B2B and B2C marketers serious about remaining competitive in the future need to look out for a series of emerging tech in the next three to five years, new research from Forrester found.

As we head into 2017, the push towards digital is more paramount than ever, and marketers must put digital capability, skills, media spend and content front and centre of their efforts. To find out just how brands plan to do that, CMO caught up with three of Australia’s leading brands - L’Oreal, Helloworld and Expedia – to ask them for their marketing predictions for 2017 and how they are crafting their 2017 strategies amidst an ever-changing market.

The ‘age of the customer’ is here - the power of personalisation and customer context is now ensconced in every marketer’s lexicon. Certainly, the single biggest driver of digital transformation is customer experience.

Samsung has teamed up with Surf Live Saving Australia on an augmented reality app aimed at improving beach safety.

Analysts see a handful of technologies that are poised to radically change our lives by 2021.

In the past year, there’s been an augmented reality explosion as more brands embrace the technology offerings to boost customer engagement and create a buzz around their products.

It’s a simple gaming app, but experts say Pokemon Go’s surge in popularity is proof that customers are well and truly AR-ready – so expect a lot of imitators.

Microsoft showed off a demo of how the HoloLens could be used in a business context at its Worldwide Partner Conference on Monday, aiming to attract interest from the developers and integrators in the audience.

A rise in tech adoption in the retail space has seen consumer demands for more integrated and seamless experiences rapidly shifting, but not necessarily in the way retailers expect.

More than ever before, brands are turning to the power of technology in an effort to attract, engage and retain customers in new and innovative ways.

With more consumers now attracted to the convenience of mobile and online shopping, the pressure is on bricks-and-mortar retail stores to find innovative ways to leverage technology to enhance the in-store customer experience and detract shoppers from simply ‘showrooming.’

Mobile app Shazam announced it partnered with Nestlé as part of a new marketing campaign enabling customers to visually interact with their KITKAT chocolate bars.

This week's top martech and ad tech news stories from Oracle, Touchpoint Group, Act-On software, Open Text, Mobify, Plattar, MediaMath, Eyeota, Grapeshot, Lotame and Segmint.

UK department store, John Lewis, has tried and tested multiple innovation tactics in order to disrupt itself and meet the needs of the modern customer-led, omnichannel environment. And it’s gained international kudos as a result.

L'Oréal’s in-store click to buy functionality in its augmented reality app, Makeup Genius, is now live, offering customers to purchase cosmetics directly via Priceline online.

A startup called Eyefluence aims to improve virtual and augmented reality with its eye-tracking technology. After an early glimpse at what the company's tech can do, it seems like a must-have for future headsets.

A new augmented reality app is hoping to shake-up the omni-channel retail industry by allowing consumers to view furniture and decor products in 3D in the context of their own homes.

Oculus VR revealed the final version of its Rift virtual reality headset on Thursday, but the partnership between the Facebook-owned company and Microsoft may have raised some eyebrows.

Augmented reality (AR) is no longer reserved for gamers and gimmicks, it has become a powerful marketing tool, offering the ability to literally reshape the way brands interact with, monitor and track customer engagement.

Music identifying app, Shazam, says its new visual recognition functionality transforming static images into dynamic pieces of content will help brands better engage with mobile consumers.

From drones playing football (for Pepsi) to augmented reality driving glasses (for Mini), Richard Dodgson takes us through his favourite inventive uses of tech in ad campaigns.