Customer Experience. Shaping digital experiences the IBM iX way

It’s no secret that millennials flock to artisanal products, and have a taste for small, local, food brands. The dilemma confronting a big mass global brand like Knorr was how to find its way into their shopping baskets. It roped in IBM iX, the tech company’s digital agency network.

Using the insight that, for millennials, food is a way of expressing their lifestyle and identity, the IBM iX team came up with ‘Flavor Profiler’, a tool that assigned users a flavour personality and then, based on it, served them a customised recipe.

Flavor Profiler, built by IBM iX using super computer Watson’s cognitive computing skills, was the main ingredient in Mullen Lowe’s subsequent ad campaign for Knorr — Love at First Taste. It was a campaign that increased purchase intent among millennial consumers and won awards.

The experience on this campaign led to IBM iX acquiring three creative agencies: Exc.io, Resource Ammirati, and Aperto in the span of one week. Almost immediately, two more agencies were added to the roster: Bluewolf and Vivant, bringing the total number of studios across the world to 36.

“Those were the days,” recollects Matthew Candy, Vice-President and Global Leader for IBM iX, of the acquisition spree in 2016. “We have since done eight acquisitions,” he says. Among these are leading digital agency groups. Currently there are 42 studios within iX. But the appetite to acquire more is unabated. Says Candy, “In order to build scale we will continue to evaluate acquisitions. Even Indian digital agencies are on our radar.”

Design-driven strategy

IBM is one among a growing league of IT companies that are treading on ad agency turf, creating very creative digital experiences to wow customers. “Customer experience is turning out to be a critical element with corporates as they develop their business strategy,” explains Candy, adding: “We are keen to raise the bar for experience-led, design driven, digital reinvention.”

“IBM has all of this technology and consulting heritage,” he adds. With Watson the company is well on its way to creating an Artificial Intelligence-driven system that can “knock the socks of digital biggies”.

The difference is in the approach. “The focus within iX is macro,” explains Candy, “since there is a big difference in how we can build something, or provide a solution, or design it. We do three things to help clients: we define and build a progressive strategy, we turnaround and transform business modules, and we help the company capture market share.”

Though working with major clients, IBM iX does not want to do the same work as an advertising agency. Instead, it wants to tie in the company’s IT divisions into creative work and bring a face to the digital experience.

Commenting on this tech-first approach, Shrenik Gandhi, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, White Rivers Media, a digital media agency, says, “With its ability to be agile and be accurate at the same time, many companies have found themselves associating with technology-enabled or tech-first digital firms to help them make informed decisions about the industry for their brands. This helps them scale up, spend less time in inefficient activities and helps brands reach customers more accurately than ever before.”

Human-centric experiences

Candy says the company is “helping brands build human-centric experiences”. Pointing out that mobility, combined with data and cloud, has been transforming businesses, the Global Leader for IBM iX says emotional connections between the brand and consumers have become more difficult to create and maintain, as distrust and other issues erode relationships. However, some brands have been creating a sense of belonging in a consumer’s life.

IBM iX’s work for an airline company to build a customer-centred application using big data is a case in point. The earlier system was causing friction. The airlines wanted to restore a sense of calm to the harried process of getting through the airport and reduce the fear of missing a flight.

“We created an iPad app for their engineers who maintain the planes and schedulers. We essentially took a complex, paper-driven process and put consumer experience in the hands of employees,” says Candy. The new app guides the airline’s passengers seamlessly from check-in to take-off without anxiety.

Noting that the best brands “recognise the duality of human nature and want to create experiences” that satisfy both the individual and collective needs, Candy says the challenge for companies today, in the midst of a digital transformation, is how to take years of technology and investments and make it work in the digital era.

In India, IBM iX has built a unified digital experience across multiple customer touch points for a leading telecom service provider. The company has revamped the operator’s digital self-serve user experience and re-crafted product offerings to meet consumer priorities and keep pace with expectations of a millennial-dominated market.

The entire brand identity for an upcoming Indian fashion brand is also being developed by the company. It has created the brand taxonomy, ranging from the packaging to the visual design, to the brand collateral. The aim is to create both a 360-digital brand and drive an experience that would differentiate the brand from competition.

Though analytics and Big Data have potential in many industries, nowhere is the impact going to be felt more than in sports, improving efficiency, accuracy and profitability. From coaches and players to sponsorships and businesses, analytics can make a difference in scoring touchdowns, signing contracts or even preventing injuries. It can also help create magic in terms of fan experiences.

Sporting endeavour

Take the recent FIFA World Cup where Fox Sports partnered with IBM to create a “highlight machine.” Powered by IBM’s Watson, the machine allows users to select clips from all the FIFA World Cup tournaments since 1958 to create a custom clip.

There are over 300 archived matches that Watson is capable of analysing, and a viewer can filter out by World Cup year, team, player, game, or any combination of these. So, for instance, one can make a highlight reel of any Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi shots, from every World Cup they have played in. Users can share their creations socially on Facebook and Twitter. “We used AI and wrapped it into customer experiences to augment them. Data and insights were used to make a meaning and impactful experience,” notes Candy.

It is estimated that over three billion tuned into the World Cup this year. To be able to create personalised content for so many is a leap that only the marriage of AI, analytics and experience design could bring about.

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