If you were a boy growing up in the eighties, the chances are that you spent time each Saturday watching Knight Rider. Aside from the novelty of a talking car, and David Hasselhoff’s gravity-defying perm, you might have been struck by his magical wrist watch which he used to communicate with his team back at base.
As it happens, the show was further ahead of its time than even its makers could have hoped, bypassing completely the mobile phone and moving on instead to what could be the next big craze, wearable tech.
Growth of Wearable Tech
At first sight, enthusiasm for wearable tech appears muted. Samsung’s Galaxy Gear has been a widespread flop, with consumers deserting the technology in their droves. According to a White Paper by Endeavour Partners, one third of wearable tech users in the USA stopped using the device within six months. Google Glass, meanwhile, first unveiled in 2012, is still in the BETA phase and is only available to US consumers.
Even so, major technology companies appear to be convinced by the potential of this market. Apple is currently rumoured to be developing its much hyped iWatch which hopes to succeed where the Galaxy Gear failed. Google is also bringing out a new operating system, Android Wear, to power a new generation of smartphones. It will power Motorola’s Moto 360 which is slated for release in the summer of 2014.
Optimists also point to the relative success of the Pebble Watch, which was funded through Kickstarter to set against the failures of Samsung. According to Canalys, Pebble now leads the Smartwatch market with a 35% market share compared to Samsung’s 23%. Technology advisory firm Gartner, meanwhile, has predicted that the market size will reach $10bn by 2016.
According to this optimistic view of the future for wearable tech, its failure to catch on has been down to the poor quality of early products. Customers have complained that the battery life is poor, design has been ugly and that models are quickly replaced by updates – thereby rendering them swiftly obsolete. Once these issues have been overcome, the market will grow.
Uses for Mobile Tech
Because the potential outstrips reality, deciding how wearable tech will impact upon our lives relies significantly on conjecture. Gartner believes that the majority of growth within the market will be from athletic devices such as fitness trackers, delivering a range of usable data to help customers improve their workout.
Other uses include the world of medicine where smart pills could deliver a text back to doctors to alert them when medication has been taken. There could also be automatic delivery of insulin for diabetics or anyone else with a chronic condition.
Mobile phones could also become even smaller than they are today, with tiny devices in the ear allowing you to communicate instantly with any of your contacts.
One of the more startling breakthroughs, meanwhile, comes in the recent success of SIGMO, a device which can clip onto your clothes providing real time voice translation.
So considering these usages, how can businesses best make use of mobile tech? Again, much of this is down to conjecture, but the majority of the focus is currently around advertising and developing content which will suit these new platforms.
A New Era of Advertising
Mobile technology has enabled advertisers to track an individual’s location, movements or buying habits, but wearable technology can go one step further and look inside their mind and bodies. By tracking heartbeat, body temperature, eye movements and a host of other subtle body functions. This technology could be used to inform companies about the mood or alertness of a person, how fit there are, how much exercise they get or how much sleep they had last night. They may even be able to track a person’s fitness to fly an aircraft, or tell if they are halfway up a mountain.
All this data will enable firms to target individuals with advertisements which are not only appropriate to their buying habits, but to what they are doing or feeling at any given time. You can project this forward to its logical conclusion, where your smart watch notices that you’re feeling hungry and provides you with a list of local restaurants.
Shorter, sharper chunks: Just as mobile technology reinvented the way in which businesses utilise content to attract customers, so too will wearable technology. As content delivery becomes smaller and more mobile, the amount of time and space available to deliver the message declines. Marketers will have only one or two words to deliver their key selling point so that copywriters will have to produce brief and highly accurate messages.
Exclusivity: Because this technology is still in its earliest stages, the number of people who currently utilise it remains small. This creates an opportunity to deliver deals and incentives that are available only to these users, creating a sense of having something that other people do not yet have. This may appeal to humanity’s innate sense of tribalism. Digital marketing may revive ancient social hierarchies in which some leaders have the ability to influence others. Early adopters might be considered to fall into this leadership group, so capturing these key consumers could be vital in generating momentum around your brand.
Instant brand information: Consumers are becoming more sophisticated and want to see more information about products they choose. Wearable tech can deliver details, such as how the product was sourced, how it compares with others and online consumer reviews to help you decide between the many products on the shelf.
Wearable technology is yet to truly take off and those products currently available represent only a glimpse at what can be achieved. Google Glass, for example, does not yet allow advertisements in its apps. There is little incentive, therefore, to produce such apps specifically for this device. But marketers should be advised to start planning now.
Businesses were surprised by the growth in current mobile technology and took time to adapt. By working to predict the movement of the market now, they can place themselves at the head of the crowd when wearable technology goes mainstream.
