Technology landscape
Digital technologies to drive consumer engagement
Client overview
Our client was a global FMCG manufacturer with a wide range of products and brands in its portfolio. There has been a significant shift in consumer expectations and behaviour in recent years, leading to increasing demands for fast, consistent and personalised experience when consumers interact with brands throughout the purchasing lifecycle. Due to this, the client was interested in seeking a better understanding on the different digital technologies that they could adopt for enabling better consumer connectivity and engagement. Strategic Allies Ltd (SAL) was engaged to perform a landscape of the space, exploring how the current, future and emerging digital technologies were being put to use for enhancing consumer experiences and relationships.
The search
SAL initiated a technology landscaping exercise utilising secondary sources (i.e. market reports, news articles, company websites, literature publication, patent database, etc.), to capture use cases (i.e. types of technologies, how these were used to connect with consumers and who was using them). A variety of technology areas were explored e.g. RFIDs, NFCs, QR codes, illuminated packaging, connected devices, virtual reality, augmented reality, Web3 technologies, artificial intelligence (AI) platforms, etc.
Where available, information on the outcome or result demonstrating how the adoption of a technology improved a brand’s connectivity with consumers was gathered. SAL then assessed each of these technology areas based on a number of key factors (e.g. availability, affordability, versatility, technology maturity and uptake) to evaluate the likelihood of continued or greater future adoption. This provided the client with valuable insights on key areas to prioritise for their short, medium and long-term digitalisation strategies.
“….brilliant, thorough work….. a good deck that we can work with and reference”
“…very much aligned with what we are looking for”
Outcome
Around 20 technology areas were explored, capturing use cases that showcased how different brands have adopted these technologies to improve engagement with their customers, both at home and in-stores.
The report is currently being reviewed internally with the client’s wider team to select areas that they would like to take forward for the
next phase of deep dive research.