Brighton is blessed with a thriving digital media scene. As well as the job opportunities this offers to our graduates there are also lots of events where industry experts share their experiences and knowledge.
OgilvyOne Worldwide’s Dayoan Daumont talking about the potential of artificial intelligence to shape digital marketing
Last night I went to an event organised by Wired Sussex as part of the Digital Catapult initiative of which the University of Brighton is a key stakeholder. The event was titled, Real-time, Place-based Digital Marketing and brought together some leading thinkers and entrepreneurs to talk about the work they are doing and the future of digital marketing.
As the title suggests, the theme was how new technologies such as virtual reality, augmented reality and location-based services are changing the way marketers and advertisers connect with customers.
Wifi-enabled smart buttons for one-click ordering of branded products from Amazon
I found Dayoan Daumont’s keynote talk particularly interesting. Dayoan is Innovation Director at OgilvyOne Worldwide, one of the world’s leading advertising agencies. He showed us how some brands are using new technologies such as virtual reality to connect with customers but made the point that ultimately these technologies have to offer something tangible which the customer actually wants. For example, the Amazon Dash buttons aim to make the reordering of staple household items easier through the single click of a button. Although the Dash buttons are a relatively crude attempt to drive sales by Amazon, they point the way to how technology can become embedded in everyday items to remove friction from transaction processes.
Looking further into the future, Dayoan argued that artificial intelligence (AI) initiatives such as Google’s AlphaGo and IBM’s Watson will change how companies learn about our behaviour. It is likely that, based on the knowledge which Google is building up about our online and offline behaviour, we will not need to type or speak our search requests as the company will know what we want before we do. Whether this is something to look forward to or be worried about is another matter.
On the 2nd March 2016, the University of Brighton held a Computing and Media Careers Fair on its Moulsecoomb campus. 22 companies had stands, all looking for talented computing and media graduates. I interviewed a few of them to find out what they did and the types of skills they are looking for from our graduates.
