Car brands closing disconnect between mobile experiences and driving
Car makers, advertisers and technology firms are getting closer to defining the role of connected cars in their efforts to connect touchpoints all the way to purchase but their shared agenda is divided by competing motives for in-car interfaces.
The disconnect is reflected in the industry’s swerves from owned connected-car platforms to those from the likes of Google and Apple as auto makers weigh up the pros and cons of ceding control of the driving experience to commercialise the technology. Tensions over data ownership, safety, privacy and profits are also slowing the connected car’s journey to the mainstream, revealing a reality that is much more middle of the road than the conceptual driverless futurism brands hope to sell.
But there are signs from this year’s CES that the trend could be about to shift gears with auto makers and technology firms putting aside their differences for now to try and extract value, albeit from different parts of the customer experience. General Motors' decision to axe its connected car tech MyLink in favour of Apple’s Carplay and Google’s Auto platforms are indicative of the mindset change.
Commercialising the connected car
Speaking at the conference, Phil Abram, chief infotainment officer at General Motors, said the business is working to remain open to a variety of connected car services, including those from rival vendors. The car maker hopes to harness the breadth of experience to identify how it can innovate in the connected space beyond smartphones, such as real-time monitoring of vehicle diagnostics.
“You need to leverage the broader environment in order to present drivers with just the meaningful and contextually relevant things,” said Abram. “That’s the chance for the automotive industry and the new opportunity for us, creating the right layers that we can innovate on at speed while protecting and holding sacrosanct the safety that is inherent in the vehicle”.
Ford is hoping to chart its own route to mainstream connected cars through the “Smart Mobility” initiative of 25 experiments to tackle the transportation problems of tomorrow. Developers and start-ups worldwide are being called on by the car maker to create apps and programs with 25 projects launching later this year.
Ford chief executive Mark Fields said during his keynote at CES that while the experiments would not provide a “single solution”, they will light the path for the way forward. It is less about real-time marketing and more about real-time needs addressing, using the car as a platform that makes the obvious possible, he added.
“Today's cars, they produce a massive amount of data, upwards of 25GB of information per hour. What if you owned a database of all your driving behaviours for all the years since you got your drivers license. Imagine the car helping you to prepare for your next big meeting, or a parent taking a sick child to the doctor's office. You might be able to triage her. This information is helping us understand how people move, and see patterns that most customers don't.”
New routes to consumers
For advertisers, such depths of consumer insights could forge a new media stream - the car - as they push forward in efforts to create seamless experiences between channels. Mercedes-Benz, which has raised concerns about opening up its cars to Google, said its connected car proposition was build on the idea of a mobile living room, a prospect brands are already trying to exploit.
Samsung announced its partnership with BMW earlier this week that will see its devices supported by the car maker’s infotainment system. The “Touch Command” platform features a Samsung tablet and a dock in the rear seat of cars, letting passengers adjust their seats, switch radio stations and more. The two companies have also collaborated to develop an app that lets car owners issue commands to their vehicles such as autonomous parking from Samsung smartwatches.
Easing tensions
Werner Huber, head of research group for diver assistance at BMW, said: “We appreciate what Google is doing since they’re promoting the idea of the autonomous car and preparing the ground for us.
“But we are coming at it from another side. As a car manufacturer, we are very experienced in building cars and we have to adopt more processes of an IT company.”
The need to be more like Google and Apple when it comes to developing connected cars highlights the likes of BMW and Mercedes-Benz's uneasy yet important ties to their technology counterparts. With margins that will likely exceed those from the typical manufacturing business as a result of the involvement of carriers such as AT&T, car makers are looking to learn from the top mobile players to ensure they come out on top.
Frank Gillett, principal analyst at Forrester Research, said the automotive industry has to show signs it is embracing the "mobile mind shift", such as Ford is doing by adding specific features and support to Automatic’s product that improves the experience with cars already on the road, rather than only brand new cars.
“If they follow past practice of talking only about features for new cars, they’ll be repeating the industry mistake of over-investing in new car tech and underinvesting in using mobile apps and services to build brand relationships with existing customers,” he added.
Around 150 million cars will be connected to the internet by 2020, with up to three quarters of them creating and sharing data, according to Gartner. As the automotive industry moves to create standards in this space, the added connectivity will let car makers change their business models from pure hardware to tech innovators that draw income from mobile apps.
For a greater understanding of the blurring lines between physical and digital see The Drum’s Digital Convergence.