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If you witnessed the death of typewriters, radio cassettes and analogue cameras you will have felt the wobbles of the digital revolution in its early years. Today Artificial Intelligence (AI) makes the headlines as one of the most disrupting forces of our century. In an article published in June 2016, The Economist claimed, “Experts warn that the substitution of machinery for human labour may render the population redundant. They worry that the discovery of this mighty power has come before we know how to employ it appropriately.  Such fears are expressed by those who worry that advances in artificial intelligence (AI) could destroy millions of jobs and pose a Terminator-style threat to humanity.”

In October 2016, mobile and tablet traffic overtook desktop traffic for the first time. Since then, we have been living in a mobile-first world. Mobile makes us communicate differently. As marketers, we are already consciously making the shift to digital. We are investing in fancy websites and new technologies for our companies. But mobile often lags behind.

In this ever-changing world, marketers know they need to change their strategy. To face the increasingly competitive industry and deliver profitable growth, companies should focus on building a more personalized and enjoyable service/product for their customers.

Brand commerce is changing the scene for Belgian marketers. Today, customers no longer differentiate between brand and sales experiences. They expect a seamless customer journey, both online and offline. The idea of brand commerce is to look at brand-building and sales activation from an integrated, customer-centric point of view. All touchpoints between the customer and the brand are managed in a personalized way, focusing on the customer experience.

This month, 6 consultants have completed a training in Salesforce Marketing Cloud. This brings the number of consultants trained in one of the Marketing Automation tools that we support to 17. The infographic below shows our capabilities & knowledge in Marketing Automation. 

Li-Fi is not well known in the market and is an abbreviation of Light-Fidelity. Just like Wi-Fi, it enables wireless communication by transmitting data. It is often quoted as the new international standard for wireless Internet via light transmissions. But how will this disrupt the data market and why is it relevant for marketers? The Li-Fi market size is expected to grow by 80.8% over the next 6 years (1). This booming evolution, combined with its high impact on customer experience in the future, provides confirmation that every marketer should add this technology tactic to their marketing communication toolkit.

On May 3rd THoMers Dennis, Inge and Maxime attended the first edition of Marketing Automation Day with speakers from Actito, Torfs, AXA bank Europe, NMBS Europe, Forrester Research and more. Take a look at their 6 key learnings from the day:

Customer centricity, marketing technology, customer experience, data,… More and more, marketers are realizing that these concepts are key in modern marketing. What it actually boils down to is “brand commerce”: Integrating brand building and sales activation with a focus on seamless and brand consistent customer experiences by making efficient and effective use of both data strategy and marketing technology. Chatbots are definitely one of the enablers for companies to reach this ultimate state of brand maturity.

The House of Marketing organized its 6th quest for the Marketing Genius of the year. During this challenge, young Belgian marketers are empowered to voice their creative marketing ideas. Godiva, newsmonkey, Devos&Lemmens, Desperados, Vacature.com, ProNails and PUB challenged the participants to come up with a genius opinion about one of their burning marketing challenges.

Four marketers, four colleagues, four friends, four Millennials. Our mission? To bring together the world of marketing and Millennials in Belgium.