The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is the juggernaut conference that whips Vegas into a tech-infused froth every year. It’s a proving ground for innovative technologies, where brands come to do business, meet new partners, and flashily debut their latest releases and most visionary breakthroughs. CES began in the Big Apple back in 1967, with 250 exhibitors and 17,500 attendees — CES 2024 wrapped up on January 12th, with more than 135,000 people from 150 countries attending.

Produced and run by the Consumer Technology Association, CES is the only tradeshow that brings the entire tech landscape together at a singular event. From the early days of developers, manufacturers, and suppliers of hardware, software, and tech delivery systems, to today — we’re now seeing representation from across all parts of the consumer technology industry and business verticals. We’re talking everything from augmented and virtual reality, Web3, smart cities, adult entertainment, robotics, sports, medicine, and of course… artificial intelligence.

CES 2024 was steeped with AI. From general artificial intelligence that has been around for years (think virtual assistants and chatbots) to generative AI-infused products, AI was the hot-ticket item this year and was seemingly in everything, everywhere, all at once — revolutionizing user experience, increasing accessibility, and boosting efficiency. There were even separate AI-themed event tracks, from the Spoon: Food Tech Summit, which delves into how AI is transforming the food industry with tools like Chef Watson, to a track on AI-driven retail experiences.

Here’s a look at some of the more fascinating and creative ways today’s most innovative tech brands are using AI at this year’s consumer electronics tradeshow.

Photo: NuraLogix

NuraLogix’s “Magic” Mirror

Dreamed up by digital health company NuraLogix, the Anura MagicMirror is the first of its kind. It analyzes the blood flow in your face to monitor vitals like blood pressure and assess your risk of heart disease. It can guess your age based on your complexion and even gauge how stressed you may be. While it’s not directly accessible to consumers for home use (yet), you may see the MagicMirror in gyms, clinics, and other places where people are monitoring their health and well-being and where standard mirrors exist today. The device uses NuraLogix’s Affective AI technology, DeepAffex, which uses pattern recognition to inform its findings. As the use of AI broadens, devices like the MagicMirror will become less Jetsons and more Modern Family. To see it use, check out this video of CNET’s Nick Wolny giving it a go.

 

Photo: CNET

Volkswagen’s Enhanced EVs

AI is whipping Volkswagen EVs into shape by integrating ChatGPT into its line of electric vehicles, including the ID 3, ID 4, and ID 5. The AI chatbot is also coming to the fuel-powered Golf, Passat, and Tiguan, enabling drivers to ask their cars for restaurant recommendations, healthy pet food options, best face glitter, and more.

 

Photo: Dell

Dell’s AI-enabled Laptops

Dell’s new line of XPS laptops will feature a slew of built-in AI enhancements, including an additional processor for on-device AI computing and a dedicated Microsoft Copilot key. Copilot is Microsoft’s generative AI assistant, which can help you search the web, summarize documents, or create generative images — all part of Microsoft’s aim to be a leader in artificial intelligence. This line of AI-souped up laptops is slated to hit stores soon, though for those chomping at the bit, it may not be soon enough.

 

Photo: Baracoda

Baracoda’s Wellness-minded Mirror

AI-infused mirrors were truly shining at CES 2024. Healthtech pioneer Baracoda unveiled BMind, the world’s first smart mirror for mental well-being, which acts as a health companion that’s able to identify mood and help you users manage stress. It provides personalized recommendations and experiences based on your mental state by harnessing cutting-edge generative AI with Computer Vision and Large Learning Models (LLM) to interpret language, expressions, and gestures. BMind gathers information without the use of any invasive tech, helping curb drab moods and feelings of loneliness through immersive experiences, including light, sound, visuals, and coaching. The product actually won a CES Innovation Award this year in the smart home category.

 

Photo: CNET

Capella’s Subscription-based Parenting App

Welcome to the brave new world of parenting, where a smartphone app can “translate” your little one’s cries, telling you whether they’re tired, uncomfortable, hungry, or in need of a diaper change via technology that can decipher a baby’s needs using AI. Cappella says its technology is about 95% accurate, versus roughly 30% for humans who try to discern their babies’ needs on their own. The Capella app costs $10 a month — and, don’t fret, the company is working on using AI to soothe and comfort your baby, too.

 

Photo: Seergrills

Seergrills’s Perfectly Timed Grill

Say hello to the Perfecta Grill, which uses AI to grill your steak to perfection. It’s essentially a $3,500 toaster for steak that promises that perfect sizzling meat in two minutes. Utilizing an unusual vertical infrared oven, this high-tech grill reaches temperatures over 1,000 degrees, cooking thick steaks and chops in mere minutes. While the price tag keeps the Perfecta in the land of the .1%, it shows a growing trend towards more in-home AI innovation.

 

Photo: CNET

Oclean’s “Ultra” Smart Brush

AI has arrived for your teeth, too! The Oclean X Ultra S uses AI to make you a better brusher by providing real-time feedback on your brushing activity. Using bone conduction technology, an AI voice guide then offers tips on upleveling your brushing technique and offer tips to help improve it. The toothbrush will tell you if you’re using too much (or too little) pressure or favoring one side, all via spoken directions only you can hear. What’s more, the built-in display gives instant feedback on any missed spots, along with a brushing score. Already available in Europe, the Oclean X Ultra will have its US launch this fall, with a $100+ price tag.

