The ECCT's Marketing Club hosted a lunch on the topic "GroupM Consumer EYE - How brands should respond to changes in technology & media" featuring guest speakers Weber Tai, Data & Analytic Solutions Leader at GroupM and Jennifer Chen, Senior Director of Mindshare. The speakers outlined how brand owners should best use new technology and media to communicate and engage more effectively with consumers. Among other subjects, they covered how consumers think and are responding to technology, how to engage more effectively with consumers given faster and shorter consumer purchase journeys and how to retain customers by utilising data collection and usage.

Changes in technology have enabled information to be transmitted faster and faster communication between people. GroupM launched the Consumer Eye programme to explore the changes in technology and innovation, how consumers are using new media and how it is affecting their shopping behaviour.

They found that consumers have a generally positive attitude towards technology given the convenience it brings. At the same time, however, consumers are also worried about the collection and use of their personal data and therefore hope that technology companies and others that handle data will be strictly regulated.

In order to use technology effectively to make consumers’ lives better and more convenient,  GroupM offers three main proposals: rapidly shortening the consumer journey, fully integrating channels and properly managing business relationships through data collection.

Online shopping saves a lot of time and increases the speed of delivery while the rise of mobile payments has accelerated the speed of payments. Although Taiwan was relatively slow to begin mobile payments, usage of mobile payments is comparable to other countries in the Asia-Pacific region.

Also worth noting is voice assistance technology and services. 60% of respondents surveyed have used voice assistance services, mainly through mobile phone carriers. In addition, a high proportion of users of smart speakers have a positive attitude towards them.

5G will serve as an important foundation for the Internet of Things. Brand owners should therefore consider what role they want to play in consumer life and how to connect with smart appliances.

Given consumer demand for accelerated and shorter consumer journeys, brand owners have to constantly think about how to accelerate the efficiency of their services. In addition, they should seize opportunities enabled by emerging networked devices and mobile payments.

According to the survey data, even if consumers use physical channels, they may also do additional shopping online through mobile devices afterwards. With the help of technology and digitalisation, the boundary between online access and offline channels has become increasingly blurred. Therefore, brands would benefit by synchronising and integrating online and offline data to further differentiate consumers’ preferences.

Brands also need to be cautious in the new era. Once a brand’s adverts are placed around inappropriate content, consumers will be turned off and the brand will lose market share. It is therefore important to choose a good partner to help in brand promotion, but at the same time protect the brand's reputation and security.