‘Augmented Humanity’ the key to 2018: Isobar

Just when Artificial Intelligence is beginning to be accepted as the tool that will empower story-telling in advertising, comes a trends report from Isobar, a leading global digital and creative hybrid agency, that says, “get ready for ‘Augmented Humanity.”
Isobar predicts 2018 to be the year of Augmented Humanity, where technology is expected to enhance and scale most human attributes.
So also in Malaysia, with its ever-widening base of digital consumers, the report finds resonance.
Talking to MARKETING, Ben Chew, Marketing Director of Isobar Malaysia, said, “Augmented Humanity explores the evolving relationship between humanity and technology and predicts a harmonious future.”
“In today’s people-based marketing approach where we are marketing to consumers’ lifestyle and behaviour, the magic lies in discovering the formula to leverage the power of data and technology with real emotional connection,” he adds.
“In Malaysia, where we’re moving away from traditional race-based marketing, and moving towards inclusive marketing strategies that focus on understanding consumers’ lifestyle and behavaiour, these trends holds true.”
Amongst the key highlights of the report is this: ‘technological interfaces will become more natural and instinctive, and that artificial intelligence will meet emotional intelligence.’
The era of anonymous, one size fits all transactions, will be viewed as a temporary blip in our evolution, and as technology advances it will become more human, not less.
It will also automate repetitive tasks to free up time for creativity and compassion, and artificial intelligence will meet emotional intelligence.
Isobar report talks about all this and much more.
Jean Lin, Isobar’s Global CEO, comments: “Artificial intelligence is great, but humans score on emotional intelligence. The power of being human is in empathy. This cannot be automated or outsourced. Augmented Humanity will use technology to scale everything that is best and most powerful about human interaction.”
Jean adds, “It will return us to a time where voice will be the primary way we interact with the world, where we will be recognized and rewarded in stores, and where we will buy more directly from trusted suppliers.
A quick run-through of Isobar’s study reveals five key trends; these explore the intersection of technology and humanity, magic and the machine, code and conscience:
1. Body Talk explores the body as an interface, as our eyes and ears replace touching and tapping.
2. Powered by People tackles the shift from customers to communities as technology turbocharges the sharing economy.
3. The Economy of Me looks at the power of AI to deliver ever more personalized products, prices and places.
4. The Ethical Algorithm tackles technology as a force for good; in a world of fake news and algorithm bias is there such a thing as moral code?
5. The Makers and the Machines explores the extraordinary union of art and technology to create outputs we could never- before imagine.
Within each theme, Isobar unpicks key sub trends and explores how they come to life today, in the future, and what they mean for businesses and brands right now.
Ben said, “The report celebrates the importance of emotion at every touchpoint; in this new landscape, it is no longer enough for technologists to ask “how does it work?” – they need to consider human emotion and drivers and ask “how does it feel?”
How will this technology, fueling the human attributes, impact the creative story-telling ability of the agencies?
Ben said, “Creative story-telling will always be rooted in deep insights and strong emotional connection that only humankind is able to identify. However, what is imminent now is technology’s ability to capture every conceivable scenario or moment ever caught on camera.”
Ben sees technology more as an aggregator that will help identity all the emotional trappings of a story that will connect the strongest to an audience. “And this will almost be to formulaic precision,” said Ben. This, in sum, will be the essence of connecting with consumers in 2018.
Further details of the report can be found in, ‘Augmented Humanity, Isobar Trends Report 2018’.