The future of advertising is equally exciting and daunting. ‘Storitisation’ is the strategic use of storytelling in advertising that resonates emotionally with audiences. This creates meaningful and authentic connections that go beyond brand or product awareness. The crafting of these stories, if they illustrate brand values and beliefs, makes them more relatable and memorable. This builds trust and credibility, enabling audiences to feel part of a shared story and sense of community. Such personalised stories require deeper insights into target audiences. As new technologies emerge and storytelling dramatically changes, the importance of relevance in advertising will only grow. This creates opportunities for creative talent and skilled human capital to drive return on investments.

Required is the sort of talent that understands immersive environments that enhance data diversity to improve marketing objectives. This improvement comes from incorporating multi-sensory data and cultural intelligence, leading to high motivational scores of target audiences. For advertisers, data diversity and AI are powerful tools to analyse consumer behaviour, preferences and cultural nuances to create effective and inclusive campaigns driving relevancy.

In a digital culture, a relevant ad would deliver the right message to the right person at the right time; anything short of that would constitute a narrative failure – an ‘un-storitisation’ dilemma of sorts.

Hence, the richer and more diverse the dataset, the more valuable the insights into cross-cultural communication and behaviour. In such a culture, immersive experiences offer incredible amounts of data. This dataset was created from the detection of heart rate, facial expressions and eye movements. This aspect, according to researchers, reveals emotional and cognitive processes that shape interactions. These interactions show how people behave in these immersive worlds, helping data enthusiasts uncover patterns and preferences. This deeper understanding enhances cultural intelligence, informing effective products, services and even policies.

In real-time strategy (RTS) games such as StarCraft, Age of Empires, Warcraft III, Company of Heroes, Total War, Dota 2, and League of Legends, the environments unfold in real-time. This requires players to make quick decisions and adapt strategies on the go, creating a sense of urgency. These elements keep the players engaged as they simultaneously manage resources, build structures, and command units – adding complexity to the experience. Since advertisers have access to various data points in RTS games, this refines their targeting and engagement capabilities. Other than data on player demographics, such as age, gender and location, in-game behaviour data (session duration, level completion rates and in-game purchases) provide insights into player engagement, crucial to optimising ad placements. Additionally, advertisers can choose to target players in particular cities or neighbourhoods; a feature that ensures the ads are seen by those most likely to engage with them. This is particularly useful for local businesses aiming to attract nearby customers.

Several studies suggest that immersive experiences enhance data diversity by improving cultural intelligence, as they provide the opportunity and the capability to learn from analysing multi-sensory data.

The Immersive Audience Report 2024 indicates that audiences engaging in immersive experiences are more ethnically diverse and representative of the general population than those visiting conventional arts and culture venues.

According to The Emergence of Immersive Advertising, an INFOSYS report, immersive advertising is rapidly gaining popularity. However, as the volume of immersive ads grows, concerns surrounding data privacy, collection and usage will become more prominent, prompting governments to implement regulatory frameworks. While hardware and talent costs may initially pose challenges, the widespread adoption of immersive technologies is likely to lead to increased affordability and accessibility and make immersive advertising a preferred choice for marketers seeking to reach their customers effectively. Instead of relying on 2D graphs, advertisers can step into virtual environments where they interact with data in real-time, examining relationships, spotting trends and understanding audience segments from different angles. A cutting-edge approach, immersive analytics is transforming how advertisers analyse and engage with complex data by using technologies like virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR) and extended reality (XR). Facilitating analytical reasoning through immersive human-computer interfaces by leveraging multi-sensory inputs like visual, auditory and haptic feedback, teams from different locations can explore data in 3D spaces.

This exploration provides a deeper, more intuitive understanding of data patterns, complex relationships, campaign performance and market trends. Companies like IBM, Microsoft, Google, SAP and HTC are at the forefront of immersive analytics and offer a range of tools and platforms that enable users to explore and analyse data in immersive and interactive ways, revolutionising data visualisation and decision-making.

Several studies suggest that immersive experiences enhance data diversity by improving cultural intelligence, as they provide the opportunity and the capability to learn from analysing multi-sensory data. The Immersive Audience Report 2024 indicates that audiences engaging in immersive experiences are more ethnically diverse and representative of the general population than those visiting conventional arts and culture venues. It further highlights that these experiences attract a wider range of participants, including younger individuals and families. This is in contrast to the demographic profiles of traditional cultural spaces. Immersive experiences appeal to audiences with diverse interests and backgrounds.

There are, however, restrictions on widespread adoption due to privacy-related issues, although some companies continue to explore the technology. For instance, the Omnicom Group explored the use of facial technology to measure emotional responses to ads. To measure attention and engagement, Orbs used eye-tracking technology, which is fast becoming an important tool to assess consumer behaviour. For over a decade, Facebook used DeepFace, an algorithm that identified individuals from images, and although the platform may have discontinued using facial recognition for photo tagging, Meta has not yet ruled out future applications. In July this year, Meta agreed to a $1.4 billion settlement over the next five years to the state of Texas for unauthorised use of personal biometric data of users from uploaded photos and videos.

The use of biometric data in advertising raises important ethical and legal concerns. While its potential benefits are significant, to create meaningful and authentic connections, it is crucial to respect consumer privacy and build trust.

As technology advances, the regulations will evolve to ensure data is collected and used responsibly and transparently. Until then, the advertising industry will continue to navigate these complexities, investing in a better understanding of cultural nuances to expand market reach. If the human brain is a storytelling machine, then to create meaning and authenticity, cultural intelligence and data diversity are at the heart of the future of advertising, without which many will plunge into the abyss of irrelevance.

Puruesh Chaudhary is a futures researcher and strategic narrative professional, featured among the world’s top female futurists. She works for AGAHI. puruesh@gmail.com