Personalisation & customisation to reinvent how brands connect with consumers

Damyant Singh Khanoria, CMO, OPPO India, highlights how brands are reinventing to create technology with a purpose in today’s scenario.

Through the last decade-and-a half, the marketing ecosystem in India has undergone a massive evolution. Much of the credit, rest comfortably on the shoulders of the technological revolution that took the country by storm. Unlike the yester years, marketing today is a two-street. It’s no longer the singular turf of brands, who are speaking into the void with a nameless, faceless, audience. The digital age has opened a range of mediums that enable brands to not only customise their narrative, but also create a system that facilitates feedback, thereby creating a much-needed exchange between a brand and its customers.

Taking advantage of this rate and scale of technological adoption in India, the smartphone and telecom industry have their task cut out for them. The average Indian smartphone consumer is intelligent, aware, knows what it’s in search of, has disposable incomes at hand, and is perpetually driven by value of money. To capture the imagination of this, click-savvy demographic, brands have had to adopt the path of constant innovation.

For us, the purpose of innovation is not merely to create new products. Our aim is to pre-empt the needs of our customers and use technology and innovation to fill in the blanks. Practicality forms the bedrock of design and innovation in the OPPO stables. Take for instance the VOOC fast charging technology that’s based on increasing the battery life or the slick design that tested and retested to fit comfortably in your palms. Using meaningful innovation to humanise tech goes a long way building trust and empathy of customers. Therefore, here’s how we’re reinventing the wheel to make lives simpler:

Meaningful Innovation: Today, brands are walking the extra mile to bring value to its customers by creating meaningful innovations. Take for instance the e-commerce industry that has time and again, created new-age user experiences to not only simplify the journey, but also make it appealing and worth your time. Another example is the smartphone space where users today are looking at safety, efficiency, and ease-of-use across devices.

With this, there has been a tremendous focus on bringing a new generation low voltage charging experience designed to excel in any situation, allowing people to charge devices, anytime, anywhere. Then there is the AI Highlight video that enables videos recording in low light – a challenge that has been the bane of many consumers and influencers alike.

Meaningful innovation is about solving existing problems and while none of us could have anticipated the pandemic – that made the world come to a grinding halt, it opened the path to door-step contactless services. Even though it was difficult to replicate the in-store experience, our contactless services were devised to simplify the lives of our customers through unprecedented times. We’ve already begun to witness the creation of a holistic and meaningful ecosystem that is transforming such experiences yet keeping it human for consumers across sectors.

Humanising Technology: The changes post pandemic didn’t have a playbook to the situation but the myriads of users coming in via digital channels have presented data learnings that can help brands transform technology and humanise customer experience. Young users today are seeking brands with human-interface and integrate cutting-edge technology and design aesthetics for a better life.

Today consumers are also looking at intelligent integration of multiple devices and across- scenes. From personalisedto high-quality intuitive features, they are seeking a dedicated menu when it comes to personalization including options like wallpaper, Always on Display (AOD), icon style, colours, edge lighting, and more.Understanding these needs and to democratise technology for our customers, we launched India’s first affordable 5G phone earlier this year – the A series that made 5G technology affordable for all. Perhaps the most relevant example of personalisation in recent times comes in the form of voice technology that, irrespective of language, accent, nationality has become one of the most used features – simply because of its practicality.

Creating personalised experiences through innovative displays also allows users with concepts such as rollable – which allow them to change the screen width along with the phone width itself. I believe that such personalised experiences will change the game for user behaviour going forward.

Trust: Winning the trust of a consumer is by no means a small feat and rest assured it is high on our priority list. Brands have consistently tried decade after decade to build on the blocks of trust to woo customers. It is perhaps for this reason that automotive brands with “German engineering” have come to be known as reliable and long lasting. Similarly, in the world of smartphones, today’s modern consumer pays for quality, reliability, durability, and, most importantly, after-sale services. The only way to earn the customer’s trust is to ensure quality service and prompt after-sale services are managed to the T. We already see a shift towards conversational interfaces (chatbots) and voice recognition which are going to break down the barriers between technology and humans. These are also leading to an improved customer services while ensuring effortless conversation with people.

Responsive and Empathetic: The uncertainty in the last two years has made customers shift to empathy as the basis of a brand they want to associate with in the long run. Most prominent players have replaced traditional messaging with a more humanised messaging approach.Not just that, brands are also learning about the complexity of time and understanding when and how to connect with a consumer.

In conclusion, suffice it to say that the business of transformation and innovation is an ever evolving one. It is one that is synonymous with the ever-changing needs of the customer and trends of the market. That there is an inherent need to evolve and change with the times, is an understatement. Since change is the only constant, our endeavour is to stay abreast of these fast-moving trends and ahead of the curve in anticipating our customers’ technological desires to simplify their lives and businesses.

The Way Forward

A mix of technology with an empathetic approach will continue to help customise brand narratives while providing holistic experiences to consumers. To truly drive real engagement, brands will need to provide seamless technology experiences with an authentic human touch.

In fact, a recent Gartner study stated that 88 per cent of consumers report not receiving “tailored help” from brands when it comes to personalisation. Therefore, customisation will be a key in targeting a customer base and to make sure a business is serving their specific needs. Also, scaling up the entire partner ecosystem will allow brands to offer more seamless and steadier consumer experiences across all stages of their decision journeys.