The Era of All Customer Contact Points as Media The New Revenue Model Companies Should be Building and Its Expected Impacts

In recent years, we have seen a growing number of cases where companies are taking advantage of their customer contact points to launch or look into launching new media. For example, in the retail industry, companies are developing retail media through in-store signage and first-party apps. Generally speaking, media tends to be categorized by digital technology (online/offline), but, in this Insight, we want to look at the category of new media set up by companies, and how this follows on from newspapers, television, radio, magazines, internet and social media. Specifically, this refers to retail media, in-app advertising, owned-site advertising, outdoor advertising media, audio advertising media, and advertising media that leverages technologies such as AI and WEB 3.0. So what is the background to why companies are launching and looking into launching new media?

The following are some of the measures that companies are implementing to establish a competitive edge and expand their sales

• Making effective use of data: Improving customer satisfaction and increasing the number of customers by analyzing internal customer data and using this to offer a personalized customer experience.
• Optimizing customer contact points: Improving engagement and increasing loyalty (trust and attachment) through apps and real-world contact points.
• Leveraging first-party and cutting-edge technology: Generating new customer experiences and spurring the transformation of customer attitudes by taking advantage of first-party and cutting-edge technology.

New media has the potential to make use of all of these to connect consumers and advertisers, producing benefits for both parties. Specifically, this new media provides new customer experiences that bring customers into contact with products and services that match their personal demands, promote effects that spur the transformation of consumer attitudes to advertisers, and provide new customer contact points that can be used to sell products and services. Selling such new media to advertisers, thus capturing new revenue, serves as the main motivation for doing this.
The following are also potential external drivers behind companies looking into launching new media.

• Accelerating digitalization: Use of digital media rapidly expanding and demand for its use rising due to accelerating digitalization.
• Technological advances: Enhancement of customer contact points through advances in signage, automatic payment systems, sensors and cameras, and applications.
• The effects of personal information protection: The need to rebuild systems for data safety and earning consumer trust, even for existing media, as regulations around personal information protection are enhanced.

Changes among consumers, advertisers and the media environment may plunge companies into an era where all customer contact points become media going forward. With this, there will be an accelerating trend of companies looking into launching new media.

Changes Among Consumers: All Customer Contact Points Becoming Experiences Inducing Actions
As consumer values and contact points diversify, not only existing media, but also all contact points between businesses and consumers may be becoming customer experiences, with these inducing consumer actions. In other words, all kinds of contact points between companies and consumers may spur the transformation of customer attitudes and purchasing decisions, becoming new forms of media. Companies that have contact points with consumers may also be able to create new media by offering these systems to other companies.

Changes among advertisers: Demand for both company-led and customer-led marketing activities
As companies advance their marketing activities, demand is increasing for not only company-led, but also customer-led marketing activities, which incorporate customer perspectives. While company-led marketing activities treat consumers as a group and put the focus on scale, customer-led marketing activities seek efficiency even at small scales. For this reason, going forward, it will be more important for companies to take advantage of all of their data and customer contact points to offer customer experiences rooted in customer demand, and thus more efficiently inducing consumer actions. It is expected that companies may also be able to launch forms of media attractive to advertisers by offering these systems out to other companies.

Changes in the media environment: Growing importance of digital combined with real-world experiences
As consumer contact points and values diversify, we may see the rise of various forms of media that meet the demands of advertisers. It is anticipated that we will see the rise of media that combines digital and real-world experiences, in addition to media that sells advertising slots, such as existing television, newspaper and magazines, and media that broadcasts to digital segments. In particular, digital and real-world experiences that easily fit into the customer lifecycle are domains we can see growing in future, as they can efficiently spur the transformation of customer attitudes and capture customers. Companies can establish firm positions for themselves as new media by offering digital and real-world experiences taking advantage of the customer contact points that they already own.

The following are some scenarios we can anticipate across different industries in terms of the expected impacts of launching new media.

• Retail: A major distribution chains makes use of apps and in-store signage to launch retail media. This allows them to not only capture new advertising revenue, but also to gather customer purchasing data and run personalized promotions. As a result, the company sees increased customer purchasing frequency and sales revenue.
• Materials and chemicals/real-estate: A materials and chemicals company and a real estate company develop glass signage using their own technology, installing it in urban buildings. This new outdoor advertising media not only generates advertising revenue, it also serves as an opportunity to display these companies’ technological prowess, contributing to improvements in their brand images.
• Real estate/infrastructure/energy: A real estate company develops new forms of media that combine outdoor advertising with in-app advertising. Effectively distributing local area information in this way to draw customer interest helps them better attract customers to their properties. They also succeed in diversifying income by managing to gain in-app advertising revenue.

On top of securing new revenue sources through advertising income and data sales by launching new media as in the above scenarios, companies could also expect the following impacts.

• Expanding customer contact points: Increasing contact points with customers through diverse media, deepening those relationships.
• Improving brand image: Broadcasting the progressiveness of the company by making use of new technology and media.
• Securing a competitive edge: Differentiating themselves from the competitors by generating customer contact points using first-party technology.

Launching new media can thus produce many benefits for companies, and even have positive impacts on existing operations. It is important for companies to respond quickly to developments and to ride the wave of new media launches. The main goal of launching new media is often to improve sales as part of a new business line for a company. However, such initiatives could also have impacts on existing operations. Companies can broaden their contact points with customers while expanding revenue, and deepen their relationships with their customers by turning the data and customer contact points they own into forms of media. Launching new media may also come to be critical for establishing a company’s position as the product or service of choice for customers, even as it is expected to generate returns for the existing business.

Launching new media contributes to improving brand image and establishing competitive edge for companies by not only capturing new revenue, but also by broadening customer contact points and deepening relationships with customers. With changes among consumers, advertisers and the media environment, looking into launching new media may become increasingly important for companies going forward. On the other hand, launching new media requires organizing many complex factors and building an individualized approach, as we have described above.
At ABeam Consulting, we work side by side with clients on everything from creating a vision for new media through to executing on those ideas (media operations and sales activities capturing advertising expenses). We have a track record of supporting comprehensive development that connects our partner companies. If you are looking into launching new media at your business, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us.