• by Chuck Martin , Staff Writer, April 20, 2016

One of the sessions at the MediaPost OMMA Boston conference yesterday reminded me yet again of how significant a transformation is coming to all of marketing as we enter the world of the Internet of Things.

In addition to many conversations and viewpoints around ad blockers and beyond came an insightful look at the actual look, feel and role of advertising in the future.

A presentation about how marketing will involve less actual advertising by Mike Proulx, EVP, director of digital strategy and tech innovation at Hill Holliday, highlighted just how much change may be on the horizon.

Proulx suggested that customer experience trumps all.

“Not only is it important not to get customer experiences wrong, it’s super important to make customer experiences delightful,” said Proulx, who put advertising in a broader context.

“We now have data that shows that people, in a hard core way, are avoiding advertising,” he said. “It doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be doing advertising; it means balancing our marketing portfolio that favors the consumer through better experiences.”

“High frequency ads over short durations can actually negatively affect brand perceptions of consumers,” Proulx said.

And those experiences, whether good or bad, are not likely to stay private.

Studies have shown that consumers are likely to share a bad experience with a lot of people and Proulx shared other research showing that more people tend to share positive brand experiences with others.

As the industry evolves, Hill Holliday is moving with it, according to Proulx.

“We’re not just doing ads, but creating and building and making consumer experiences for our brands’ consumers,” he said.

“Agencies have to own the consumer journey. They need to be evolving and partnering smartly to be able to put experiences at each point along the journey.”

And the Internet of Things is going to rock that transformation in a big way.

“In IoT, there’s a lot of potential to create value by creating apps and experiences that connect a bunch of connected IoT devices,” said Proulx.

“We are at really nascent stages in the IoT landscape right now. A lot of what’s been put on has been gimmicky and short-lived. As that technology matures, I think we’re going to see bigger and bigger potential for brands to participate for sure.”

I could not agree more with that.