9December 2020As digital marketing learns our behaviors, companies can employ personalized advertising to categorize, predict, and tell us exactly what we want to hear; and they know what kind of offer will result in a customerTHE DIGITAL MARKETING EXPERIENCEknow about a business, the food and drink preferences you've selected in Google Maps, places you've been to, and whether you've rated a restaurant or added it to a list. Your matches change as your own tastes and preferences evolve over time--it's like your own expert sidekick, helping you quickly assess your options and confidently make a decision". Why in the world would we let Spotify choose our music and Google choose our restaurants? Because, more and more, they do a better job than we do at selecting an experience that we'll like. We only know the music we've heard before; Spotify knows what people who like that music will also like. Their advertising works by keeping you listening (and subscribing) to the service. It constantly fulfills its promise by delivering a great experience.As digital marketing learns our behaviors, companies can employ personalized advertising to categorize, predict, and tell us exactly what we want to hear; and they know what kind of offer will result in a customer. When we're fed this advertising, we're relieved of the mental burden of categorizing and discovering experiences ourselves. In some cases advertising isn't influencing a decision, it's deciding for us, and many of us trust it. Netflix thrives on predicting what each user would like to watch and then plays those options instantly. Today some of our decisions depend less on how we think we'll like a thing, and more on how an algorithm predicts we'll experience it. We're not yet at the point that personalized advertising supplants experience reliably - your Netflix recommendations sometimes miss the mark, and Amazon doesn't always suggest the right products, but these companies are trying. As they compile even more data and as their algorithms get better, it's not crazy to imagine a world where digital marketing knows what you'll like better than you will. After all, experience itself is a type of algorithm. You take things in with sense perception, compare them to what you've experienced before along with societal attitudes, and then decide on a course of action.Where are we headed? Personalized advertising will eventually do a better job at selecting certain experiences than we will. In return, we'll get more time to experience (and enjoy) things because we're not spending time searching for them or choosing poorly. On top of that, these new algorithms aren't working based on one person's model and range of experiences, they're supercharged with the power of a trillion data points. Things you otherwise never would have experienced are now suggested to you because other people with similar preferences enjoy them - there's a great chance you'll enjoy them too. From that perspective, the future is bright. Imagine being told that there's a 92% chance you'll develop a taste for black coffee, even if you'd never planned on trying it. For some of us, the future is black.Jared Leshin is an author and Director of Digital Acceleration at Holmes Murphy & Associates. His book, Advertising and the Nature of Reality, is due out in 2020. MTJared Leshin
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