Customer experience: five ways it will change in 2020

Businesses are at a challenging, but exciting, frontier full of opportunity, a wealth of transformative technologies and space for creative exploration and purposeful change.

Where businesses were once closed-off, exclusive and protective, customers are now actively invited to input, co-create and help shape them.

Where brands would once entice people into store, they now go to where the customer is – online, in transit, at home.

“Marketing success has evolved beyond simply changing consumer behaviour; good marketing will also evolve brand behaviours, co-shaped by the consumer”

What’s more, this empowered consumer is also challenging businesses on their practices and holding them to account, whether that’s how customer data is managed, how advertising represents diverse audiences or how processes contribute to sustainability.

This is creating a business culture dominated by listening, which permits brands to become more intimately involved in the wider issues that affect their customers’ lives.

Marketing success has evolved beyond simply changing consumer behaviour; good marketing will also evolve brand behaviours, co-shaped by the consumer.

There has been a transfer in the concept of value as businesses seek to monetise that precious asset: attention, enticing people to spend time in their ecosystems.

With creativity, brands have expanded from product silos into experience ecosystems comprised of products, services and content that work together to holistically enhance the customer’s lifestyles and reinforce the business’ purpose.

“For success in 2020, global marketers need omnichannel experiences driven by ideas, powered by tech and differentiated by creativity at every touchpoint of the customer journey”

Whether retail, media, entertainment, finance, fashion or healthcare, all brands are now in the business of experiences.

For success in 2020, global marketers need omnichannel experiences driven by ideas, powered by tech and differentiated by creativity at every touchpoint of the customer journey.

Isobar explores these issues in its 2020 Trends Report, looking at how humanity can work in harmony with technology to expand and enrich life.

It provides next-level insights and inspiration that will enable global marketers and future-thinkers to achieve success in 2020 through idea-led experiences that can deliver growth in the coming decade.

Five key trends for 2020 

1. Augmented experiences – how technology is enhancing the physical world to create unexpected and joyful experiences, from enchanted electronics to using natural user interfaces like gesture, voice and gaze.
2. Humanising data – how data sets, algorithms and AI are becoming ‘humanised’ with emotion and personality, from affective computing to circadian content.
3. Socialised commerce – how technology is putting people at the centre of how we search, shop and share, from the DTC opportunity to social storefronts.
4. Digital kinship – how technology is helping to find and foster meaningful communities for everybody, from micro-segmentation to niche networks.
5. Post-purpose activation – how technology is empowering brands to rediscover and activate their purpose for impact, from civic brands to subverting tech for good.

Central to the 2020 Trends Report is the concept of the empowered consumer. It explains how the new decade brings great challenges, but also a wealth of opportunities through a customer-centric approach in partnership with technologies.

The report provides guidance on navigating this new landscape to keep businesses and brands ahead of the curve. Each chapter outlines why these developments are important, key examples of the trends in action, why businesses need to be aware of them and how they can take advantage of their positive potential.

The report is authored by our award-winning strategy and innovation experts from across our 85 offices in 45 markets.

2020 is a landmark year for businesses to grasp the full potential of augmented humanity. Download the report here to find out how.