The future of user experience

author: Ian Karnell – President & Founder
As interactive marketing has become more prominent over the last 5years, some brand marketers expressed concern that technology would begin to take the place of an engaging brand experience. Also, they feared that the focus on data mining would distract marketers fromcreating real and meaningful brand interactions with the consumer,thus losing the brand completely.

Another school of marketers envisioned a renaissance in brandmarketing enabled by technology. They believed that the Internet would spawn new innovations in the way marketers could extend the brand through dynamic interactive channels with the consumer, as well as enhance the consumer’s brand experience through a richer understanding of their desires, behaviors and attitudes measured by real-time interactions. Such interactions would allow marketers to architect tailored consumer experiences that would differentiate the brand from its competitors and deepen the brand’s relationship with consumers.

As the Internet becomes more ubiquitous (see — The future ofone-to-one marketing) allowing consumers and marketers to converse anytime and anywhere, consumers will become fully immersed(surrounded by colors, shapes, sounds, and sensations) in brand experiences. No longer will consumers merely consume a brand; they will become part of the brand and live the brand.[i] One to One elieves that Interactive marketers will be at the forefront of leading innovations that will deliver such brand experiences by architecting proximity-based user experiences .

One to One defines proximity-based user experiences as: theextension of a company’s brand through interactive communication channels and devices, which surround and engage the consumer at a relevant place and time.

One to One believes that marketers will need to:

1. Look beyond the PC Web
2. Look beyond explicit customer attitudes and behaviors
3. Adopt more sophisticated skill sets, tools, and measurements