C — 30 — David Shing : The Connected Human
David Shing from New York is a Creative Director, Futurist, Speaker and a Marketing executive, and is called a “Digital Prophet” because of his expertise in the Digital space. Shing unravelled the Digital journey roadmap on his segment called “The Connected Human” at ZeeMelt 2020 with Anant Rangaswami, Editor of melt as the moderator.
Shing commenced his session by talking about the tidal wave of a pandemic that has affected us all. He personally conceptualised the disaster in 3 phases. Shing used a car as an analogy to illustrate these three phases. In the first phase, Shing looks back from the rearview mirror to see the time has spent in his past. In the second phase, he looks at the dashboard to conceptualise the varied things going on in the present time which he needs to navigate. In the third stage, he looks through the dashboard which enables him to see the horizon that the future beholds, and this is where he spent most of his time pondering. Shing tosses the word Disruption in the discourse and says that if one is not disrupting oneself now, then you are actually being disrupted! Shing foresees that the fourth revolution that will take place in the future will be the manifestation of ‘Intelligence”.
Shing alerts that technology has changed human ‘behaviour’, but it has not changed human ‘need’. Shing recaps the technology that was previously prevalent and reiterates the technology that is prevalent today. The technology that we are dealing with today, is anchored around ‘IOT’, which is the Internet Of Everything. Astonishingly, there is a myriad of 127 devices that are launched under this category each second! All these devices are highly humanised, although most of them are not captivating in their own entity, but are extensions of the smartphones. The world of brand connection today is very linear, but technologies like Virtual Reality allow us to create stories that are multi-path on human emotion. Further, Shing cites examples of rollable television screens that roll back inside the console after one is done watching, to affirm how technology today is not hell-bent on ‘standing out’ but is more inclined towards calming down and blending into the environment and indicating its availability only when needed.
Shing believes that the traditional marketing techniques or the four P’s of Price, Place, Promotion, and Product have now been updated to become Platform, Pedigree, Partnership and Performance. Shing remarks that Sight, Sound and Motion are necessary to create Emotion. Emotion is an important factor at play today, as 75 per cent of marketing decisions are made emotionally. The traditional media focussed on the Consumer consuming the content, however in the modern age, the focus has shifted to the Creator, Critic and the Curator of experiences. The networks of today, like WhatsApp or WeChat, are all centred around providing intimacy and a closed connection to the users. Yet, undoubtedly technologies have contributed in creating a false sense of social reality, and have affected the attention spans and privacy rights of individuals. Thus, people today participate in Digital Detoxes to regain their lost productivity. There is an added onus on the brands as well to reduce the user’s screen time to make them feel more grounded.
Shing connected these concepts to the larger premise of Brand fatigue and urged brands to focus more on the content than on the ads. Content marketing is more authentic and humane than blatant advertising as it also bypasses the adblocking. Shing reminds how the greater contributor to stress today is ‘media overload’ as there is an overwhelming amount of information available today. Marketers thus do need to make good use of the user’s limited attention span.
Shing concluded his talk by quoting Katharine Hepburn who said:”If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun” and encouraged brands to be full of surprises and to work around creating captivating stories.