 

Photo: Business Insider

Samsung’s Image-enhancing TV

Samsung’s 8K QLED TV models can use AI to upscale imagery, converting standard definition, or SD, content up, up, up to an 8K resolution — an industry first, according to the company. These televisions will also be able to create AI-generated imagery and automatically switch TV modes depending on the type of content being played. In short, this new AI-powered TV can bring your favorite old school TV shows like I Dream of Jeanie or I Love Lucy into the 21st century by dramatically improving their resolution.

 

Photo: WNHub

Replica Studios & SAG-AFTRA’s Historic AI Voice Agreement

The Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, or SAG-AFTRA, the world’s largest labor union representing performers, and Replica Studios, an AI voice technology company, made a huge joint announcement at CES. The two entities entered into an agreement, which will pay voice actors for the licensing of digital replicas of their voices for use in video games. This agreement is the very first time an organization like SAG-AFTRA has worked to codify consent and compensation for AI replicas of actor and performer voices. AI was one of the thornier issues debated at length between the actors’ and screenwriters’ unions and television studio executives during last year’s major strikes, with Hollywood screenwriters securing significant guardrails against artificial intelligence themselves — one of the first major labor wars about generative AI in the creative workplace.

 

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Takeaway

CES 2024 gave us a taste of how artificial intelligence tech is being infused into future products—and what that means for us all as consumers, marketers, and more. The future is coming, and it appears AI is an increasingly large part of it, from food to entertainment to home products and more.

Generative AI has the potential to scale cross-medium creation while improving efficiencies throughout the process, making new innovations like those we’ve seen at CES 2024 possible — and it’s no longer just in the workplace. If you want to quickly augment your organization’s AI prowess, partner with talent who has the hard skills to produce high-quality content and results using the AI tools, prompts, and methods to power the brands and products of tomorrow.

If you want to see what generative AI can do for your business, let Creative Circle be your guide.

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One of the hottest questions in marketing these days is: are you in, or are you out? Many brands are setting up in-house teams to do work traditionally done by external agencies, giving birth to a new advertising and marketing model that may just have staying power.

The Association of National Advertisers, or ANA, has been doing a study every five years called The Continued Rise of the In-House Agency. The 2023 edition shows that 82% of marketers now have in-house agency teams — up from 78% in 2018, 58% in 2013, and just 42% in 2008.

What is an “in-house agency”?

For the ANA study, “in-house agency” was defined as “a department, group, or person that has responsibilities that typically are performed by an external advertising or other MarCom agency.”

In-house agencies, sometimes called IHAs, center on an internal marketing team that handles advertising exclusively for the company. IHA employees leverage their in-depth knowledge of the brand and its needs to create marketing strategies and craft campaigns without the help of an external party.

The ANA report “definitively shows that in-house agencies have become a firmly entrenched part of the holistic marketing ecosystem and are now a mainstay among a majority of marketers,” said ANA CEO Bob Liodice. But he hedged, “Agencies still play an important role for marketers, witnessed by the fact that 92% of respondents still use them. But the growth of in-house capabilities has clearly changed the client/agency relationship over the past 15 years.”

In-house versus External

Moving advertising and creative in-house is one of the most popular trends in marketing — but there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Some companies may find the initial time and investment to set up an in-house team outweigh the possible benefits. Two distinct IHA models have emerged: in-house and hybrid in-house agencies.

The completely in-house agency builds out all the digital marketing functions within the company, which gives the business total control of its data, the ability to shift tactics quickly, and confidence that privacy regulations are being followed with data. Contrast that with agency marketing — the traditional model — where marketing and advertising work is outsourced to an external team that manages all a company’s marketing and advertising work. Agencies theoretically have the strategy, connections, resources, and know-how to successfully promote a business. They often have teams dedicated to specific tasks like strategy, media buying, copywriting, design, project management, and account management who interface with the client.

Somewhere in between, we have a hybrid in-house agency model, where critical data is owned and lives with the brand. The brand usually also owns the media accounts, adtech accounts, and data management and has a small team dedicated to managing external agency activity with clearly defined goals. Marketing campaign infrastructure and accounts live with the in-house company team, while an external agency runs campaigns and handles digital data. This model often works well for companies with small digital marketing teams that need more resources and know-how to manage data in-house. Brands will often outsource media buying, especially programmatic buying, which helps explain the growing popularity of the hybrid model.

In-house marketing and external advertising agencies each have positive and negative aspects; the utility of each option varies depending on your business. Here are some pros and cons of each.

First, the pros of in-house agencies:

  • Cost — Companies often find that having an in-house agency costs less to fund and maintain, particularly for small companies. A different ANA study showed that cost efficiency is the top benefit that brands with in-house teams cite, followed by brand knowledge and nimbleness.
  • Communication improvements – An IHA bolsters communication internally between the marketing team and other departments, allowing for better cross-functional sharing of information and resources and boosting collaboration. This can help the marketing team complete projects faster, sparking new ideas and opportunities.
  • Brand knowledge — An IHA is steeped in knowledge of the brand they work for and is familiar with all aspects of the industry, enabling them to fully assess the company’s needs and craft marketing strategies that best fit at any given moment.
  • Control — Having transparency into costs and operations, especially in media buying operations, makes it much easier to identify and implement optimization tactics.
  • Data/tech ownership — As first-party data ownership becomes increasingly critical in a cookie-less, privacy-first world, there are advantages to having marketing technology and adtech in-house.

