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Innovative Examples of Personalization
Some examples of innovative personalization in digital products are Netflix's Choose-Your-Own-Adventure model, Sesame Street's vocabulary app, Spotify's Discovery Weekly playlist (including their new business model), Emotion Artificial Intelligence (AI), and eye-tracking technology. Below is an overview of the examples.
1. NETFLIX'S CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE
- In 2017 Netflix started to add interactive content to children’s shows like Puss in Boots and Buddy Thunderstruck.
- In 2018, they launched "BanderSnatch", where viewers could choose and alter the storyline of the show.
- In order to develop the episode, Netflix created a new software called Branch Manager, which allowed the runners of the show to come up with several endings based on the viewer’s choices.
- Some reports alluded to the fact that this sort of content could change the way companies like Netflix collect user's data since it provides a more in-depth perception of how users interact with content and could lead to better personalization.
- Some experts are noting that with the mass amount of content available today, information gathered by this could help Netflix introduce the right type of content to that viewer and change marketing and product placement.
2. EMOTION AI
- Emotion Artificial Intelligence (AI), also known as affective computing, measures, understands, reacts, and simulates human emotions, and allows for more natural interaction between humans and machines.
- Emotion AI is being used for endeavors and innovations, such as Cogito and Affectiva.
COGITO
- Cogito was named as one of the Top 20 Rising Starts by Forbes in 2017 in the category "Leading Cloud Companies at Cutting Edge Innovation".
- Cogito’s AI solutions are being used in call centers to identify customer’s moods and to guide agents to adapt their strategy to handle these customers accordingly.
- Its AI has delivered a 28% increase in customer satisfaction, a 10% reduction in customer callbacks, a 15% decrease in average handle time, and a 90% increase in customer feedback.
- Cogito’s clients include three of the five largest U.S. health insurance firms, two of the largest disability insurers, and some of the biggest credit card companies.
- Cogito’s product changed the way call center agents are evaluated by developing an analytic tool that gives agents and supervisors feedback about the conversation with customers.
AFFECTIVA
- Affectiva Automotive AI is a system that perceives "all things human" inside a vehicle, measuring emotional and cognitive states of drivers and passengers.
- Its system monitors how fatigued or distracted a driver is and alerts the driver appropriately or intervenes to correct dangerous driving. Examples of alerts and interventions are audio alerts and seat belt vibrations.
- It also measures when the car should take over in semi-autonomous vehicles and monitors driver anger to enable interventions or route alternatives.
- When it comes to passengers, its AI adapts environmental conditions, reads user frustration or confusion, and personalizes content recommendations.
- This technology has not only proven that it increases the driver’s safety and reduces accidents but also is an introduction to autonomous vehicles.
- Industry giants like Porsche, BMW, Renovo, and Veoneer are working with Affectiva’s automotive AI.
- Affectiva also has a marketing and advertisement tool called Affdex that measures consumer’s emotional responses to videos, ads, and TV shows using emotion recognition. A quarter of Fortune Global 500 brands use Affdex for market research.
3. EYE TRACKING
- Eye-tracking will make it possible for companies to collect consumer’s unconscious responses. The insights gathered by eye-tracking will help companies to predict and manipulate the client’s behavior.
- This technology relies on "saccades" which is "a quick, simultaneous movement of both eyes between two or more phases of fixation in the same direction".
- The pattern of a "saccade" can tell a computer what humans are aware of, focused on, how they think, and what they know.
- The same way a magician or a movie director tries to lure the viewer's eyes to what they intend them to see, visual and UI designers design websites and apps that try to lead the viewer's gaze into noticing the most important elements and manipulate their behavior.
- Companies like Google and Facebook are acquiring eye-tracking startups and are expected to embed the technology into their future products.
PRACTICAL USES FOR EYE-TRACKING
- VR systems use eye-tracking to guide users during immersive experiences, directing the way they walk and preventing them from walking in a straight line and hitting things along the way.
- Cyber-Duck used eye-tracking to improve a game test by pointing out what exactly was the participants' train of thought during tasks based on their glaze.
- Microsoft has a patent for glasses that could change their prescription from near to far based on what the user is looking at.
- Another patent Microsoft holds is for a glass that would detect when someone is trying to read something farther away and magnify it.
- Gaze Interaction allows those with disabilities to control and navigate their computer using their eyes as if they were a mouse.
- The eye-tracking company RightEye uses the technology to help physicians administer tests and find symptoms for illnesses ranging from simple concussions to Alzheimer’s disease and dyslexia. It also uses this technology to help treat children with autism.
4. SESAME STREET
- According to Forbes, Sesame Street’s app is one of the best examples of how AI can be used to improve personalization.
- The app observes the child’s vocabulary and how well he/she reads and then suggests personalized learning exercises. The app updates its recommendations as the child progresses.
- Schools that are using the app, report significant improvements in the students’ vocabulary and reading ability.
- Sesame Street is collaborating with IBM to develop new individualized learning tools.
5. SPOTIFY'S DISCOVER WEEKLY
- Discover Weekly is a personalized playlist of songs Spotify thinks the user will love based on their previous preferences.
- Spotify is now offering brands the chance to sponsor Discover Weekly, one of the most popular features. It is giving brands the ability to "own" the personalized experience and providing access to an audience of over 200 million people by doing Brand Sponsorship lists.
- According to Spotify, users who listen to Discover Weekly spend twice as much time on Spotify compared to users who do not because of the personalized experience it offers.
- Microsoft will be the first brand to advertise on the platform, running an AI ad campaign called “Empowering Us All” that explores AI use in education, healthcare, and philanthropy.
- Danielle Lee, Global Head of Partner Solutions at Spotify, stated that personalization is no longer an option as much as an expected consumer experience. Lee believes that the new Discover Weekly ad experience will position advertisers for success and enable fans to hear messages that embody the ethos of discovery.
- What makes Spotify’s Discover Weekly innovative is not the technology involved, it is the potential marketing possibilities to reach specific target audiences and demographics and profit opportunities for those who oversee them.