LAS VEGAS — When Beet.TV has been asking media industry figures lately about the promise of going “direct-to-consumer”, most have talked about e-commerce brands that no longer require retailers or marketers that no longer depend on intermediary publishers.

But Rohit Thawani has something altogether more creative in mind.

Speaking at the Consumer Electronics Show, the digital experiences lead at the creative agency TBWA\Media Arts Lab was excited about technologies that offer him a new creative palette.

“With the trends that I’m seeing here at CES, there’s a lot of personalization that consumers are able to do, both actively and passively,” he says in this video interview with Beet.TV.

“We’re also starting to see them making their choices and really creating their own (content), we’re also seeing technology that is adapting to people’s behaviours directly.”

Thawani was most intrigued by new technologies that leverage audience members’ own bodies as cues for marketers.

“We saw a few devices that actually use facial analysis,” he says. “They actually use expression and even pulse and body temperature to actually design and create the specific ideal content that these people would want to see.

“There is no more personalised direct way than to give them the content that their body is asking for, and their face is asking for.

“How can we make content that is reachable enough for so many audiences and do it in a way that is really efficient, taking out a lot of our steps? Imagine just having this artificial intelligence able to then be our media planner.”

This video is part of Beet.TV coverage of CES 2019. The series is sponsored by NBCUniversal. For more coverage, please visit this page.