Can you believe we’ve already ticked off the first month of 2012? The month has flown by, with almost nobody being more busy than our Lenovo team here at SaatchiNY. That’s why we’re especially happy they’ve found some time to follow up their Lenovo-specific CES report with the first contribution to a new column we’re calling “Get Digital.” Three guesses about what sort of trends will be covered here. Today’s post comes from Aisha Washington and Snigdha Gollamudi. Read it, like it, tweet it. Thanks!
Each year at CES, there’s a big event hosted by CNET in which they announce the next big thing. This year’s announcement was all about the “ecosystem.” What exactly does that mean?
The ecosystem is defined as connecting all of the content that is currently stored on multiple hardware devices so that it works seamlessly with one another. The average consumer, like you I’m sure has over 30 devices in their home from the standard laptops, tablets and smartphones to the evolving internet TVs, and GPS devices. This year’s reported trend is to unite multiple devices together for seamless functionality.
Meet Andrew to understand where the future is headed:
Andrew logs off of his work laptop and leaves his office for the day. His work computer sends a signal to his car, which starts the engine, warms the seats and cues up Andrew’s favorite digital radio program. As Andrew gets closer to home the GPS in his car speaks to his house, turning on lights and heating in preparation for his arrival. Once Andrew steps inside, he heads to the bedroom to get changed. His bedroom TV turns on and gives him a quick summary of the latest headlines. Andrew then heads to the kitchen to begin prepping dinner. The oven is already pre-heating and the refrigerator has ordered groceries for the next two weeks. Andrew uses his tablet recipe app, which has anticipated the ingredients available in the fridge, to cook his dinner.
One brand that is on the cutting edge of this new revolution is LG. They have started creating smart products that can identify and anticipate your needs. From a refrigerator that helps you diet and keeps track of your groceries, to a robot that vacuums via smartphone control, LG is giving the household a whole new tech makeover.
The LG line of appliances is being called, Smart ThinQ. At the forefront of its new line is its refrigerator, which just got a lot smarter with a health manager feature that allows you to maintain your diet, send recipes to your smart oven and even keeps you posted when you run out of certain groceries.
The health manager also customizes family member profiles to cater to each person in the house and can be controlled by voice recognition. LG’s new concept closet virtually eliminates the need for dry cleaning and ironing since it emits steam to help sanitize and de-wrinkle your clothes.
Check out these images of the cool new LG technology:
What does all this mean for us? As a consumer, it’ll hopefully make our lives a lot easier but as marketers we will have to consider the whole consumer journey. Purchasing decisions won’t be based solely on product benefits, but also on how a product functions as a part of the larger system. What we produce will be judged on how seamlessly it fits into the consumer’s life. As devices become platforms for content, and consumers want to move with ease between different mediums to consume this content, we must keep in mind that the “ecosystem” is very quickly becoming an important part of the consumer journey.
