Digital identity in the future looks very different to how we understand it right now. And that change will be driven not by privacy regulations, or the death of the cookie, but by the rise of the Internet of Things (IOT).

The idea of one or two personal devices giving us access to individual consumers will disappear, to be replaced with a range of potential devices – from mobile to voice-activated speakers to connected TV to fridges.

Across those devices a range of different digital identities will exist – some individual (like now), some family/household, some work/B2B, and some more generic.

The big idea that’s dominated the internet era so far, that digital marketing is all about one-to-one addressability and tracking, will be exploded and replaced with a spectrum of targeting and measurement options across different identities, devices and channels.

It’s a paradigm shift – and it’s why the idea the cookie is crumbling as the web shuts down consumer tracking, isn’t actually that big a deal. The medium-to-long term view of how we deliver and measure marketing in an increasingly automated and digital world looks very different, whatever happens to cookie based targeting right now.