In the latest trend mini-series, we’re investigating the digital tipping-point reached in 2018. With the rise of digitally interconnected devices and services comes mass data availability, and we think the way that individuals and brands choose to use this information will come to define them.
Big data is not a passing fad. Every second the world’s population amasses 2.5 quintillion bytes of new data. Every second we perform 40,000 search queries (on Google alone).
In 2017, the number of globally connected devices reached a staggering 20.5bn, or just shy of three for every man, woman and child on the planet. Most of which can instantly monitor an individual’s location and, to some degree, biometric data. And as more of the devices and services we use, be they toasters or wealth managers, become digitally connected, this number will continue to snowball.
So as our very identities become digitised, the requirement for increasing data governance (including ePrivacy and GDPR) is not only timely, but an acknowledgement of the challenges that brands and businesses face. The much-publicised breaches from Equifax and Uber highlight the risks when we summarily give our information to third-party organisations.
In 2018 we are at a digital tipping-point, where financial brands can now utilise either truly big data or very detailed individual data. How brands use data is a huge opportunity for differentiation.
Implications for Financial Service brands:
- As functions of financial products and services become more embedded in our environment and experiences, financial services brands are challenged to create enough emotional resonance that they don’t become invisible.
- Data is going to allow brands to be sufficiently adaptable to offer mass personalisation, which is perceived to be valuable enough for people to willingly pay a premium.
- Financial services brands will need to identify how to use individual and aggregated data to create demonstrably greater value exchanges for their customers. This will allow them to create meaningfully rich and differentiated brand and cultural experiences.
This blog is taken from our whitepaper on trends in financial services, marketing, PR and tech, ‘2018 and beyond’.
