Who read my mind? Best consumer marketing experience - "looking" for travel headphone

"Looking" for travel headphone

After attending the supercomputing conference, SC17 in Denver, I travelled with Lufthansa back home, Düsseldorf in Germany, with one connection in Munich. I had 45 minutes to visit the Lufthansa lounge located 3 minutes walk from the boarding gate. I took the opportunity to rest, drink doppio-espresso and pick-up the New York Times newspaper. So far, typical and normal long haul travel experience - many of you know this experience.

I walk to the gate 10 minutes before departure and I find opposite to the gate an electronics shop CAPI or "The Travellers Electronics Company". I decide to spend 2 minutes window shopping the different headphones brands like Bose, Sony, and Beats. However, my mind was looking for the brand Sennheiser which I could not find due to the very short shop visit. The shop has great amount of electronic products and someone could skip the lounge and shop for an hour.

Best consumer marketing experience

Twenty minutes later, I boarded the Lufthansa plane on time and took my aisle exit seat. While waiting for the boarding to complete, I wanted to check the latest world news on my smartphone, Samsung Galaxy S7, using the app from Reuters. As I started to read the first top news article, I get the following Ad:

Most of the time, I ignore these Ads, especially when I was searching for something related on Google (I use Chrome on laptop and mobile devices with same user account).

However! this time, the Ad got me because this is what I am thinking about. I clicked through to check options and ended up saving one Sennheiser headphone for possible later purchase. This is obviously ideal consumer marketing experience. I was looking for Sennheiser brand in a physical shop and as I use my mobile I get an Ad on same brand without me searching online for it! Well, maybe scary reality or just coincidence. I can see some of you smile on coincidence as technology getting smarter every other month - or day?

Who read my mind?

I felt satisfied by this Ad and equally puzzled by it! How come this Ad end on my Reuters news article after 20 minutes visiting a physical electronic shop? Actually, how come Sennheiser, the brand I wanted to check at the shop, and not Sony, Bose or any other? All I know are the following:

• My smartphone has the location access active
• In 2012, I purchased Bose QuietComfort 15 and I am still using it
• Couple of months ago, my daughter had me try her Sennheiser headphone and most likely I checked some models online
• I have seen some headphone Ads 6-4 weeks ago and none since

The smartphone contains a number of IoT "devices" corresponding to some apps and we rarely think about it. Many apps back-end platform deploy predictive analytics technology. I have Alexa at home, sporadically used, and sometimes I go by "Okay Google, call my wife" on my smartphone.

I tend to believe that technology "read my mind" powered by advertising services and fed with historical and current information from me - unconsciously. Congratulations to Sennheiser and service providers, you got me into the final stage of the sales funnel - ACTION.

What do you think? any similar experience?