The Wearables Report: Intimate Communication Needs Care

Digital media disruption has been forcing reassessment of brand communication for nearly two decades. Wearable technology throws more questions into the mix.

Media has become two-way and far more personal, but with devices now able to gather and receive highly personal data, the communications implications are all about intimacy, and how to use data and devices for mutual benefit rather than making clumsy mistakes.

These are early days, but to better understand consumers’ concerns and wishes around how their data is used by brands, and how wearables can become a more common part of communications planning, Zeno partnered with London’s Imperial College.

With little other data available on the topic yet, Zeno wanted to understand more about the consumer privacy issues that surround the evolution of wearables. We wanted to know how consumers feel about personal privacy and how they would feel if brands started to make more use of that data to help determine the way they – and others - tell stories. Through a pioneering research project with Imperial Business School, part of the Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, we have gained an early snapshot of personal privacy concerns and attitudes in the UK.

Brands may have more data at their disposal with wearables, but they should also use insight and instinct to better understand their audiences as people. To read more about this new layer of data and its communications potential, download The Wearable Report.