Robert Passikoff

President

Brand Keys

Five years ago, when we were examining leading-indicator values and expectations of what was the then-nascent “tablet” category in our annual Customer Loyalty Engagement Index, we noticed that consumer values dealing with tablets and smartphones were blending.

This was in 2009, when we saw that tablet attributes, benefits, and values were combining with the basic smartphone attribute, the one that let you make a call. Anyway, back in 2009 we called the fusion of smartphone and tablet technologies a “phablet.” OK, not the most creative of titles but at that juncture it really didn’t matter what we called them because there weren’t enough to matter or measure.

But, as regards brands’ desire to measure meaningful consumer values ahead of the competition, it’s worth calling out that some sort of amalgam of the two had shown up on the engagement radar screen back then. A little ahead of its time? Maybe. But that’s the nice thing about loyalty and emotional engagement metrics. They’re leading-indicators – signs of what’s going to happen down the road, usually before these values are articulated in focus groups.

Now  five years later we were gratified to read in Molly Wood’s New York Times “Machine Learning” column, “. . . despite a somewhat mocking moniker, the ‘phablet’ (phone plus tablet) is here to stay.” She went on to predict that seven and eight-inch phones will replace tablets of the same size. If only she had emotional engagement assessments, she might have written this column five years ago.

Corroborating Brand Keys’ initial insights and Ms. Wood’s opinion piece, the big call by handset makers at this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, was. . . wait for it. . . bigger smartphones. It’s always nice to have your insights and metrics validated by the marketplace, and, apparently, the new big thing is big screens.

Huawei introduced something called a “MediaPad XI,’ which they are now calling a “phablet.” ZTE introduced the “Grand Memo II” (6 inches), and Samsung introduced their Galaxy S5 (5.1 inches). Apple has been reported as skeptical regarding the consumer engagement power of phablets, but we’ll see. Technology is, indeed, driven by innovation, but it’s also driven by consumer expectations. Brands that better meet those expectations always do better in the marketplace than those that can’t.

As it was Customer Loyalty Engagement Index insights that initially pointed us in the phablet direction, we turned to the 2014 results for the Tablet and Smartphone categories and “fused” the consumer assessments for four brands represented in both categories to see how well they met expectations as regards design generally and size specifically. Here’s how consumers rated them versus an Ideal (100%):

Samsung95%

Apple            89%

Sony86%

Google84%

Keep in mind, that this is how consumers see the brands. And, that there are a lot of other brands out there looking hard at the phablet category. So what do you think? Which values will supersede others? Smartphones? Tablets? Something else? Does size really matter? Will consumers flock to this new configuration? And, based on our category engagement metrics, where can I get one?

Three things for sure: First, consumer expectations will continue to inflate when it comes to fusing technologies that have previously delighted consumers. Second, predictive loyalty and emotional engagement assessments can help answer questions like the ones above in the early stages.

And, third, you really want those answers, because it prevents brands from confusing the art of possibility with the art of profitability.