The wearable marketing market is projected to grow significantly, with expectations of 250 million devices in use by 2018, mainly in developing markets. Marketers have new opportunities to engage consumers through real-time emotional and behavioral data from wearables, which can transform customer interactions. Strategically incorporating wearables into marketing can enhance personalization, proximity, and customer data accuracy, benefiting both consumers and brands.

1. Wearable Marketing – 2015
The way ahead…
Author: Prayukth K V
Graphics: Prabahar Chitraikani

2. Can you afford to ignore it?
• Wearables market will grow at a compound annual rate of 35% over the
next five years, reaching 148 million units shipped annually in 2019, up
from 33 million units shipped in 2014. (BI)
• Scope for Apple and Google to extend their domination of the mobile space
into the wearables arena
• Ease of access and body proximity bring wearables closer to the users zone
of use
• 63 per cent of CIOs said they believe wearables will become common
workplace tools (Robert Half Tech Survey)
• 38 percent of consumers who plan to buy a wearable are habitual mobile
banking users (Carlisle & Gallagher Consulting)
• 70% of the participants in a PwC survey expect their employers to permit
the use of wearables at work
• In the same survey, 77% of respondents believe that wearables can boost
efficiency and productivity at work
• 68 million smartwatches and 50 million smart bands to be sold in 2018 (CCS
Insight)
Page 2

3. 250 million wearables will be in use in
2018; 77 percent of these will be in
developing markets*
*CCS Insight August, 2014

4. Under the hood
• For the first time, marketers get a chance to engage in real-time through
‘unmasked emotions’
• Knowing someone’s emotional state creates an opportunity to intervene
with some kind of experience that the person might be receptive to
• Together with social sentiment info, the data collected could be a game-
changer in many ways
• User’s psychological state could no longer be a mystery
• Accurate product/experience feedback is now a possibility
• Right now, most people disconnect their smart devices or computers for at
least a couple of hours per day. It's likely that those with wearable devices
will leave them on around the clock
• Watches that were ditched for smartphones, just a few years back have
returned in a new avatar as smartwatches in 2015
• Biorhythmic data collected from personal health trackers could be analyzed
by datacenters/supercomputers to find new treatments or even cures
Page 3

5. The opportunity
• Location-sensitive ads can be served to customers on-the-go during their
commutes.
• Being with consumers almost 24/7, these smart devices have the ability to
learn even more about their buying habits.
• Wearables are an integral part of the Internet of Things framework
• Co-creation opportunities will rise
• We are still in the “stone-age” of wearables
Page 4

6. Win-win for customers and marketers
• Consumers gain better content by viewing ads while brands get attention to
sell their wares.
• Consumers get to unlock a higher degree of monetisation for data they wish
to share.
• Better products (with smaller product cycles) and more customization
becomes the norm
• Instances of brands deploying not so legal means of gathering customer
data may reduce
• Cost of outreach may come down in the long run
• Accuracy of customer data will go up
Page 5

7. Integrating wearables into your marketing
strategy
• Figure out your wearable marketing play
 Identify business areas that could gain through wearables
 Decode the data science needed to analyze information
 Launch micro experiments in-house
 Define your market and play space
 Work towards evolving a wearable marketing preparedness strategy to
begin with
 If you have a mobile marketing team, get them to explore the wearables
space
 Start scouting for partners
 Delineate the boundaries of data gathering and use
 Be upfront and tell customers in simple and easy to understand terms as
to what’s the type of data you will be collecting
 Put a content engagement strategy together
Page 6

8. The drawing board
Wearables present marketers with an
opportunity to start afresh on a
new platform
Page 7

9. Pillars of wearable marketing
•Proximity
•Personalization
•Paradigms
•Persistence
Page 8

10. Breaching frontiers
“The Happiness Blanket” offered by British
Airways is embedded with LEDs and connected
via Bluetooth to a headband containing sensors
that read electrical fluctuations in the wearer’s
neurons. If brain activity indicates that the wearer
is calm and relaxed, the surface of the blanket
turns blue. If the wearer is stressed or anxious,
the blanket turns red.
Page 9

11. About Prayukth
Prayukth is a marketing transformation leader
with extensive experience in strategic marketing,
building brand credibility, market research and
predicting customer behavior.
He is a social media power influencer with an
engaging presence on twitter, linkedin, slideshare
and google plus.

12. Thank You !!!
Author: Prayukth K V
Graphics: Prabahar Chitraikani