And now, some cons of IHAs.

  • Talent acquisition timeline — Building an in-house marketing team takes time. It may require an extended period to recruit, identify, interview, hire, and onboard new candidates.
  • Recruitment costs — Whether companies pay outside recruitment agencies or hire an in-house recruiter, there is a cost associated with talent acquisition.
  • Stagnant creative — An in-house team may come to rely on just a few creative styles and strategies, which can impact the ongoing success of your company’s marketing.

Here are the pros of working with an external agency:

  • Advertising fluency — Ad agencies have typically worked with hundreds and sometimes thousands of clients, which means they’ve pretty much seen it all. An ad agency may suggest activations or concepts that a brand has not considered, opening the door for innovative engagement and messaging.
  • Resources — Ad agencies have access to resources like software, high-end printers, digital equipment, and other tools that in-house marketing teams often can’t afford.
  • Connections — You know the adage, “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know” — and that holds especially true for ad agencies, which typically have connections to production companies, advertising platforms, and high-level execs that can elevate exposure for a company.
  • A plethora of creativity — With many employees and specializations, ad agencies have a leg up on offering cutting-edge marketing strategies and activations.

And now, some cons about working with traditional ad agencies.

  • Less in-depth knowledge of your brand — Agencies have many clients, so they must learn many different brand stories. Businesses must teach their agency about their products, audience, culture, goals, and future vision. This takes time, and time cost money.
  • Many clients (sometimes too many) — With numerous clients and multiple campaigns to manage simultaneously, an agency may be unable to dedicate sufficient time or resources to a specific company’s needs, which can translate to long wait times for deliverables.
  • Less creative control — Because you have less direct oversight, it can be difficult to guide an external team to produce deliverables that fit your vision.

How to choose between an in-house agency and a traditional ad agency

Here are some considerations when deciding which option is best for your company.

  • How fast does your company need to improve its marketing strategies?
    An ad agency can be a more time-effective way to move the needle on your company’s brand presence. If there’s time to build a top-tier in-house marketing team, that could be a better option.
  • What’s your marketing budget?
    Budget is a crucial consideration, as it determines what kind of team can be hired in-house and what kind of services the company can afford with an outside agency. Hiring an in-house team will typically cost more, as you’ll pay salaries rather than hourly rates. Compare and contrast costs and balance them with your timeline to help you decide.
  • What are your organization’s needs?
    Determine the short- and long-term goals for marketing efforts and assess which areas need improvement. If just a few components of your marketing campaigns require management, perhaps an in-house option is right for you. But if the brand requires a complete rethink of its advertising efforts, an ad agency may be the right choice.

Many companies like to have their cake and eat it too by choosing not to choose between IHAs and traditional agencies.

For organizations interested in dipping their toe into the world of in-house agencies, without all the time and initial financial outlay to set up an IHA team, there are companies that can provide ready-to-go creative in-house marketing teams. Creative360, Creative Circle’s services division, delivers fully packaged solutions powered by a team curated for your specific needs. You can step right in with a brand-ready team of creative specialists who provide bespoke solutions to expand your team’s capabilities and extend team capacity.

 

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Takeaway

Marketing is one of the main drivers of a brand’s success. Some companies find working with external marketing partners simpler, while others prefer to manage their brand’s presence in-house.

Whatever choice is right for your business, it’s clear that companies are pivoting how creative, adtech, data, and operations are structured into a more collaborative model. Brands are handling more of the tasks historically managed by external agencies in-house — redefining how and where advertising and branding messages are crafted. External agencies continue to be big players, but a realignment is taking place.

If you want to see what a consulting-based IHA can do for you, please reach out so we can discuss your creative marketing needs.

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Three experts tell us how creatives can best position themselves to thrive in this AI era.

AI has already had a monumental impact on creative work — and its evolution is only accelerating. How can creatives best position themselves to thrive in this AI era? What new opportunities does AI present, and what risks should we all be aware of?  

To get our finger on the pulse, we brought in three experts for a panel discussion. Meet Andrew, Claire, and Laura! They’re the first panelists to participate in our Conversations with Creatives series. They sat down with us, in front of hundreds of intrigued minds across North America, to discuss their experience using AI in the creative space.  

  • Andrew Morner is an “AI-obsessed” Creative Director at Pillar Marketing Corporation, a full-service digital marketing, design, and mar-tech agency based in Los Angeles. He uses AI in every single project that he works on.  
  • Claire Berlin is currently the Director of Academic Marketing Strategy at Ohio University. Before that, she was working in the tech industry and got her hands on many generative AI tools as they were launching. 
  • Laura Gagliardi is a freelance content designer, currently on contract as a Conversational Designer and Strategist with Verizon. She uses AI to enhance her services and provide a high-quality experience for the end-user.  

Here’s what we covered! Click the links to skip to the associated timestamped spot in our insightful hour-long discussion.  

