Don’t believe the hype – a marketer’s guide to separating transformative tech from fads

Consumer tech comes and goes – damn quickly. In recent years we’ve all enjoyed (endured?) the hype around 3D TV, Ultra HD TV; smart speakers from Amazon Google, and Sonos, Google Glass; Meta Quests 1,2 & 3; smart watches from Apple, Samsung and Garmin; myriad gaming devices, along with a host of smart ovens, air fryers, pressure cookers and refrigerators that tell you when you’re low on milk. Although, if you require a fridge to tell you that you need milk you probably shouldn’t be plugging in electrical devices on your own.

Not all of these products can succeed. And the truth is that more consumer electronics fail to live up to the hype than actually deliver long-term and genuinely change our lives. So, without the benefit of a (solar-powered 5G wireless) crystal ball, how can marketers recognize a dud piece of tech even when the electronics brands and PRs are hyping it up as the next big thing?

Finding the tech sweet spot

Hamid Habib, managing director at Havas Entertainment, says: “Our 3D Samsung TV is utterly pointless and our Google Home is pretty much a fancy cooking timer these days. The Oculus gets a look in, but Xbox on a big screen is way better. That said, I’m waiting for the Ray Ban Meta glasses to come down in price although I know after a month they’ll be back in the cupboard.

“There is a sweet spot between utility (practical or fun), affordability (not a rich technophile toy) and the most important part of the triumvirate – give-a-shit-ability. That third part is interesting because it’s wrapped up in PR, hype and social tsunamis that make us, especially in our industry, momentarily think new technology is bigger than the second coming of Christ. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a sucker for this stuff. But the hype outweighs so many purchases.”

While many technophiles refer to the ‘Gartner Hype Cycle,’ which charts a technology’s rise to fame and descent to failure, Phil Rowley, head of futures at OMG UK, prefers his Sisyphus Cycle, as he explains: “Sisyphus was a character in Greek legend destined to repeatedly push a boulder uphill, only for it to roll to the bottom once he neared the peak. Some tech, no matter how many times it is presented and re-presented to us, struggles to scale. Often we’re told that this time will be different, but until one condition is satisfied, some technologies will remain at the bottom. That condition is the gap between user expectation versus user experience.”

Losing enthusiasm and switching attention

When the over-promise of truly immersive entertainment experiences, a virtualized life, seamless AI assistance is met by under-delivery, people tend to lose enthusiasm and switch attention to the next big thing, says Rowley, and he cites three key reasons for this UE vs UX gap – value, friction and support.

New technologies are expensive early in their lifecycles, and if the public doesn’t feel they’re good value, they’ll fail, as Rowley explains: “3D cinema tickets were at a premium, but after the first 15 minutes of the film, viewers’ brains stopped noticing the 3D, and so the premium became difficult to justify.”

New tech can be sophisticated, but convoluted to use, or only useable in certain circumstances. Rowley says: “VR headsets are an incredible piece of tech, yet most people need to clear a space in the diary and on the living room floor before booting it up. Smartphones in contrast are always on, always with you and can be instantly accessed wherever you are.”

Rowley concludes that consumers also need to know that any new tech has infrastructure behind it and that there are creators and developers willing to supply raw material for experiences, saying: “If you look at any technology that has not reached its potential in the last 10 years, you’ll find one or more of these factors in play, which in turn leads to a gap between user expectation and user experience.”

Agency Code & Theory employs 50% creatives and 50% engineers – who better to have a grasp on what makes good tech for marketers? Co-founder Dan Gardner can name plenty of tech duds: “Technology has a natural evolution, and the hype cycle is a big part of it. Generally, after the fake experts fade away and people stop paying attention to shiny objects, technology starts to be meaningful. For instance, Flash websites were all the rage when we started Code and Theory; our company was built on it. Where is it now? Nowhere, but everywhere. A lot of those marketing websites were pointless but fun, and then Flash technology died. Yet, many of the innovations within digital design now exist because of the early experimentation with Flash.”

Brands are always on the lookout for the next ‘big thing’ so they can use it to engage more with consumers and push their brand messages at every opportunity. When Alexa was top of everyone’s Christmas list around 2019, agencies were, no doubt, guilty of advising clients that a smart speaker strategy was essential. Where are they now?

Aligning brands with tech

So, how should brands assess and analyze the long-term viability of integrating new tech into their strategies? Stevie Archer, chief creative officer at SS+K says: “Remember the JuicePro? The $500 juice machine that squeezed packets of liquid? What a ridiculous invention that was, but brands should be asking themselves if the juice is worth the squeeze? Does the tech align with and enhance what your brand has to offer, and is your target audience likely to use it at a great enough scale to make investing in developing the technology as a part of a marketing plan make sense? The metaverse, for example, was always more closely aligned with brands that were in gaming, music, and sports because it was already part of, or enhanced those experiences.”

OMG UK’s Rowley encourages marketers to experiment with new tech, but advises they do it for the right reasons: “The wrong reason is brand aggrandizement. Jumping on a bandwagon to satisfy a need to be seen as cutting edge. The right reason is to learn the art of innovation. To practice responding to new tech opportunities and to plan for the evolution of technology over time. To work to embed systems that allow for experimentation, reflection, and reorientation – and that shadow the development of media tech. Not because you want to put all your chips on one number, but because you want to learn how the casino operates. However you’re evaluating new technologies is fine. Just make sure you do.”

While not strictly consumer tech, perhaps the biggest recent rotten tech tomato is Mark Zuckberg’s metaverse. The metaverse promised much for brands looking to build engagement with consumers in virtual worlds far more wonderful than the real one. It’s fair to say it’s failed to deliver, or has it?

Code & Theory’s Dan Gardner warns against writing off the metaverse just yet: “You’d think the metaverse is dead if you spoke to your average ad industry exec. But if you look a bit closer, the prized Gen Alpha lives there. They’d never call it ‘the metaverse,’ but just ask your average preteen about Roblox. Then there are new interesting companies like Genies, who literally are building the most engaged universes for brands to reach these audiences. This is an untapped marketing opportunity that no one is paying attention to because everyone has dismissed it as the ‘hype-gone-bust word’ metaverse.”

Havas Entertainment’s Habib agrees: “The metaverse is still here, it’s still popular – to a degree – but the entirety of humanity hasn’t decided to go all Ready Player One yet – and most likely never will. The lesson is whether you’re a brand or person, take a breath before you engage. Let the hype cycle die down and see what’s left after. Or don’t. Because even if we get bored quickly, there’s always fun to be had at the start.”

Archer feels that despite all the hype, VR just isn’t quite where it needs to be yet to become a long-term stayer, she says: “On the useful/easy to use spectrum VR is still not there. Even though it’s getting better every day. Vision Pro users still have to wear headsets and have a battery tether. And the hardware is very expensive. Until viewing technology gets a lot less cumbersome and less expensive, it will be hard for VR to be widely adopted by enough people for most brands to make it a major part of their investment strategy. And ownership and usage statistics are still low. Where we are seeing the most growth is in younger audiences and gaming.”

Tech Crunch's Biggs concluded in his 2017 article: “The next big push in home CE will be wireless speakers and 4K which will run parallel to advancements in VR and AR. VR will develop in the same way gaming PCs developed – specialized hardware at first, then more general interest and finally mass adoption – while 4K and 8K will be the way TV manufacturers upsell us every few years as we miss out on new content. Then, after about a decade, VR and TV will merge and then things will get really weird."

Just imagine the hype when things get really weird!