Reinventing Marketing for the Digital Era: The gap between Imagination and Reality

  • Reinventing Marketing for the Digital Era: The gap between Imagination and Reality

    Veronica Cintaretu
    11/12/2018

    Last week on 28th of November, MAEUR together with Turing Students Rotterdam organized the event “Reinventing Marketing in the Digital Era” with two of the most prominent speakers including Google and TWNKLS. Turing Students Rotterdam is a non-profit initiative from Turing Society which helps students solve problems through technology. The association focuses on programming bootcamps and tech events. Throughout 3 years, over 300 bootcampers have graduated with over 5000 people who have attended their events.

    The event was focused on the shift from traditional marketing to data-driven marketing and intertwining of marketing and technology. Prof. Stefano Puntoni, a researcher and professor of Marketing Management at RSM touched on the subject of “human replacement” in the work field. One of his statements was that, even though robots are “taking over the world” and people are losing their jobs, we still have to understand that robots are complements and not substitutes. And this brings us to the first of our headline guests: TWNKLS.

    Marnix Kickert - Creative at TWNKLS – “Bridge the imagination gap with Artificial Reality (AR)”

    How does AR function? Artificial Reality recognizes surroundings and integrates objects from reality into AR. A good example of their work is the Ikea app, “Ikea Place” available in App Store and Google Play. The app scans the room and integrates pieces of furniture on screen, allowing you to see how that cute chair you want so bad will look like in your living room, before actually buying it. Or in our case, the giant staircase in the middle of the room.

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    The next speaker was Martijn Scholtens – Business Development Manager at Google, and he presented the importance of data and connectivity and the role they play in marketing.

    Nowadays, data sharing is an important aspect of our everyday life as technology users. Ironically, data shows that “53% of smartphone users have purchased from a company/brand because the information provided was relevant to their current situation.” (Google). As prof. Puntoni mentioned earlier, we have to understand that robots are complements, not substitutes, and data shows that in the next few years, 750 million more people will receive access to the internet (Google). These findings indicate that consumers are becoming more curious, demanding and impatient. We want things we order online to arrive faster at our doorstep. In conclusion, Martijn talks about technological developments such as:

    ·     Data abundance – consumers ask companies to know them better (this is where the data-driven comes in)

    ·     Full connectivity – access to help everywhere in the world

    ·     Radical technology – time response should become faster and automated

    So, how should we, students and future marketers, prepare for these upcoming trends? Google gave us some food for thought:

    1.     What defines future proof employers?

    “Companies that have a clear data and automation strategy and leverage these to provide full-funnel marketing”

    2.    Do you understand some of the most important challenges that companies are facing in the current world?

    “Coping with radical technology, and an abundance of data and connectivity”

    3.    Do you understand what are important skills to learn in your first jobs after graduation, or even already now?

    “Translating customer demands (business opportunities) into technical solutions”

    Turing Students Rotterdam (TSR) provides education worldwide through web development. TSR offers a “Python for Data Analytics” boot camp which starts on January 14th. If you are interested in learning more about Python this is a great opportunity for you to do so! You can read more about it here: https://bletchleybootcamp.com.

    On the 16th of January, MAEUR will be hosting the annual Trend Event. This year the trend is artificial intelligence! Keep yourself posted by following us on Facebook and checking our website!