How did you evolve your role into an AI-focused position? 

 Laura started her freelance career as a copywriter. Her role evolved when she began leveraging her education in psychology to shape how companies and brands communicate with their consumers. She used AI to focus on putting humanity behind the robot’s interactions with users. 

How do you use AI for marketing-focused projects? 

 Claire uses AI as a brainstorming tool and often leans on it to kickstart or refine her creative process.  

Laura says AI serves as a catalyst for inspiration — she pulls parts and pieces from the responses it generates and builds out her content from there. “AI enables me to be more efficient; it refines my ideas and inspires me,” says Laura. “It’s a muse!”  

How are you using AI as a tool to streamline your projects and processes? 

 Claire uses AI to make the most of her time! Some examples are: 

  • Using AI notetaking tools (Zoom and Google Meet) to do the busy work so she can actively listen during meetings with her clients. 
  • Drafting marketing strategy and frameworks. 

How are you using AI in design and creative?  

 Andrew is using AI to significantly augment his creative process. He uses it for everything from writing email and social media copy to graphic design, researching and auditing organizations, and developing site maps.  

“We use it for pretty much every project that we find ourselves working on,” says Andrew. “It’s really augmenting our process in huge ways and it’s becoming the missing piece to a puzzle in a lot of ways.” 

He speaks to how “unintuitive” ChatGPT can be and how important descriptive prompts are — it forces him to ask himself “Am I asking it the right question?”. Through trial and error, and a little help from Reddit users, he’s perfected his prompts. 

What AI design tools are you using regularly?  

Midjourney, Dall-E 3, and Photoshop Generative AI are Andrew’s favorites, but he emphasized how quickly AI evolves and suggested that creatives always keep an eye out for new systems.   

How do you use AI as a research tool in marketing strategy? 

Claire relies on AI for persona research and learning about unfamiliar audiences. AI systems can outline the things the audience cares about, the language that resonates with them, etc.  

“AI is incredibly helpful with persona research! With the proper prompts and guiderails, it can tell you a lot about a specific audience.” says Claire. She’s used it to adapt her content and messaging when targeting less familiar audiences, such as younger generations, c-suite level executives, and medical professionals. She reminds us, however, that it’s not 100% accurate: “It’s a CliffsNotes version and it always needs a second set of eyes.” 

How transparent are you with your clients about your use of AI?  

Andrew walks his clients through his AI use and process upfront. He makes sure to tell them that it’s a huge value-add to his services because he can build out a campaign calendar in a fraction of the time it would otherwise take (and at a fraction of the cost).   

“AI allows us to create more things, at a higher fidelity, in a quicker amount of time,” says Andrew, “…and the outcome is that the client is happier for it.” 

What ethical elements should we be mindful of when using this technology? 

Quality checking the content that AI is generating for you is essential. Andrew says, “You must be intentional with your use of AI. A quick way to get let go of your job is to submit something that’s completely AI generated and not check it once.” 

“Hallucinations are huge problem with AI; it will make up information and be very confident about it,” he adds. Andrew emphasizes that it’s important for AI to not replace the creative thought process. Instead, it should operate like an assistant, and you should always double check the work.  

Claire admits that “AI can be scary.” She says, “anything that you input into AI can be spit out for any other user and that’s a little concerning.”  

Digital hygiene is critical, our panelists warned. “OpenAI is using everything that’s currently online and anything that’s being fed to it as training data for future instances. Anything that AI knows comes from things that exist,” says Andrew. “It’s only as good as the training data; stay mindful of that.”  

Learn More
Our panelists covered many other burning AI questions, including “How do you expect the creative industry to evolve as AI becomes more prevalent”? and ”What tips do you have to help creatives expand their knowledge on AI?”. If you find these conversations intriguing and you’re left wanting more, watch the full discussion from the start and don’t forget to share your thoughts in the comments. Also, subscribe to our newsletter to stay tuned for future installments of Conversations with Creatives! 

The speed and scale at which generative AI works is truly game-changing, but could it really be that artificial intelligence brings with it only good news? The answer depends on your approach. While the benefits of the technology are manifold, unsupervised AI runs the risk of being clouded by bias, and potentially creating content that puts organizations in jeopardy of noncompliance and other risk. 

In fact, Capgemini found 51% of executives say that lack of clarity on underlying data used to train generative Al programs is their top concern, followed by 45% who say they lack confidence that the generative Al programs are fair (inclusive of all population groups). These concerns highlight just how crucial it is for organizations to take steps to ensure greater transparency and accountability in the development and deployment of AI programs in order to build trust. 

Reducing Bias Requires Transparency and Oversight 

Transparency and oversight are the name of the game when it comes to working with AI. As a technology created by human beings, no matter how advanced, it’s inherently exposed to bias from the get-go. However, with the right combination of talent and tools, you can nip bias in the bud and generate inclusive content that truly stands out. 

Creative teams that are skilled at working with AI should understand what to look for in the tools they use to pick out bias. They want transparency on the methods used to generate content and oversight on the way AI models are trained, so they can correct bias in their content and better understand where it originates. 

Choosing the right third-party tools and platforms to facilitate this is crucial, as is a partnership with the data science teams that implement them. With the right tools and data, and the skills to back it all up, teams can better understand how to craft effective prompts that generate inclusive content and implement methods to eliminate bias in the first place. 

