a collection of thoughts on what ahead.boletines.prisadigital.com/digitaslbi - globalpredictions...

December 2013

What does it all mean?

A collection of thoughts on what may (or may not) shape the year ahead.

2014

Photo: NASA JPL ESO/L. Calçada

2014 What does it all mean?

What does it all mean?What’s on the horizon for 2014? If we knew for certain we’d be laying down bets and preparing to retire to a tropical paradise.

What we do know is this: i) Predictions lists are a strange and profoundly imperfect seasonal tradition. ii) We’re doing one anyway because there are certain things we like talking about.

With that in mind we surveyed some of DigitasLBi’s biggest brains around the globe to get their predictions for brands and agencies everywhere. Then we considered that every-where is a very big place, so we kicked our ideas around and

boiled them all down into a set of sturdily pragmatic, future-pointing reflections on social, mobile, creativity, technology and data.

Looking down the line, we see digital marketing changing the organisational structure of brands and clients and creating a new breed of Chief Marketing Officer; we see geo-targeting increasingly changing the mobile world, driven by retail; we predict that today’s winners are going to need to react ever

faster online if they want to be tomorrow’s winners as well. We forecast touchless experiences, a wave of Chinese money, clever data things, and robots. Lots and lots of robots.

Use this as a fitfully accurate compass, or simply as a paper aeroplane. Just don’t blame us if something entirely different happens.

3


We don’t need to tell you that social media is pouring into every corner of our lives, or that more to the point, our lives are pouring into every corner of social media. What you’d probably rather know is what it’s actually going to mean - for the world, for brands, for the very shape of our children’s brains. Good questions. Yes. We’ve been thinking about that too.

Let’s look at it like this. Even as social media currently stands - and it isn’t standing, it’s doing its best to sprint off into the distance - it represents too stiff a challenge for most brands in their current configuration. So wherever social goes in the coming year, look at it like a flood that’s already started. Sandbags aren’t going to help you now - you need to build that boat.

Organisational design has been our mantra since the web started shifting in a social direction, and one thing remains true, irrespective of the need for lists of predictions: brands need to ready their businesses for these new conditions.

Nowhere are changes more necessary, or more likely, than in the marketing department, where social media, and the data that underpins it, are changing everything.

And of course, across the social sphere, the plates will keep on shifting. There’s no serious sign of weakness on the Facebook front, where the numbers only ever tend to go up, but the market is fragmenting with intense competition for attention from Instagram, Snapchat, Tumblr, Twitter and a global multiplicity of chat services. As commercial options broaden, advertisers will be faced with tougher choices than before.

Social

4


The convergence of channels is redrawing the way companies are structured. We are already starting to see large structural changes in marketing departments. We expect to see many more in 2014 as large organisations try to get to grips with joining up digital channels. There’s going to be more commercial pressure on the CMO as responsibility for larger parts of the technology and sales functions move into the marketing realm. We will probably see a new breed of CMO emerge - more digitally literate, with a mandate to take a clean broom to marketing organisations and their agency rosters. Alan Davies, Chief Strategy Officer, Global

LinkedIn will be the big winner. LinkedIn will be the big winner in 2014: LinkedIn has proven itself to be extremely marketer-savvy, working with brands to create sponsored content and influencer strategies, while using its rich data to help guide consumer engagement. And while Facebook is making headlines for forcing more pay-to-play engagement, LinkedIn has found a healthy middle between owned and paid content for marketers. Obviously platforms like Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter shouldn’t be discounted—they’re making significant progress in meeting marketer expectations—but in 2014, LinkedIn will be the big winner as it continues to develop customized solutions and profit from them. Anne-Marie Kline, SVP, Social Content North America / Managing Director, BrandLIVE

Facebook gets less social in Asia Pacific. In Asia, 2014 will see a significant shift among teenagers migrating from Facebook to messenger services for their social interactions. It’s not the death of Facebook by any means (in fact Facebook’s user base will probably continue to grow) but the level of interactions on the platform will decrease. In the APAC region, where in some markets people have skipped the purchase of a desktop/laptop altogether and gone straight to mobile, the prominence of messenger services and the adoption of sophisticated platforms like WeChat and Line will continue to grow. Amit Patel, PR & Content Strategist, Hong Kong

