Dynamic technology and its effect on online marketers

Tuesday evening I was honored to be a part of Inc.’s Faster, Better, Smarter panel. As a panelist, I was able to share with other entrepreneurs war stories of selecting technologies to use for the right stages of growth in my business, suggest technologies I have used and loved and highlight technological trends on the forefront for small business owners. One tech article on Wired.com caught my eye as I was preparing for the event and I was compelled to share it with those interested in industry-leading marketing technologies, like the technologies we use on our clients’ behalf.

According to the article:

“Today, most recommendation and targeting systems focus on the products: Commerce sites analyze our consumption patterns and use that info to figure out that, say, viewers of Iron Man also watch The Dark Knight. But new work by Maurits Kaptein and Dean Eckles, doctoral students in communications at Stanford University, suggests there’s another factor that can be brought into play. Retailers could not only personalize which products are shown, they could personalize the way they’re pitched, too.”

Personally, if I’m on a catalog site, I know I’m being marketed to. I don’t mind if the companies doing the marketing are knocking it out of the park and doing a fantastic job. I rather appreciate that : ) . But this refinement of presenting products not only in the most convenient, relevant place for me online, but also in the format of suggestion I am most responsive to, is a whole new level. It has a lot of fun implications for marketing firms like Write2Market.

But aside from business aspects in an agency setting, you can see how this will reverberate across not only how products are sold online, but also how companies and people develop an ever more self-reflective personality–personality ad reduction–as technology serves them more of the same and more of the same taste they already have. Using technology, as in the case of retail, to assist in automating mass marketing when it comes to “format” is a fascinating next step in creating a personalized world and virtual environment for people. Soon, the line between “being” and “branding” will be blurred more than ever and people will be encouraged to identify even more with the products they buy and like.

Which, I predict, will only increase our desire for core authentic and realistic over time–and make truly fresh and creative even more of a premium product. Fascinating pendulum swings.

-Lisa Calhoun