Compliance Takes Expert AI and Expert Humans 

Compliance can take many forms. In regulated industries like healthcare and financial services, it requires adherence to industry guidelines. For other organizations, it may consist of how consumer data is used to market. It’s true that artificial intelligence can be taught rules to follow, but these rules are often highly nuanced and fast-changing.  

Simply relying on AI alone to create content will not result in compliant content. It takes skilled creative teams that are well-versed in the areas of compliance and know where and when to rely on other internal experts to check that content is ready for its audiences. While AI can be trained on compliance and regulations, in a fast-moving world of ever-changing requirements, highly trained human teams can work with artificial intelligence to create marketing content that is both highly personalized and fully compliant. 

This all means that compliance review must be built into a process that also includes dynamic generation of personalized content from the beginning. A highly trained creative team understands the elements of a marketing campaign that can and should be personalized, as well as those that need to remain unchanged for compliance reasons. 

After all, there won’t be a substitute for human insights and strategic thinking any time soon. Thus, the real strength of utilizing AI isn’t in replacing strong team members; it is in augmenting them. Or, as Barry Asin, President of SIA, puts it, “Generative AI won’t take your job, but someone using it will…It’s not technology alone, it’s the ability of people to work with the technology.” 

 

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Takeaway 

The rise of generative AI we’re currently witnessing has the capability to dramatically expand the scope of content creation in a way we’ve never seen before — and this new era comes with its own unique set of challenges. Getting the best possible results takes a not-so-secret ingredient: talented creatives who are skilled in the methods that enable artificial intelligence to shine, while understanding where humans still have a vital role to play. 

If you’re looking to get truly outstanding results from working with generative AI, you’ve come to the right place! Check out our latest release, The CMO’s Guide to Exceptional AI Content, to learn exactly how you can do it too. 

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Our AI Insights blog series continues below. Catch the first installation here if you missed it!

AI is an immensely powerful tool that is revolutionizing the world of content creation as we speak. In addition to its ability to generate better results from content creation efforts — in conjunction with knowledgeable creative teams — can ensure that content is brand-safe, available in real-time, at scale. For this reason, it’s rapidly gaining in popularity across industries and job functions.

As AI continues to evolve, its potential for automation is becoming even more profound. According to Gartner, by 2026, 20% of repetitive processes will be automated by domain-specific GenAI implementations in every industry. This means that AI will have an increasingly important role to play in the workplace, streamlining processes and freeing up valuable time for more complex and impactful tasks.

The combination of AI and knowledgeable creative teams is a recipe for success, and we can expect to see even more exciting developments in this space in the years to come. With the power of AI at our fingertips, the possibilities for content creation and automation are truly endless.

 

Efficiency Without Sacrifice

The combination of top creative talent and artificial intelligence has proven to be a game-changer for marketers. With AI, marketers can analyze vast amounts of data, identify patterns, and generate new insights that can inform their decision-making. By automating tasks that are repetitive and time-consuming, the technology can free up marketers to focus on more strategic and creative activities and, as a result, allow them to deliver more impactful campaigns and content that drive better business results with their target audience.

Of course, what good is an increase in efficiency if you don’t have the marketing results to match? Optimizing the cost to deliver high-performing marketing campaigns and content is one of the major benefits of an approach that combines top creative talent with artificial intelligence.

Moreover, generative AI has been found to increase the performance of marketing campaigns significantly—a testament to AI-powered marketing strategies. In fact, 58% of US marketers said increased performance is a benefit of generative AI, according to eMarketer. With this heightened level of efficiency, the potential impact on productivity is truly impressive.

 

One Input, Many Outputs

The potential of generative AI in content creation goes beyond just omnichannel customer experience. Generative AI’s ability to take text-based inputs and translate them into a variety of mediums — from text-based blogs, to images, videos, and more — means that the future of content marketing and creation can utilize generative AI to create content for an omnichannel customer experience.

This is just another way in which creative teams can leverage generative AI to create highly personalized and targeted content for their customers, spending less time resizing, reformatting, and researching the latest size requirements for each of your marketing channels. This gives them more time to focus on creating great content that is impactful and ready to be translated into many formats for your omnichannel communications.

Ultimately, generative AI has the potential to revolutionize the way we approach content creation and marketing. Given the technology’s capacity to create content for multiple channels, at scale, and with unprecedented levels of personalization, the future of how humans create content is indeed exciting.

 

Humans Strategize, AI Multiplies

Generative AI technology has the potential to revolutionize the way we approach marketing and communication activities. With the ability to automate the work activities that absorb as much as 70% of employees’ work time, generative AI provides an opportunity to allow humans to be more strategic, and for the marketing work they perform to be more efficient and scale to meet consumers’ rising expectations for more tailored, personalized experiences.

By 2025, Gartner predicts AI avatars leveraging text-to-video using generative AI technology will support 70% of digital and marketing communications, up from less than 5% in 2022. This significant shift will allow companies to provide their customers with more tailored and personalized experiences, ultimately leading ultimately lead to greater brand loyalty and customer satisfaction.

