What The Smart Home Means For Marketing

June 2, 2014

Picture this…

You wake up in the morning to the sound of your phone. It’s updating you on the traffic on your way to the office based on the route you took yesterday. You stumble into your bathroom and stare into the mirror at the outcome of your beauty sleep. On the side of your mirror is a reminder to buy toothpaste and shaving cream. You make your way downstairs to find your coffee has already started brewing when it sensed your bathroom light turn off. Your reach into your fridge for some half & half – the bottle is almost empty so your refrigerator updates the shopping list on your phone and finds a coupon for creamer at that store you love to shop at.

On your way to the garage, your garage door opens and your car turns on, adjusts the temperature, and flips the radio over to your favorite morning talk show. As soon as you’re out of the driveway, the thermostat in your house turns down the a/c and activates your security system.

This is the reality that we are on the cusp of. In fact, Apple, one of the major players in the smart home race, announced this week that their smart home system is coming next week. You’ll have the ability to control many of the systems in your home right from your iPhone.

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So what does this mean for marketing? Well, it means both a little and a lot.

When you get right down to it, all you are really doing is adding another platform – another interface – another screen to reach consumers on. The fundamentals of marketing aren’t going to change in that regard.

What we will see is the integration of marketing techniques already being used. The smart home will lay the groundwork to bring together mobile marketing, marketing automation, geo-marketing, social media integration, and branded content, just to name a few.

Every appliance, every countertop, everything that you interact with in your home will become an interface for marketers to reach you. The marketing you see will become extremely personalized, reacting to your needs right in your own home. It may sound scary, but it’s the future.

There’s huge potential for companies and brands to make their way into the home like never before. Until then, we’ll just have to wait and see what the future of smart homes holds.

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