2DIGITALEDELMAN As we venture into 2019, the business environment is frmly entrenched in digital transformation.We’re fast entering an era where accountability and results are paramount—initiatives that don’tmeaningfully impact the business will be scrutinized, as will initiatives involving customer data,privacy, consumer rights and digital ethics. We see 2019 as the year of Innovating With Impact in the context of organizational accountability.Many organizations have mobilized and evolved their teams and talent to take on digital disruption,but few are linking investments to performance in ways that meaningfully and positively impacttheir business, customers or, notably, society. In the past, consumers have freely parted with datain exchange for value, but customers are becoming increasingly protective of their personal digitalinformation. Business, consumer and societal impact now go hand in hand. This year, Edelman Digital is teaming up with industry analysts at Kaleido Insights to providean in-depth perspective on what we should be paying attention to, why it matters and how itimpacts business and society with higher degrees of accountability. We’ll examine the role of dataresponsibility, empowerment through interconnected digital ecosystems, the increasing scrutinyinfuencers face, the accountability brands have toward their consumers, and even the role leadershipplays as digital innovation continues to shape how we work, live and interact with brands. In this new era, accountability becomes multi-dimensional, as organizations grapple with makinga positive and meaningful impact on customers, business stakeholders and society more broadly.Solutions these organizations develop will undoubtedly be enabled by the emerging and pervasivedigital ecosystems that impact our lives, both now and in the future. Trends Report 2019 DIGITALEDELMAN Innovating with Impact in an Era of Accountability #InnovatingWithImpact 3DIGITALEDELMAN TABLE OF CONTENTS Impacting Tomorrow’s Workforce: Gen Z Will Transform Your Organization .......4 Convergence: The Need for an Integrated Marketing Tech Ecosystem ....8 Expanding Impact: How Brands Are Innovating With Their Ecosystems ..........11 Audience-Centric B2B: Driving Results in the Rapidly Evolving B2B Marketing Landscape ........16 Data As Currency: Digital Identity and the Future of Customer Experience ..20 The Context of Commerce: Cultivating Contextual Content for Social Commerce ......25 Contextual Expectations: Decoding the Impact of Relevant Content ..30 The Accessible, Accountable Executive: Evolving Expectations for the C-Suite .........34 Infuencing With Impact: Driving Real Value With Authentic Infuencers .......37 Intelligence With Impact: Marketing and Machines in an Artifcially Intelligent World .........40 An Ascendant Techlash: The Rise of AI Ethics in 2019 .44 4DIGITALEDELMAN It’s simply not responsible for the modern organization to overlook Gen Z—we’re accountable todayfor the workplace of tomorrow, and that impacts all of us. By 2020, just over a year from now, roughly20% of the workforce will be made up of Gen Z. While millennials forged a path for the adaptation oftechnology, Gen Z grew up alongside technology. Millennials worked with organizations to adopt newtechnologies, test and learn systems and introduce digital ways of working. Gen Z, on the other hand,expects organizations to have this all fgured out. They expect technologies that will motivate them,recognize their achievements and allow them to do their jobs seamlessly. They don’t know a timewhen information wasn’t readily at their fngertips. This changes how they work, what they value in anorganization and how they imagine their careers. Unlike other reports and studies, this article isn’t about making your business “ready” for Gen Z— likea few decades ago when internet-savvy millennials were the talk of the town. Our take is that theentry of Gen Z into the workforce, and the sea change of Boomers entering retirement along withthem, will have a far more profound and transformative efect on the entire organization. In a nutshell, leaders today have a choice:Empower and enable Gen Z to make yourentire business better. Or stife them with thewrong roles, systems and technologies, andrisk becoming the next wave of corporatebureaucratic dinosaurs. Too dramatic Maybe. Let’s dissect a Gen Z brain. Plus or minus a few years for your preferred surveymethodology, Gen Z is just now graduating collegeor grad school, and they’re anxious to orient themselves as professionals. They’re shaped not onlyby ubiquitous mobile technology and access to information; they’re shaped by the feeting Snap,Instagram Heart and latest YouTube video. While big technology startups defned the prior generation,Gen Z lives in a world where anything is a business and anyone is an entrepreneur, no coding or MBA required. Being an infuencer—just being yourself, in public, and on a bigger platform thanever—is a real, professional ambition. The consequence of all this is that they’re more entrepreneurial,competitive and excellent at multitasking. Impacting Tomorrow’sWorkforce: Gen Z WillTransform Your Organization William BegenyExecutive Vice President, Digital TransformationEdelman Digital Erin SheridanAssociate Director, Digital TransformationEdelman Digital。。。。。。