When done well, this means that your creative talent spends their time and focus on the things that matter, like making sure your messaging is on-brand and laser-focused on your target audiences. Then, generative AI can produce the many brand-safe variants that your customers have come to expect. By embracing this technology, companies can stay ahead of the curve and meet the rising expectations of their customers while maximizing the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns.

 

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Takeaway

Fulfilling the promise of generative AI, delivering great results at scale in a brand-safe and ethical manner, takes more than a simple software solution, however. It takes a combination of skilled talent using artificial intelligence tools in an intentional, strategic manner.

Generative AI has the potential to scale content creation and allow cross-medium creation, while improving efficiencies throughout the process. Get the best of it all by partnering generative AI with talent who knows and understands how to get the best results with the prompts, methods, and tools that will power tomorrow’s personalized customer experiences.

Our AI Insights blog series continues, next delving into the process of embracing scale while avoiding bias and non-compliance when working with generative AI. Continue reading here!

26 days. According to a 2022 nationwide survey, it takes 26 days, on average, to schedule a new doctor’s appointment in 15 of the largest cities in the USA — up 24.1 days in 2017 and 21 days in 2004. In an increasingly digital-first on-demand world, where we can order same-day grocery delivery or get a cab in mere minutes using an app on our phones, healthcare has lagged, steeped in outdated and inefficient practices — but this dinosaur is now lumbering into the digital age.

There’s a transformation happening in healthcare, revolutionizing how and where people access medical care — consumers are turning the healthcare demand dynamic on its head. From virtual doctor visits to remote monitoring devices to online pharmacies, consumers increasingly demand healthcare experiences crafted with their needs and desires in mind, giving consumers options to connect and engage their health and wellness in a way that has the most benefit for them.

While this trend towards consumerization of healthcare has potential benefits for consumers, that’s largely because it may be filling the hole left by an American healthcare system fraught with challenges that include:

  • Health insurance being tied to full-time employment
  • Uneven access to care
  • Gender and race disparities
  • Lack of emphasis on preventive care

The American healthcare system leaves even the insured with burdensome challenges to care, with rising out-of-pocket costs and escalating deductibles. And add to that an aging population, which brings increased healthcare needs at a time when technology is also expanding into newer arenas. It’s a system geared more towards those who profit from it than it is to patients and doctors.

When it comes to health, age is not just a number. While companies are building end-to-end healthcare solutions that aim to provide convenient, personalized experiences leveraging advances in online retail and tech, there is the potential those who lean too far into consumerizing care may alienate the very folks who need it the most.

 

The Generational / Digital Divide

Health consumers are increasingly digital natives seeking convenient ways to access all aspects of their health and well-being. Millennials and Gen Z are more active consumers of online information and have greater digital expectations. They’re looking for that same personalized, consumer-first focus when it comes to their healthcare — from medications to therapeutics to actual care.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, only 55% of Gen Z’ers have a primary care physician or PCP, whereas 67% of millennials, 76% of Gen X’ers, and 84% of Baby Boomers have a PCP. Younger consumers like Gen Z and Millenials have expressed dissatisfaction with the quality and tenor of traditional healthcare services. As these younger generations get older and their medical needs grow, they increasingly look for options that satisfy their desire for convenience, efficiency, and transparency. Already, Millennials are twice as likely as Boomers to use telehealth and three times as likely to utilize wearable technology.

These generational rifts in thinking will increasingly put pressure on those delivering healthcare to consumerize their offerings further. As the younger generations become the core consumers, healthcare providers and organizations that do not move with the times will be left in the digital dust.

 

The Consumerization of Care

Companies are reading the room and seizing the chance to empower consumers to take charge of their well-being — and it’s not just limited to traditional healthcare providers. Concierge medical practices, retailers, health plans, and drugstores are all expanding what it means to provide care.

Even life sciences companies are (albeit more slowly) leaning into a more consumer-first model, given that 50% of people with chronic conditions don’t take their prescribed medications, and 33% of Americans can’t get the prescription medications they need because they don’t have a primary care provider. While more than half of healthcare consumers say they’re open to trying virtual care from a pharmaceutical company, life sciences companies are a few steps behind this growing consumer-first trend because they haven’t yet landed on a suitable service model.

The consumerization of healthcare is fast becoming a disruptive force, with individuals exerting more influence and control over their medical care. Companies across sectors as varied as tech, retail, and consumer packaged goods are now looking to address consumer and patient needs. This trend has indeed accelerated as people are more health conscious post-Covid.

Here are three significant ways that consumerized healthcare is coming to you:

1. Telehealth

Virtual doctor’s visits had a staggering 3,800% increase over their pre-Covid baseline, according to a McKinsey report, significantly eliminating the need for many in-person doctor visits and dramatically reducing patients’ average wait times to minutes. And for visits that need to be in-person, online check-in apps have significantly reduced wait time in germ-filled waiting rooms. For ongoing treatment and follow-up treatment, remote monitoring has further increased patient convenience.

COVID-19 invited a new age of telemedicine, with consumers and providers seeking ways to access and deliver medical care safely. By April 2020, overall telehealth usage was 78 times higher than in February 2020, with increased consumer and provider willingness to use telemedicine, along with regulatory changes enabling greater access to virtual models of care and, perhaps most importantly, reimbursement from the insurance side.

