Expressing Your Brand in the Age of MarTech: Challenges and Opportunities

No doubt, technology will evolve in a way that allows machines to interact more naturally with us. A key question we should be asking is whether this process will be sped along by our own evolution, or more specifically, the evolution of our language. In other words, will human language change to accommodate interactions with software systems capable of natural-language processing? And if so, what does that suggest for how businesses should communicate with their customers online and offline going forward?

We already have evidence of language adaptation. Users of Amazon’s Alexa or Apple’s Siri use trial and error to learn how to ask questions in ways that the device and the technology behind it will understand. With enough such practice, will those users naturally construct their questions similarly in other contexts? The original character limitations of texting and Twitter inspired us to vastly expand our use of emoticons and abbreviations as a short form way of sharing our experiences and expressing our thoughts and feelings. With enough practice expressing ourselves in this sound-bite kind of way, will we become more likely to express ourselves superficially—without the depth of expression—in other contexts?

The answers to these questions will have implications for how consumers will interact with any new and forthcoming marketing platforms as well as the capabilities those platforms will need to have to be widely adopted by consumers. If we can and do adapt our language with relative ease, developers need not worry about perfectly mimicking human speech. And if the language we are learning to speak in a digital or virtual context becomes the language we speak in all contexts, then at some point in the not too distant future, today’s language may no longer seem natural in any context.

There are also implications for non-digital environments such as in-store where language appears on signage and packaging, and in the interactions that customers have with sales personnel. While the language used to express and communicate a brand should be true to the brand and its image, it also needs to resonate with target customers. Consumers respect brands that are authentic. Brand language authenticity means authentic to the brand but also authentic to how consumers naturally process language.

The question of how technology impacts language has other implications for marketers. Researchers have long debated the relationship, if any, between language and thought. In other words, is our thinking governed by what we can express (or vice versa)? If such a relationship exists—and there is strong evidence both for and against—then, are we simplifying our thoughts about products and brands by simplifying our language as we adapt to technology? How will such simplifications affect our product/brand expectations or our customer choice and satisfaction criteria? Will the use of less nuanced language in daily life effectively discourage consumers from examining or evaluating brands with any depth and result in their putting more weight on superficial aspects of brands when making choices?

Only time will tell us the answers to these questions. In the meantime, here are a few ways to prepare for your brand’s linguistic future:

• Recognize that as a living thing, languages change over time.
• Utilize social listening and other text analytical software to learn not only what is said and how it is said, but also how that ‘how’ changes over time.
• Use your insight about linguistic changes to help inform the evolution of the language used for marketing your brand across a variety of platforms.