Is another digital revolution dawning?

The shopping landscape is about to be revolutionised thanks to smartphones, vouchers and opposable thumbs.

Former Tesco boss, Sir Terry Leahy, is predicting “a revolution in marketing” and suggests that a potential £55bn a year global market awaits “huge” exploitation.

“Although there’s been data on customers for a long time, you responded in an analogue way that was slow, very complicated to create, open to fraud and often not that compelling to the customer,” commented Leahy.

He said digital vouchers solved many of the problems with paper vouchers.

“You get data from customers and you can instantly respond. It can be a price, it can be a gift, it can be a reward, it can be redeemed elsewhere. It can be based on that individual, their behaviour, their location. Mobile is the perfect medium for that,” he explained.

Leahy, who pioneered Tesco’s move into data with its Clubcard scheme, is now a non-executive director of digital-voucher company Eagle Eye – which includes retail giants like Tesco on its client list.