• by Cory Treffiletti , Featured Contributor, April 1, 2015

In “Game of Thrones” there’s an epic quest to unite the Seven Kingdoms. In marketing, it’s quickly becoming the same kind of conversation as we look to unite the Seven Screens of Consumer Experience. 

In most conversations people talk about two, three or four screens, but when you dive into it there are actually more: I count seven total. Just like “Game of Thrones”’ various kingdoms, some of these screens are more dominant than others but in totality they represent a cohesive view of the experiences: desktop, phone, tablet, TV, watch/wearable, car, in-store/outdoor.  The first four of these get most of the attention, but the last three are increasingly valuable as we look to unify the cross-channel consumer engagement model to drive increased addressability and accountability.

Mobile is a unifying factor because mobile covers phone, tablet and in many cases watch/wearable.  The technology underlying mobile for data aggregation and message addressability is also applicable to desktop, TV and potentially cars.  To take it even further, in-store and outdoor become accountable through the adoption of mobile as a kind of connective tissue, allowing proximity to identify users who are in view of, and potentially responding to, both in-store and outdoor via iBeacons and the like.  In this way, mobile becomes like magic in the world of “Game of Thrones: an ever-present element that can influence the balance of power and unite all the kingdoms under one ruler.  Mobile is like sorcery and dragons: something that has to be reckoned with.

What many refer to as cross-channel or omnichannel is the strategy for understanding the consumer journey to interact with your brand across all devices and at all points of awareness, desire, interest and action. There is a technology requirement at the foundation in order to make this happen. For example, the delivery of a message on a desktop to someone in search mode is different than someone watching a video.  The same goes for a tablet: if they’re watching a TV show, there’s a different expectation of intrusiveness vs. a person who is actively seeking out additional information. And when you can determine the context for customers’ store browsing activity, you can determine their acceptance of unsolicited messaging vs. those messages immediately relevant to what they are looking for (e.g., grocery shopping vs. window-shopping at the mall).  

All screens are capable of delivering context when you evaluate location plus the content of the screen at any given moment, and those elements coupled with data on the actual user/consumer of the device can deliver a VERY targeted experience.  It’s this delivery of a targeted experience that makes for a higher performing campaign and a generally much higher ROI for your marketing budgets.

I would say conservatively that most marketers in the Fortune 500 are 25% on the way to finding the right solution for cross-channel story unification and the ability to weave together an effective customer experience.  To do so requires the right partners in message delivery, a DMP, data relationships, and a team with a large view of the solution.

Some marketers are further along, with financial services and travel surprisingly being in the lead on this, but with retail and CPG quickly ramping up to speed. These categories interest me because they’re historically the ones that know the most about their customers but have been less able to leverage that knowledge to achieve connected, direct success.  If they focus and deliver in the next two to three years, the business as a whole will take leaps forward.

Where are you on your own attempts to unite the Seven Screens of Consumer Experience?