Market research within retail is often done through online surveys or in-depth focus groups. These practices can generate deeper insight into customer preferences, however, they can also be time-consuming and irrelevant by the time it comes to actual product development.
So, what if there was an easier way to gauge what the customer wants?
Mobile advertising is predicted to drive 75% of all digital ad spend in 2018.
A large percentage of this is likely to go towards in-app ads – currently the fastest growing form of mobile advertising.
The digital ad industry has made significant strides in the past year in its fight against ad fraud.
One of the biggest: Ads.txt, an IAB standard that offers a means to defend against inventory spoofing and unauthorized sellers.
Bulb is a UK energy company which aims to differentiate itself from the ‘big six’, promising customers 100% renewable energy, cheaper tariffs, and a simple on-boarding process.
Altogether, this contributes to a rather pleasing UX – something which I have recently experienced when switching from British Gas.
Artificial intelligence is having a marked impact on the pharma and healthcare industries. From streamlining paperwork to scanning X-Rays – it is slowly transforming the way people are diagnosed and treated.
One area within the industry that has potential to be disrupted by AI is mental health care, specifically with the use of chatbots for therapy and general wellbeing.
People just aren’t that bothered about apps any more.
Or at least, that’s what recent research suggests.
It’s hard to believe that the music discovery app Shazam has been around for 10 years.
Since it first appeared, it has taken prime real estate on users’ phones alongside the likes of Google Maps and WhatsApp.
As a music lover in 2018, it is almost impossible to avoid streaming services and their neatly priced subscriptions.
There are two major players that account for 110 million subscribers globally and make up 32% of the US market for music purchases – Apple (15%) and Spotify (17%). As such, it only makes sense to pit the two streaming app giants against one another to see who reigns supreme in terms of having a superior UX.
Artificial intelligence is one of the most talked about trends of the moment, with industries ranging from beauty to healthcare capitalising on the technology.
Fashion is another industry where AI holds huge potential, most commonly used to enhance the customer experience through personalisation.
It’s not often that a mobile gaming app seeps into the public’s consciousness.
Pokémon Go is perhaps the last prominent example. You couldn’t step outside during summer 2016 without seeing someone trying to catch a Magikarp. Candy Crush is another well-known favourite, of course.
Recipe sharing has come a long way from hand-me-down cookbooks. Now, you can find out how to make anything from roast beef to ramen with just a quick search online.
CookPad, Japan’s largest recipe-sharing network, now has global headquarters here in the UK in Bristol (where they are rapidly growing a data science team to further augment their app and service). With 60 million monthly unique users in Japan and 40 million global users per month – its hungry user-base is rapidly growing.
It is a tool most commonly used for breaking news, but recent research suggests that push notifications are increasingly being used by brands of all kinds.
According to LeanPlum, three times more push notifications were sent on Black Friday 2017 compared to the year before, with push notifications also being opened two and a half times more often than normal. Meanwhile, a survey by Localytics suggests that users are more willing to receive push notifications than they were in 2015.