The Google Glass is slated to be launched for the consumer market
in 2014, and much anticipation has been revved up amongst marketers and users
alike. For the consumers, it will be more of the “cool” factor and entertaining
user-experience; while for the marketers, we will be keen to find out how to
maximise advertisers’ value through the Google Glass channel.
Due to the mobility and personal nature of using the Glass, two
key features are expected to be integrated in the Glass – location-based
searches and personalised ads. Through Google Glass, the wearer can get instant
information and marketing messages about his/ her surroundings through image recognition
app; making it more informative for the wearer as well as a great marketing channel
for retailers, restaurateurs and other location-based advertisers. In my opinion,
it can be super exciting and fun for some users, but could be also be a nuisance
to some users. Nevertheless, having an activation-deactivation option within
that app would be a great feature for users. Althernatively, we will be expecting permission-seeking feature being used when marketers are engaging the Glass users. For a start, I can
also foresee that advertisers would need to put up signage at their retail stores to
remind and encourage shoppers with the Glass to use the location-based search
app, to know more about, sales promotions and other merchandise-related
information, at least in Singapore.
In the case of personalised ads, it is believed that with
Google’s dominance in the internet search business, it is expected that Google will
eventually reach a level of expertise and capability to create highly-personalised
search information packages for individual users through the Google Glass
medium. Now, users are definitely very interested to experience such a
phenomenon; especially it is something that has been created in SCI-FI genres a
long time ago. I would love to try it as a novelty experience but in the long-run,
I would still prefer to have the option of varying my degree of information exposure
to Google, in terms of my personal interests, search preferences and “likes”
within the digital world. As a marketer,
we can predict a more positive ROI for advertisers due a more targeted
marketing campaign like never before. In terms of market analytics or feedback,
it will be even more accurate.
From a technology point of view, I would foresee a flooding
of aggregated and customised information between users and advertisers that has
not been seen before, which would require humongous technical capacity and
speed to process.
Welcome to the new digital age!
Tony Leu
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