The Futurist: At your fingertips

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Grant Bertoli, CEO, Ipsos in Southeast Asia

What will marketing be like in 2022? My instant reaction is that it's not that far away. We're evolving into a virtual economy in which old business models must partner with new ones to remain solvent.

It's a world where consumers will be constantly connected and this will be their default setting. It's a world accelerating towards the new singularity - where the storing of a consumer's life information will be in a single portable digital device. Tools, choices, apps will move to "onetouch" actions combined with the visualisation of information.

We are moving towards a culture where information about most things becomes freely available. And where personalisation via devices and applications will continue to quickly grow. It will be a world where behavioural networks will predict what you are going to do and recommend choices to you.

As marketers, we will be able to form neurolinks to the human brain and, hence, create products, messages and experiences. It's also perhaps a scary thought and there will be privacy implications surrounding it, but the feeling or the sense of really knowing and predicting what you will do, is only just around the corner.

There's no doubt social media is changing and evolving rapidly - and brands are constantly exploring new ways to make social media work for them. We will also see marketing in this environment appealing to more than two senses: sight and hearing. Limited now. Possibilities for more, definitely.

As for products, many are becoming even more commoditised, and design will be the key in this new landscape. While the social space and the digital world evolve - traditional mediums such as TV are not dead. Many years ago we claimed TV may not be around, yet it still is and will continue to be a dominant medium.

These are exciting times so expect the unexpected - influences coming out of markets/ cultures/countries and out of left-field such as the "Korean Wave" - no one saw that coming!

Sharon Chew, vice president for consumer card products and marketing for American Express Singapore.

About 60 years ago, the first cards were issued so the wealthy could dine at exclusive five-star restaurants and pay for the balance owed at the end of each month.

Today, we rely on credit cards to pay for our daily expenses, ranging from fine dining to groceries, to travel bookings and education fees. Payment solutions have to constantly evolve to suit consumers' spending behaviour.

In March this year, American Express announced ServeSM in the US, a digital payment and commerce platform that gives consumers a new way to spend, send and receive money. While ServeSM was developed as a digital and mobile service, cards were also issued to customers for use at bricks and mortar merchants that accept American Express cards.

Picture this: you wake up in the morning to a chime - a notification from a mobile app asks if you'd like to replenish ink toner supplies for your printer; or a month's supply of multivitamins; or a one-year renewal for your digital magazine subscription - preferences automatically learned from purchase records with American Express.

A light tap on the screen confirms the orders and a charge is authorised on your credit card. Devices such as Smart TVs will be embedded with your digital wallet, changing the way you shop at home and delivering customised programming and targeted advertisements.

NFC (near-field communication) enabled mobile phones embedded with card information will trigger outdoor electronic displays - which double up as points of sale - to flash advertisements and promotions in the vicinity for products and services that are relevant to your spending patterns, which allow you to instantly take advantage of card privileges for your purchase with a tap-and-go.

Smart chips and cards could be replaced by fingerprints or retina scans authenticated via a secure and proprietary American Express biometric network for all your payments, privileges and points redemption.

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