At the Asian Trends 2020 conference I attended this month, we were faced with some startling statistics. TrendWatching, the company which brought us this conference, shared that 86% of Indian millennials would rather spend on experiences than on products, commodities or services. And to serve these needs, brands are now using their expertise to move out of their conventional business models and are breaking into new territory. For instance Muji, a brand we all know and love for its simplicity, is extending its ethos into hotels and living spaces. We also learnt that a Nasscom & Economic Times 2019 article states that the immersive market in India is expected to grow almost twelvefold, from USD 550 million in 2018 to USD 6.5 billion in 2022! To respond to such global trends, Nippon Airways has created a telepresence robot to stand in for people who are unable to travel due to health, so that they can still experience the world through the lens of a robot!

For brands, what’s true today was not true the day before. If interactive touch-screen technology was the buzz yesterday, today technology is handsfree! So, it’s no touching nothin’ now! The customer experience will only get more seamless. As companies vie with each other to improve experiences, at Eumo, we are already embedding these technologies into our projects. Our museums will now speak to visitors with gestures, our retail will respond to sounds and speech. Our customers will be recognised at stores without punching in their names and ids. Because that’s now become the base customer expectation. Keeping up with customers is a never ending catch-up game in a time where technology is moving faster than ever before.

Stay tuned for more!

Photo by Arun Sharma on Unsplash