Digital brand relevance first

“Winners in 2019 will be those organizations that provide a sense of value and relevance not only to individuals, but also to the world,” said Brian Whipple, CEO of Accenture Interactive. “Value creation will not come from simply growing bigger, but by being better. Consistent with our mission to create, build and run the best customer experiences for our clients.

we believe this year’s trends support our guiding principle that the best experiences are those that make people’s lives better, more productive, and more meaningful”. This mind set shift has major implications — and creates massive opportunities — for organizations and for customer experience. It’s time to take stock and rethink products, services, and experiences that people actually want and value.

These brands have barrelled through passive exposure to come to life, actively participating with customers. They use technology to be more human, creating new experiences to engage with people in ways that enrich their lives.

Medicine goes B2C

“Thanks in large part to digital technology, rising health care costs, and increased competition, patients have become empowered consumers. As a result, they will be expecting more from health care. Much like the retail industry, patients want easy, seamless, and transparent consumer-like experiences.

 We will see more and more patients become discerning shoppers, comparing prices for physicians and health plans and expecting accurate upfront costs for services, just as they would with other products. They will increasingly look for ways to receive care outside of traditional doctor’s office visits by exploring digital health care options such as telemedicine and chat bot technology.

 Health care organizations are going to feel the pressure, and put even more emphasis on patient engagement, transparency into health care costs, quality, and value-based care. Consumers won’t stand for anything less.”

Tech goes to Sleep

Tech has already infiltrated your waking hours. Now, it’s coming for your sleep. From smart mattresses to smart pillows, the products that are being released into the sleep market aim to improve sleep by tracking some of the most enigmatic hours of our days. In 2019, we will see that the Trojan horse into this industry is wearable technology.

 Fit Bit announced in August 2018 that it had plans to launch a sleep tracking program known as Sleep Score. The technology will use heart-rate tracking sensors on newer FitBits to give users nightly sleep scores and comprehensive views on how they’ve been sleeping. The sensors can measure oxygen levels in the blood and detect events that might be disrupting breathing during sleep.

Here's what happens: Using TVs, tablets, smartphones, laptops, or other electronic devices before bed delays your body's internal clock (a.k.a., your circadian rhythm), suppresses the release of the sleep-inducing hormone melatonin, and makes it more difficult to fall asleep.

Your Digital Identity becomes you

Digital identity defined. Your digital identity consists of various pieces of information about you—in digital form—that, when put together, point to you. Such pieces of information are often called “data attributes”. Still, it's worth trying to stay on top of how you handle your personal information. Historically, we have assumed that people are better at checking and verifying identities than computers.

A digital identity arises organically from the use of personal information on the web and from the shadow data created by the individual's actions online. A digital identity may be a pseudonymous profile linked to the device's IP address, for example, or a randomly-generated unique ID.

However, technology has recently become better than people. There is by definition a need for regulations to be up to date with these results and allow computers to start performing these tasks instead of humans. Digital Identity is a very interesting trend to watch.

Less Social Media, More Social

The social media honeymoon is over. As people question their screen addiction, the impacts are felt in all walks of life, from dinners where guests demand the phones be put away to changing trends in the beauty industry.

“In 2019, people are looking to scale back, simplify their routine and their look,” says Melissa Butler, founder and CEO of The Lip Bar, after years where trends were set by Integra influencers and elaborate makeup tutorials on YouTube. “Social media has played such a big part in pressuring us to show up in a certain way. People are looking to reconnect with who they are, go back to the basics.”

We spend too much time looking for pleasure down at our social media outlets. What we need to begin doing is looking up and seeing what is directly in front of us. We all have the need to socialize but how can we do that with one another (with passion) if we are reluctant on technology

Amazon will move into Hospitality

“In the past year, Amazon has entered new spaces like grocery and health care, has hinted at venturing into banking, and is even selling live Christmas trees — so what’s next? If you look at consumer share-of-wallet as an indicator, one other area that’s ripe for Amazon expansion is hospitality. They’ve just started dipping their toes into local services like house cleaning and handymen. I see great potential value for Amazon to venture into travel and restaurants and leverage its enormous customer base to capture a share of the hospitality spend in 2019.”

Alexa for Hospitality integrates seamlessly with your existing amenities and services, to become your guests’ virtual concierge. Alexa simplifies tasks for guests like playing music, ordering towels, controlling in-room temperature or lighting, finding local restaurants and attractions, calling, and even checking out. Alexa makes delivering a great customer experience simple.  Excited to announce Alexa for Hospitality, a new experience offered by invitation to hoteliers that brings the simplicity and convenience of Alexa to hotels, vacation rentals, and other hospitality locations. This introduces new opportunities for you to build skills that help guests enjoy their stay even more.

             For hotels, Alexa for Hospitality helps deepen guest engagement through seamless voice-first experiences that offer new ways for guests to access services and amenities during their stay. Hospitality providers can request an invitation to Alexa for Hospitality beginning today. 

Amazon could still buy Target

Earlier this year, Munster made a prediction that the e-commerce giant would buy the brick-and-mortar chain by year’s end — something he said would fit with Amazon’s slow adoption of physical stores. “In fact, our belief that online retail will eventually represent 55% of US retail sales is one that will take place over a very long term — at a glacial pace, and Amazon is playing the long game in brick and mortar retail,” Munster wrote.

Target has about 1,850 stores. But no matter the number, Amazon needs to do a lot more in brick-and-mortar”. Amazon may make a bigger move into physical stores this year, according to one analyst. Loup Ventures' Gene Munster is predicting the internet e-commerce company will buy Target in 2018.

I rank Whole Foods number one over every grocery retailer Amazon could acquire for one reason: Amazon can also acquire Target and open Whole Foods Markets inside Target's stores.  Amazon + Target + Whole Foods just make sense. Amazon acquired Whole Foods and it's certainly possible that Amazon can still acquire Target.