Today, telemedicine offers a chance for reinvention of virtual and hybrid (virtual/in-person) care models, which may help improve healthcare access and improve outcomes and affordability for all. Unsurprisingly, investment in virtual and digital health has skyrocketed — there was a 300% increase in VC money from 2017 to 2020 for digital healthcare start-ups, fueling ramped-up innovation in the space.

Virtual healthcare business models are evolving and proliferating, moving from just urgent care to encompass a wide range of services, including companies like direct-to-consumer (DTC) Hims & Hers, which focuses on mental health issues, hair loss, erectile dysfunction, and more. Hims & Hers, which went public two years ago, saw its top-line revenue jump 88% in the first quarter of 2023 to $191 million, up from $101 million a year prior, thanks to the strong growth of its multispecialty telehealth platform, in part due to their clever marketing campaigns that often use humor to engage their target market.

A notable portion of the company’s advertising spend is going towards celebrity endorsement agreements with partners such as Miley Cyrus. While the company tends to primarily promote Hims more than Hers — the partnership with Cyrus could mean the organization is ramping up its female-focused targeting.

Insider Intelligence eMarketer says that “Hims & Hers is becoming the model D2C healthcare brand to emulate. The company can afford to keep raising its marketing and advertising budget to acquire customers because of its engagement and retention rates.”

Hims & Hers sell their health and wellness products directly to consumers through their website, app, and to at least 13 retail partners like CVS, GNC, Walgreens, and Walmart — and they’re teaming up with Carbon Health to offer people in California direct access to providers for in-person health visits at clinics. Their clever ads have captured many a millennial heart that is starting to struggle with mental health and age-related issues.

2. E-pharmacies

Online pharmacies have been around for more than 20 years but really gained traction during the pandemic. Born initially out of convenience — and then during COVID-19, necessity — e-pharmacies, also known as digital pharmacies, have experienced dramatic growth, and it’s not hard to see why. They offer unparalleled accessibility, privacy, and price transparency — and yes, they’re exceptionally convenient.

25% of respondents to a survey conducted by the International Pharmaceutical Federation said that the most significant benefit of online pharmacies is improved access. Unlike brick-and-mortar retail pharmacies, digital pharmacies are available to nearly anyone with a Wi-Fi connection and come without the issues of distance or timing. With a reduction in travel costs as well, there can be significant savings for folks in rural communities without a nearby pharmacy, particularly those with chronic conditions.

Brands like Capsule capture market share by directly marketing to consumers, and it seems to be working. With taglines like “Meds made easy” or “A pharmacy nothing like a pharmacy,” the company offers free, same-day prescription delivery. It provides the option to privately chat or text with pharmacists if customers have any questions. Advertising and marketing are a big part of what has fueled the growth of companies like Capsule, shooting digital arrows through Millenial and Gen Z hearts.

Overall revenue for online pharmacies is forecast to reach $45.34 billion in 2023, and with a compounded annual growth rate of 12.41%, it is projected to reach $81.37 billion by 2028.

3. Wearable devices

The consumer wearable tech craze began in 2009, when Fitbit released its first fitness tracker, pioneering the category in the consumer space. You would clip the old-school Fitbit Classic to your waistband, and it tracked your steps, distance, estimated calories burned, and more. Since then, wearable technology has had explosive growth, providing athletes, regular folks, and healthcare professionals with detailed health information they can view at the tap-tap-tap of a smartphone.

Wearable tech has come to encompass any electric device worn on a user’s body, from new-gen Fitbits to smartwatches to Oura rings, which collect users’ biometric health, exercise, sleep, and other data, which can be sent to a user’s doctor or other healthcare professional in real-time. More and more Americans are using wearable health-tracking tech every day — with such quick adoption, it’s hard to say how we will use wearable technology even just ten years from now.

Oura has gained quite a following in the influencer-rich worlds of entertainment, sports, and business. From A-List actors like Jennifer Aniston and Gwyneth Paltrow to business titans like Arianna Huffington and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff to more tabloid-friendly celebs like Kim Kardashian and Prince Harry. Part of the success of Oura’s marketing strategy has been to leverage these endorsements to gain earned-media exposure that resonates with its core audience of Millenials and Gen Z’ers.

Today, wearables have lunged past just measuring athletic performance, providing insights into many aspects of health and wellness, like sleep habits, stress levels, menstrual cycle trends, and more. The Ava bracelet tracks fertility and can predict ovulation by analyzing real-time data from heart rate, skin temperature, breathing rate, and more.

Growing demand for wearables has created a booming market, and insurers and companies are seeing the upsides of providing wearable health monitoring devices to their consumers and employees. With next-gen wearables capable of collecting health data they couldn’t before, like blood glucose and blood pressure, people can find information they previously got primarily at a doctor’s office or at home with specialized equipment.

The global wearable technology industry was valued at $54.8 billion in 2020 and is forecast to hit $184.4 billion by 2031, with a compound annual growth rate of 12.8% from 2022 to 2031.

 

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Takeaway

Today, players in the healthcare space are taking their cue from consumer goods, e-commerce, and retail business leaders — and seek to craft long-term relationships with their consumers by speaking to them directly. With so much inherent dissatisfaction with healthcare in the USA, companies that can meet some of the unmet need have a big leg up on the competition because satisfied consumers are far less likely to switch horses midstream.

