Today’s (5 June) Connected Consumer Summit in London brought together representatives from a wide variety of brands with key thought leaders from the mobile marketing world and beyond to explore and discuss the challenges and opportunities that the evolving digital market space offers.

In a post-GDPR world, it is essential that brands find authentic ways to connect with always-on consumers and take advantage of the opportunities that exist to reach them in this ‘connected world’ – while keeping in mind the control that the consumer now has over how brands engage with them.

If you werent able to make it to the event, here is a selection of the best gems of wisdom shared.

“In a lot of ways, the connected experience has already provided for the needs of customers. Customers are already connected. And, through technology, they have an expectation of a high-level interaction with your brands.”

“With how the ecosystems are expanding quickly, it’s crucial that we don’t think about the touchpoints independently. The experience the customer has with your brand needs to be complete. Customers should be able to get the information that they require, or perform the function that they desire, at the right place and at the right time – whenever and wherever they might be.”

Kicking off the event, Neil Ballinger, UX lead at Nimbletank, discussed the need for consistent interaction with customers across the ever-growing number of digital platforms at their disposal.

“As human beings, we instantly gravitate toward the negative. So, if you can solve some of those negative issues… then you will stand head and shoulders above the competition.”

Nick Pike, VP of UK & Ireland at Outsystems, looked at the importance of brands being a shining light for consumers during the negative moments they lean toward.

“I think if you’re briefing the right types of influencers for your voice on social media, you’re looking for that ‘eureka’ moment of reach, relevance, and resonance.”

Getting influencers to represent your voice can be the most effective way for brands to accomplish the three Rs they seek, according to David Saunders, brand partnerships manager EMEA at Indahash.

“There’s a lot of fluff on the net that says that [Generation Z] are just millennials on steroids. And they’re not for a lot of different reasons. They were born into the global recession, so that’s impacted how they were brought up, what they worry about, and the family environment they were brought into. Unfortunately, terrorism was a norm for them from the time they were born, so there’s that level of insecurity, which has brand ramifications.”

“It’s mobile everything. It’s not mobile-first anymore. These guys [Generation Z] see the smartphone as being a hub. They think it’s weird that people use it to make phone calls and do emails. To them, it’s their entertainment hub, their communication hub – absolutely everything is through their smartphone.”

Kohlben Vodden, director at StoryScience, believes its about time that brands shifted their attention away from millennials toward Generation Z – who are set to redefine the entire marketing spectrum.

“There’s an almost perfect correlation between what you say you’re going to do on a self-reported questionnaire on your mobile phone and what you actually do about going to a store. Why is that? Because our mobile phone is an extension of ourselves. We feel very close to it and it represents us very clearly.”

“There’s no way you can use cookies to see who has actually been exposed. So, we have to embrace device IDs… It’s persistent unless you reset it.”

Mobiles tell brands everything they need to know about a person and, as such, interactions need to be tracked in the most accurate way possible, says Nigel Roth, managing director at On Device Research.

“[websites should operate with] peak efficiency across all devices… Having said that, just because it works on a mobile, doesn’t mean it’s actually optimised to work on mobile. There is a big difference.”

“A website can make you understand what consumers are looking for from other channels. What we’ve seen, for example, is that people coming from search are much more likely to click on links with retailers than people coming from social. The people coming from social are more likely to spend more time watching videos or looking at recipes maybe.”

Charlie Clinton, digital & social manager at Bel UK, finished off the event by giving the audience an insight into how the company reaches consumers across its brands – which include The Laughing Cow, Babybel, and Leerdammer, to name a few.