Marketing - At The Heart Of Battle Against Technology Friction
A piece of research from McKinsey sums it up: over 40 per cent of the companies surveyed still aren’t talking to their end users during development, while over half admit that they have no objective way to assess or set targets for the output of their design team.
The issue revealed is not an absence of innovation, but its presentation in a way that actually drives adoption. In many cases, barriers to widespread use of new products have less to do with the technology behind them, than practical issues ranging from complexity to local market realities. This is the essence of what we call ‘technology friction’; the paradox is that it’s rarely caused by the technology itself.
Marketing teams can and should provide the missing link between the innovation (market opportunity) and the end user (reality); particularly when the latter is defined by local particularities.
So-called ‘missed call marketing’, is a case in point. Since the last decade, feature phones (i.e, with no Web browsing capabilities) have become virtually obsolete; less than 2 million were sold last year in the US, to a population of over 330 million. However, this ‘global’ trend wasn’t entirely uniform in India, for instance, such feature phones still account for 26 per cent of the market. This distinction gave rise to an entire (and unique to India) industry based around text (SMS) messaging – so-called ‘missed call marketing’ – the practice of calling a number and promptly hanging up before connecting. The act signaled to the recipient a particular meaning (from ‘I’ve arrived home safely’, to ‘I’m waiting at the station to be collected’), without incurring all connection charges. But the process could work equally well in the opposite direction; consumers could send a missed call (at no charge) to receive information, discounts, offers via text at little of any cost. By the mid-2010s, missed call marketing had developed into a USD 100 million business in India creating value for all sides of the transaction.
It proved a precursor to the full mobile Web experience, as the smartphone handsets became commoditised, and the proliferation of public/cheap WIFI rendered carrier fees irrelevant.
However, this precursor wasn’t the result of breakthrough technology; it was based on market observation, and ensuring a link between innovation and end users. The ‘friction’ inhibiting user adoption was less about technology than end-user realities. This population were already enthusiastic feature phone users; the challenge as a marketing one – how could they receive a Web-equivalent experience that could eventually pave the way to a full migration to smartphones?
This is just one example – particularly relevant to India - of addressing technology friction; the barriers that prevent or inhibit adoption of innovation (see right). In this case, not with more technology, but actually less.
As services are digitalised and made available across the Web and mobile, the role of marketers in mitigating the effects and costs of technology friction.
And the real impacts of technology friction are not limited to India; the implementation of 5G in Africa being a case in point. While the technology and its potential benefits remain uncontested, it’s roll out across the continent remains constrained by on-ground realities. By 2021, for instance, only 33 per cent of the population in Africa was using the Internet, meaning an estimated 871 million people would be unable to benefit from (or necessarily be aware of) the advantages of 5G. This reality is the result of a culmination of factors ranging from the price of hand-sets (the average smart phone costs approximately 120 per cent of the median monthly income in the continent, according to GMSA data) to the uneven deployment of 5G infrastructure (South Africa, the region’s adopter was forced to suspend trails of 5G last year due to heavy strain on networks during the pandemic).
Again, none of these barriers can be attributed to the 5G technology itself; only a combination of supportive regulation, subsidies (for handsets, for instance), market education and alternative delivery infrastructure (with 60 per cent of the population being rural, for instance, satellites may prove the most effective mechanism) will ensure that the benefits of 5G are delivered to the region. And marketing from user research to Government engagement will be at the heart of this shift.
The 7Ps of Marketing Mix- Product, Price, Place and Promotion (McCarthy, 1960) and People, Process and Physical Evidence (Booms & Bitner, 1982) are highly relevant in the current context. The seventh element of ‘physical evidence’ perfectly captures the perspective of the end user, the practical considerations . . . the ‘on-ground reality’ which make the difference between a new technology and a genuine innovation.
Technology friction represents a tangible and real social cost in terms of economic growth, prosperity, consumer choice and opportunity from innovations that in practice remain under-used.
Marketing can play a decisive and societal role to mitigating this cost.
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