Here are some of the top reasons why this trend towards consumerization of healthcare has such long legs:

  • Healthcare consumers are more empowered today than ever. Covid-19 forced medical care providers to pivot to digital care so they could continue delivering patient care. Telehealth emerged, seemingly overnight, from a burgeoning side note to the primary means by which patients could get non-critical care. And consumers experienced a retail revolution fueled by brick-and-mortar chains and e-commerce stores allowing for curbside pick-up or home delivery.
  • There is a massive rethink happening for healthcare providers around how to grow and maintain continuity of care. Those who shifted tactics to focus on improving the consumer experience saw their revenue increase up to 20% over five years, with costs to provide the care decreasing by up to 30% — though it is unclear if any of these savings were passed down to consumers.
  • Healthcare providers increasingly see marketing as a growth driver — elevating the need for cohesive strategic creative that drives growth. In this space, you need more than a catchy tagline (though it helps) — you need clarity of vision, strategic insights, and a team that can make a comprehensive 360-degree plan that engages consumers to think differently about their care by providing a full suite of consulting solutions.

If you’re looking to up your game and step boldly into this growing trend of consumerized healthcare but aren’t sure where to start, give us a call. We have ready-to-jump teams with the expertise to get your business where it needs to be.

GET IN TOUCH

It’s hard to avoid the buzz around artificial intelligence these days, and unlike some fads that have come and gone over the years, there’s good reason to take notice of this one. Marketing and communications teams are amongst those who have the most to gain from these technologies, thanks to their immediate, practical application for organizations today.

In this setting, AI makes more sense than ever: after all, why walk up the stairs in a tall building when you can take the elevator instead? In fact, McKinsey estimates that generative AI could add the equivalent of roughly $3 trillion to the global economy, with 75% of that falling into marketing and other areas directly related to the customer experience.

 

Great Results, with a New Kind of Partnership

With customer expectations to receive personalized content, offers, and experiences constantly increasing, brands are feeling added pressure to ensure their content marketing is multi-channel, brand-compliant, and personalized down to the customer in the moment they need it. This means that more content is needed, and creating it at scale, across the channels, and in the multiple variants that are needed for hyper-personalization requires a level of effort that few if any marketing teams can produce on their own, let alone sustain. Thus, a new kind of partnership is needed.

The partnership we’re referring to, of course, is one between creative talent and their AI counterparts: the methods and platforms that are the toolset of the creative talent of tomorrow. This partnership leads to effective results, while saving copious amounts of time and focusing your creative talent on the work that matters. According to Gartner, 30% of outbound marketing messages from large organizations will be personalized using generative AI tools by 2025, up from less than 2% in 2022.

 

Better ideas, More Quickly

With remote and hybrid work, plus an increased demand on marketers, it can be hard to schedule in-depth brainstorming sessions for every new initiative that “needed to launch yesterday.” Smart brands are getting great concepts and ideas more quickly by combining human and AI brainstorming.

Generative AI is great at building on starting points provided by humans, and skilled creatives who understand how to prompt artificial intelligence-based tools effectively can supercharge the idea generation process with this AI-human hybrid method. When working with well-crafted prompts, AI can generate a multitude of potential ideas that creative teams can edit and build upon, eliminating any that may not be as relevant.

 

Scaling to the Occasion

If you operate on multiple marketing channels, have several audience segments, conduct business in several geographies, and/or have other demands that require content variations, you know the scaling issues that come with creating content for even the most routine campaigns. And when it comes to hyper-personalizing content down to the individual customer level, even the largest marketing department can quickly become overloaded.

Take this for instance: If an apparel retailer that sells several product lines on its multi-channel marketing platforms to different audiences in more than one geography creates a targeted campaign, they’ll need to create the following:

  • Multiple variants of copy and materials for each combination of product (e.g., shoes, shirts, jackets, etc.) and audience (e.g., gender, age, HHI, etc.)
  • Resized and reformatted the materials for each marketing channel (e.g., social media platforms, email, website, mobile app, etc.)
  • Unique country/language variations for each geography (e.g., US English, UK English, Spanish, German, etc.)

Keep in mind that this doesn’t account for personalized content that is tailored to the individual. This type of hyper-personalization can build on the above and tailor content to the individual based on things like:

  • Recent purchase behavior and frequency of purchases
  • Specific demographic information
  • Customer loyalty information

All of this adds up to many variations of content to be created. Rest assured, though, generative AI is up to the task of scaling content creation to meet customer expectations for personalized content and experiences.

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Takeaway

Maximizing the results of generative AI with the right tools and methods, piloted by skilled prompt engineers and creative talent, means forming a new kind of partnership between humans and artificial intelligence — and it does not require any sacrifices on the outcomes you should expect either.

For organizations that are unsure of where to start, bringing in freelance experts to help with strategy and setup of an AI strategy can accelerate this shift. Whether it’s automation of text content variations or something more advanced, having the right team to set up a personalization strategy can take a generic-feeling marketing campaign and make it compelling and increase conversions.

Our AI Insights blog series continues, exploring what it truly means to effectively personalize content at scale with generative AI. Continue reading here!