Contextual Integration Digs Deeper at the Contagious Now/Next/Why Conference

Last week I attended the Contagious Now/Next/Why conference. During the conference, it became clear that a key trend is influencing the effectiveness of campaigns across all mediums – the need for true contextual integration. Contextual integration, sometimes referred to as contextual relevance, is not new. And, as a result, consumers now expect complete, connected and consistent experiences from a brand, no matter where they are engaging. But, we, as marketers, have not yet been able to create this experience and therefore, we have not allowed contextual relevance to reach its full potential.

One of the key areas that must evolve in order to create real contextual integration is in the creation of personas. Current personas tend to be based around demographic data and a picture of who a person is holistically. However, this demonstrates a lack of understanding of human nature. People’s roles and needs shift depending on who is around, such as a mother of two who is a brand manager at a corporation will have very different needs when she is at home with her children getting them ready for school versus presenting key findings about her product line to her colleagues. Therefore, personas need to be viewed by context and with the change in context comes a change in the information that is relevant.

In other words, it’s time to plan around people. As marketers, data allows us to dig deeper to do just that.

Implication: Design brand planning around contextually relevant pieces of data: time, platform, habits, intent, persona, and events.

Reposted in Tribal Worldwide's Smoke Signals.