1. The Internet of Things is maturing. Ecommerce is growing.
Subscription Services are expanding. This is the recipe for the
next great shopper marketing disruption: Autonomous Buying.
How we shop. Where we buy. What we buy.
It’s all about to change.
We’re racing towards the world’s biggest landgrab for
the world’s most coveted retail location of all—our
shoppers’ homes.
IS YOUR BRAND READY FOR AUTONOMOUS BUYING?
TOTAL NUMBER OF WIRELESS-CONNECTED DEVICES
2 0 1 4
16b Appliances
Product Packaging
Unknown
USE CASES:
• Inventory control
• Shopping list management
• Auto-replenishment
• Ecommerce
2 0 2 0
40b
BRACING FOR AN AGE OF
AUTONOMOUS BUYING
How the Internet of Things is poised to disrupt
the relationships between Shoppers, Brands & Retailers.
Home Utilities
Personal Electronics
Wearables
USE CASES:
• Remote control
• Personalized settings
• Data reporting

2. HOME SHOPPING. NETWORKED. Autonomous Buying will introduce marketers to a whole new
kind of shopper—the home. With little human input, a series of networked machines will soon make
many of our buying decisions based on one simple principle: “if this… then that…”
THE HUMAN LAYER
Consumers will program customized
retailer/product/financial
preferences into a centralized
home intelligence hub.
THE SENSOR LAYER
Connected appliances, products
and fixtures will plug into the home
intelligence hub. “Stock-levels”
will be anticipated here and
communicated to the hub.
THE HOME LAYER
A centralized home intelligence
hub will aggregate the home’s
product needs. Automated buying
will be initiated from here.
THE RETAIL LAYER
Preferred retailers will fulfill
orders placed by the home
with greater efficiency.
THE DELIVERY LAYER
Retailers and brands will find
innovative ways to turn delivery
into marketing.

3. AUTONOMOUS BUYING
WILL CHANGE MARKETING
AS WE KNOW IT.
THINK ABOUT IT THIS WAY…
Autonomous Buying will require
shoppers to weigh the convenience
of auto-replenishment with the cost
of upgrading appliances and
privacy concerns.
SELLING TRUST AND
EXPERIENCE FIRST
Autonomous Buying will require
customers to link payment methods
directly to retailers. Customers must
trust that we’ll not only protect their
sensitive financial, health and personal
data, but also that we’ll keep our
prices (on the automated purchases)
fair and competitive. In-store
experiences will be more important
than ever as customers will spend
more time shopping the categories
and places they enjoy most.
UNDERSTANDING SELECTIVE
AUTOPILOTING
As shoppers, we’ll soon use our
personal interests, desired buying
experiences and evolving privacy
beliefs to self-segment our future
purchases into two macro-categories:
Emotion-less and Emotion-led
products. While this hierarchy does
exist today, Autonomous Buying will
require us to make more thoughtful
decisions about which products we
will actively or passively consider.
The resulting benefit will be a greater
focus on the moments and routines
we truly enjoy—in-store and beyond.
Autonomous Buying will bring massive change to our existing
behaviors, beliefs and practices as marketers. Its impact
could very well eclipse that of ecommerce for many brands
and retailers. The implications will be many. We’re just
scratching the surface.
CAPITALIZING ON CHANGE
MOMENTS OF TRUTH
In a world of Autonomous Buying,
the new marketing battleground
for “commodity” products will shift
from Point of Purchase to Point of
Preference. Once that preference is
set, there will be limited opportunities
to engage and persuade shoppers to
choose our brands. Change Moments
within the lives of shoppers will
become the next big moments of truth.
THINK ABOUT IT THIS WAY…
Autonomous Buying will require
retailers to re-evaluate brick and
mortar and ecommerce strategies,
and ultimately decide if they’ll create
their own Autonomous Buying platform
or plug into an existing platform.
THINK ABOUT IT THIS WAY…
Autonomous Buying will ignite an era of
unprecedented innovation from brands in
every category—we’ll see new development
in everything from packaging to subscription
service models to brand-specific hardware
and software solutions.
S H O P P E R S R E T A I L E R S B R A N D S
See how we’re imagining the future of Autonomous Buying: themarsagency.com/habitat
HOW THE MARS AGENCY CAN HELP ...
Our Integrated Planning and Retail
Marketing Group teams can start helping
you evolve your shopper segmentation
and commerce strategies.
HOW THE MARS AGENCY CAN HELP ...
Our Partnership and Digital &
Innovation teams can start helping you
build hardware/software partnerships
and integrated marketing solutions.
HOW THE MARS AGENCY CAN HELP ...
Our Digital & Innovation and Retail
Marketing Group teams can start
helping you connect buying
experiences and shoppers.

4. Will likely be driven by fixed and variable
pre-programmed preferences—brand, price,
frequency, seasonality, etc.
• Low differentiation, low risk
& price categories
Will likely be driven by personal interests,
thought-requirements, new need-states, etc.
• High differentiation, high risk
& experiential categories
EMOTION-LESS BUYING
THE COMMERCE MODEL
OF TOMORROW
A U T O N O M O U S
WE’RE PREPARING FOR
AUTONOMOUS BUYING
Here are a few questions we should
all be thinking about:
• How will Autonomous Buying live within our
existing commerce ecosystem?
• What strategic partnerships can be made to
drive mutual growth?
• Who should drive projects? Shopper agencies?
Digital agencies?
• What will be the new success metrics of
Autonomous Buying?
B R I C K & M O R T A R , E C O M M E R C E
Ken Barnett, Global CEO | barnettk@themarsagency.com
Rob Rivenburgh, COO | rivenburghr@themarsagency.com
Ethan Goodman
Vice President
Digital & Innovation
goodmane@themarsagency.com
(248) 936-2670
EMOTION-LED BUYING