Spikes Asia 2016: 'Make every interaction matter': Havas' Jason Jercinovic

 

Jason Jercinovic, global head of marketing innovation and global brand director, Havas, spoke at the 'Discovery Stage' on day two of Spikes Asia, on 'The future of cognitive'. 

 

Suggesting that the future was already here, Jercinovic said, "People always want to talk about flying cars and killer robots. Movies around the future shows we are against science fiction machines. But, the truth is that the future is here already. When we talk about the future, the word 'revolution' is thrown around. The digital revolution, the mobile revolution, the data revolution. They've all faced as us, and have been overrated. Cognitive is here today. I'm interacting with sophisticated platforms. These interactions will impact brands as users will have expectations from brands."

 

He added, "Cognitive (AI) enables brands to reinvent the customer experience," and went on to explain the statement. 

 

"We live in an age of acceleration. There's an information overload and it's only going to grow. With data coming from Snapchat, WeChat and the likes, we are getting unstructured data. And 80 per cent of the data coming in is unstructured (in the form of images, emoticons, video etc)," he said. 

 

The global brand director touched upon the power of cognitive technology and how it can help with reading unstructured data that brands have: "That means brands can gain deeper insights about our customers and provide them with more valuable, personalised experiences that came demonstrate understanding, reasoning, learning and responsive interaction." 

 

Jercinovic explained the attributes of a cognitive system:

He compared these attributes to those that humans have and said how we do something similar unconsciously, by observing, interpreting, evaluating and then deciding. 

 

Havas Cognitive

 

In May this year, Havas Cognitive, a partnership between IBM Watson and Havas Group to offer artificial intelligence and data driven insights was forged.

 

"Cognitive is not just artificial intelligence. It is intelligence augmented. So, it's using machines to make us better. Cognitive is the competitive advantage enabling a partnership between people and computers. It scales our human experiences and enables one-to-one experiences. At Havas we look at clients and see them studying huge amounts of data. We use our creatives with cognitive for new user experiences, through new strategies, services, products and partnerships," said Jercinovic. 

 

He went on to state three primary benefits of cognitive with examples of campaigns it was used in. 

 

"'Understand me as an individual' – drive hyper-personalised engagement. Personalisation is no longer optional. It's the expected behaviour of modern brands. Customers are increasingly comfortable with exchanging their data for more valuable interactions."

 

TD Ameritrade

 

"The brand was a Superbowl 50 sponsor. The brand is about confidence. The brief was about confidence. We created a system for customers through social media where the most confident fans got two tickets to the game. This campaign was a test of the technology. Internally the team saw the benefits of cognitive. Now they're using cognitive to make product recommendations." 

 

"'Make every interaction matter' – drive a rich profile based on interactions and learnings. Build a system of customer engagement that optimises every touch point and delivers immediate value."

 

Sanofi 

 

"What is interesting to demonstrate is the ability to use cognitive insights to enable a better life. People that have multiple sclerosis (MS) suffer from debilitating lack of physical ability to do what they had been accustomed to be doing. We must learn from every interaction and demonstrate through a user output that make sense."

 

"'Collapse the customer journey' – Reinvent a delightful customer engagement experience – from discovery to product use and customer service. Digital enables this to be non-linear."

 

Red Bull

 

"The brand had a social brand workshop. It explored what it means for an athlete to have a personal social brand and how cognitive computing can help refine it. It then interviewed athletes and used their responses to generate a Watson Personality Insights profile. It then unveiled the cognitive recommendations and results of the personality analysis and provided concrete suggestions for athletes to find their authentic social voice."

 

Where do we go from now

 

After revealing a personal playlist generator using Spotify, Jercinovic ended the session by saying, "No one exactly knows where we are going. Big ideas become big only after delivery. Otherwise they stay ideas. You need to respond to change. Success will come to those who are more adaptable."