tampa for Amplify there were two examples that struck me most. The first involved our customer Performance Bicycle. Performance Bicycle is the number one specialty bicycle retailer in the U.S. and a longstanding IBM customer. They also share our cognitive vision.
Imagine that a prospective customer expresses a newfound interest in cycling. Taking the first step in a new area like cycling can be daunting and many consumers would probably drive to the cycling shop where a store representative guides them through the entire process. But this buyer is an avid online shopper so she does her research from home. As she pages through the Performance Bicycle site, the company knows she’s a new prospect by looking at her web behavior, social media posts, and in-store activity. They also see that she is early in her buying journey and support her with the right content, such as tips for getting started, good cycling routes in their area, and of course, gear for beginners. Cognitive makes taking that initial step much easier but it doesn’t stop there.
As this customer becomes a more avid cyclist (and engages in the website more often), this is where cognitive really creates value. As I eluded to earlier, cognitive is agile and it adapts to these changes and presents her with different content, such as race schedules, maintenance tips that she can do herself, and more sophisticated gear for longer rides. And it does this all automatically. It understands her and it understands the content and puts them together in real time for a remarkable, end-to-end client experience.
The second example came from one of our Design Studio employees who created an entire campaign using two things, her voice and Watson, the ultimate agile marketer. That's it. As you have probably heard already, Watson uses natural language processing and machine learning to reveal insights from the hundreds of zettabytes of data I mentioned earlier. By using Watson, she described her target audience and then Watson quickly responded with the full list of targets and recommendations, everything from which campaign to use and the content and offers it thought would resonate best. It even took into account current weather factors and suggested a different set of product and offers for this audience. With these elements locked in she simply instructed Watson to launch the campaign. The entire exercise took just a few minutes. It's a pretty transformative experience for marketers.
Whitler: Earlier you mentioned cognitive’s ability to understand, reason and learn. Are these technologies going to replace marketers?
Green: No. What cognitive does is help marketers focus less on tedious day-to-day task and more on the bigger picture, delighting the customer. Today, marketers spend nearly 70% of their time on mundane details and just 30% strategizing and creating experiences for customers. Mention this figure to any marketer and the response is unanimous--we need to spend more time designing and planning truly compelling and personalized, customer-driven marketing initiatives that bring the customer to the center of everything. Technologies such as cognitive help to flip that 70/30 figure, freeing marketers to focus the majority of their time and effort on personalizing the entire journey for each and every customer.
Join the Discussion: @KimWhitler @IBMCommerce
