Smart Communications Inc. said Wednesday the future of marketing and advertising, both in the Philippines and globally, will be significantly influenced by the growing prominence of artificial intelligence (AI) and advancements in mobile connectivity like 5G.
“The media landscape dramatically evolves every second, and we don’t even realize it,” said Kristine Go, senior vice president for wireless consumer business at Smart.
“With digital becoming mainstream, describing the media reality as ‘fast-paced’ is an understatement,” said Go, identifying five “key provocations” impacting this changing media landscape.
Go attributed the country’s rapid digitalization to the onslaught of the pandemic.
“Smartphones became dominant, leading to the explosion of social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok. Streaming platforms gave rise to video on-demand and the content creator universe. In fact, the Philippines is #1 in online video consumption,” she said.
She said that in mobile-first Philippines, where people spend about a third of their days on their smartphones, video streaming is a major activity, alongside social media and gaming.
Go said this is due to smartphone affordability and improvements in mobile connectivity.
“With LTE evolving into 5G, people are now able to game and stream anywhere uninterrupted. More importantly, with aceveryone having access to content creation, the latest evolution of this habit has been to livestream outdoors, which 5G allows you to do,” she said, adding that mobile connectivity has also enabled ‘regular joes’ and key opinion leaders to influence other consumers via social media.
“What powers all of these is 5G, as it offers several solutions to the challenges of modern advertising, primarily by enhancing existing formats and enabling entirely new possibilities, like precision targeting, personalization, interactive video ads, augmented reality and virtual reality environments,” she said.
Smart’s 4G and 5G mobile network covers 97 percent of the population to date.
She said that aside from 5G, the mainstreaming of AI is also seen to revolutionize not just the marketing and advertising landscape, but also other fields such as education.
“The Philippines is among the top countries in the world in terms of interest in AI,” said Go, citing data from Google.
“My fearless prediction is that AI will become mainstream faster than we think. In the Philippines, the Department of Education is teaming up with Khan Academy to digitize classrooms and educational content. Part of that project is the AI assistant, khanmigo, which creates lesson plans for teachers, and tutors students on any subject,” she said.
