Foresight 14: An interview with Samantha G. Wolfe, Emerging Tech Catalyst, Founder of PitchFWD + NYU Professor
A bi-weekly newsletter diving into the concepts, people and brands shaping the future of retail and entertainment.
Welcome back to Foresight!
This week I’m speaking with Samantha G. Wolfe, a force in emerging tech marketing and business development consultant driving consumers and businesses to adopt innovative technologies. She is the Founder of PitchFWD, a strategic consulting agency, working with innovative technology companies and visionary leaders to achieve their branding and marketing goals. Samantha co-authored the book, Marketing New Realities: An Introduction to Virtual Reality & Augmented Reality Marketing, Branding, & Communications (an excellent read), and is currently teaching The Marketing of Emerging Technologies at NYU. We discuss her journey, how she sees her students and younger generations impacting emerging tech, and the advice she has for brands looking to explore innovative technologies.
I hope you enjoy her thoughts and insights—thank you, Samantha!
IDEAS, INSIGHTS & FORWARD THINKING PERSPECTIVES
How did you get started in the industry and what originally piqued your interest in emerging technologies?
I was working in television and realized the industry was shifting dramatically. Off-network syndications were going to Amazon and Netflix and I remember thinking to myself “there’s about to be a major shift.” I wanted to be in a business where instead of thinking about how the industry is going to go down and consolidate, instead focus on what’s happening next which led me to a more cutting edge industry. I then ended up trying a 360 video at the Tribeca Film Festival’s Virtual Arcade, not even virtual reality and found it so interesting (I wrote a Medium post all about it). It got me thinking about the video advancements I didn’t even know about and encouraged me to learn more about virtual and augmented reality. I started looking for people in this area of marketing and couldn’t find anyone. There were a few experts but I couldn’t help but think how weird it was for a potentially billion-dollar industry to only have a few marketing experts. It didn’t line up. People said it was too early but if you’re making and trying to sell products, there needs to be someone thinking about positioning and how you’re communicating that product. I decided I would be that person.
My first undertaking was a Facebook group to share interesting industry articles which grew to over 3000 members. I met Cathy Hackl through the group with who I eventually wrote Marketing New Realities and began advising companies and speaking at events. From that consulting role, I realized I needed to understand even more about these industries in-depth and pitched an idea for a class at NYU called The Business of AR and VR which I taught last year. I now have another class around the marketing of emerging technologies because I had the hypothesis that it was different. I wanted to either prove or disprove myself and invite marketers to join to see if they’ve had similar experiences in all types of emerging technology.
What an exciting journey and I feel like it’s only beginning. So this all led you to found PitchFWD? What’s the meaning behind the name?
Exactly. I wanted to come up with a name that related to virtual reality with that being the inspiration and even though people might not get it, reference the six degrees of freedom (refers to the six freedoms or axes of movement of a rigid body in a three-dimensional space). One of which is “forward” and another “pitch.” The FWD also stands for fast-forward which represents how we’re going to be moving quickly when working together.
I learned about the six degrees of freedom from your book with Cathy, how clever. What do you look for in a business when taking on a new project?
I tend to gravitate towards that initial period of time where something is new to the market or a business is trying to establish a marketplace. I often focus on the innovators, early adopters, developers and anyone who’s in that testing ground before something goes mass, I love that. It’s not always an easy group to work with because they’ll tell you if something is going wrong, but they’re so creative when thinking about what the future will look like and have the mentality of building something that will exist in the future and change the future. And that’s such a fun place to be in every day.
Can you share any exciting projects you’re working on right now or that you’ve recently completed?
My experience with NYU is always fun and something I’m proud of. Last year I calculated that about 10% of my students decided to change industries completely after taking the class. The whole class was on Zoom, most had never tried virtual reality and really only used augmented reality in Snapchat, and decided to make their entire career around these technologies.
I’ve also had the opportunity to work with companies I admire like Tilt Five and HaptX. Getting to know their tech and helping to figure out my role was such a great experience. To take the time to understand what haptics are and how they can be applied in the world, it’s that kind of project that keeps me going. I really do try to find the companies that are either best in class in their industry and people don’t know yet, or they’re about to create a new industry and have to convince a lot of people to invest. It’s daunting to other people but it’s my favourite thing.
With your class at NYU, how do see younger generations impacting the future of emerging tech?
There’s a lot of generational differences at play here. The group that’s in college now is much more skeptical of where tech is going. They’re skeptical about a lot of things, the value of education and the value of most things out there, which is a good perspective and asking that big “why” question. The generation that’s behind and coming is less skeptical and is accepting of what’s to come so it’s more of a question of how do we adjust. They’re now starting to be surprised by the presence of physical goods—they’re beyond digital natives. Physical items to this generation are new interesting. I don’t think newspapers will miraculously come back but there’s probably going to be a digital magazine in five to ten years that decide to publish a print edition and it sells out immediately.
I also enjoy seeing how people play on Roblox and how that can translate to the future of tech. The level of comfortability users have with digital goods is interesting to analyze and hypothesize what this will mean for tech ten years from now. A lot of emerging tech companies are thinking about what this means and how does this all translates into businesses they can build now.
That’s a great insight. There are so many different entry points for businesses to get into emerging tech right now. For a brand that might be hesitant or looking to test the waters, what are the best first steps to get started?
When I started the Facebook group, I did it mainly because I’m a natural researcher. I won’t make a decision without looking up an article or two, so I think spending time looking at what’s out there and what other businesses are doing is the best place to start. If you’re thinking of an initiative in six months or a year, don’t copy what’s being done now. Understand that that’s the step to or before your initiative and then, without thinking about what’s possible with the tech, think about how you would improve it. How would you do it differently? What’s going to resonate with your target audience?
In Marketing New Realities, I made sure that I put a cheat sheet of questions of what to ask. If a company says they 100% know what they’re doing in emerging tech, they don’t, nobody does. You need a company that has foundational knowledge in the tech and is willing to test the waters with you, then you know they’re being straightforward. It’s also about having a certain amount of stomach for risk. If you don’t have the stomach for it, then it’s probably not the right place. You have to tell yourself “it might go wrong, but that’s okay.” Everything goes wrong, it’s a question of how badly and how much time it will take to fix. When planning your marketing with emerging tech you have to say to yourself “so what if this doesn’t work?” It’s so important to do a lot of what if’s as stress tests. And if you’re looking for another opinion, they can always call me!
I love this advice. Where can readers find you to learn more?
You can find me on Twitter at @samanthagwolfe, on LinkedIn, wearepitchfwd.com and samanthagwolfe.com.
WHAT I’M READING
Roblox pushes toward avatar realism, plans to add NFT-like limited-edition items
Why Snap is leveraging AR technology to get a leg up in the social commerce arms race
Is it time to hire a chief metaverse officer?
Why an exercise bike wants to bring gamified fitness to the metaverse