Social goes back to basics. In 2014 we’ll see a rise in the simplification of the big social platforms: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and more. Ironically, as companies invest more in their social strategies, more of them will shut down or decrease their number of social accounts - merging Facebook pages, closing and signposting Twitter accounts. Global brands will develop solutions for use in multiple markets in several languages – they’re the ones spending the most on advertising, so they’ll create tools with their needs in mind. Facebook and LinkedIn are on the right track with global pages – this approach will hopefully be implemented across all social platforms. Consumers don’t classify themselves as living in APAC or EMEA; they just want to engage with the brand on their own terms. And hopefully this will also prompt YouTube to reopen some of the inactive usernames for brands. Darcie Tanner, Head of Social Media Management, UK

Publishing changes everything in 2014. We’re all publishers now. When we tweet, update Facebook, compose an SEO strategy or commission creative content we are publishing. Platforms need to change and adapt; Google already providing Hummingbird and Facebook with the Meme update as examples from 2013 that herald what 2014 has in store. Look to the growth of services like Snapchat that destroy the publishing trail as evidence that the public care about their “publishing strategy” too. The roles of commercial publishers and agencies will grow closer together; both tasked with growing audiences, making the most of content and then finding the best way to extract business value from the combination. Andrew Girdwood, Media Innovations Director, UKWhatever happens, #iamonatrain will continue to be King of

Hashtags. Photo: Flickr/LingHK


Has any media channel throughout history been subject to more pseudo-analytical truisms than mobile? It goes everywhere you go. It’s a computer in your pocket. The most intimate relationship you will ever have is with your phone. We’re loath to add to the sum of this kind of stuff, but it is true that mobile is getting properly interesting, not least as geo-targeting comes into its own.

In 2014, as in 2013, mobile will bring your physical and digital existence closer together, only more so. Portable devices - whether they’re phones or tablets or something new - are increasingly aware of your surroundings in a way that desktop computers can’t usefully be. Your phone knows where you are and which way is north, and it can tell the time. But imagine a phone that knows when it’s dark, reacts to noises, recognises colours, and responds to temperature; a small device that knows what you’re doing, who you’re with and how much you paid to do it. In 2014, we’ll see that all come together, with benefits for an incredible range of advertisers, but starting inevitably with location-conscious retailers.

Mobile

5

We’ll also see mobile becoming a loyalty channel. We have already seen mobile apps like Key Ring and Apple’s Passport begin to supplant physical loyalty cards. As mobile becomes core to all aspects of the consumer journey, brands will focus on using mobile to create experiences that deliver value and inspire emotional connection.

Um, what else?

WeChat takes on the world. With over 100 million users outside of China—and a whopping 600 million total—WeChat is on track to become the most popular chat app in the world. Just last month the Global Web Index declared it the fastest growing social app used by youths worldwide, with a 1,021% increase amongst that set in 2013—all without even factoring in growth in China. What’s more, unlike current leader WhatsApp, owner Tencent has made a significant investment in its app’s ecommerce and marketing functionalities, making WeChat a natural fit for brands. Justin Peyton, Strategy Director MENA & Asia Pacific

Shopping will be everywhere. Flipboard allows you to be a magazine editor; Pinterest and Fab enable you to aggregate and curate content to your heart’s content. Watch as these ‘magazines’ become ‘catalogues’, and every consumer becomes an ‘affiliate’ making money off the back of a buy button in magazines they have curated. The shopping experience will start to migrate from brands and retailers to individual products, wherever they are shared across multiple social platforms and apps. Ilicco Elia, Head of Mobile, UK

Ad tech goes mobile. The future reality of all digital marketing will be data-rich, natively focused and cookieless—much like mobile is today. As we see the shift of user engagement continue to flow in the direction of mobile - and in many instances in favor of mobile - the market will demand ad tech solutions that allow them to reach people across screens. These new ad tech platforms will likely be tied initially to a specific ecosystem such as Google, Facebook, Twitter or Amazon. My bet is that Facebook will get there first. Chia Chen, SVP, North America Mobile Practice Lead

6


The shopping experience will start to migrate from brands and retailers to individual products, wherever they are shared across multiple social platforms and apps.Mobile bandwidth fuels social media growth. Mobile is nothing new to most markets but where there are massive increases in bandwidth - as there have lately been in Germany, for instance - mobile can have a huge effect on marketers. We’ll see brands in newly bandwidth-rich countries adapt their social media strategies to mobile devices in 2014. More bandwidth means higher quality content, which in turn means greater consumer and brand adoption of global audiovisual platforms like Instagram, Pinterest and Vine. Jessica Braeuer, Social Media Manager, Germany & Switzerland

Mobile will drive an ever-increasing number of online transactions, sore thumbs and cricked necks.Photo: Flickr/romainguy

We like to say that we pride ourselves on embracing the creative tension between left brain and right brain. These are analytical, strategy-heavy, data-driven times, which is all the more reason why we need powerful storytelling to breathe life into all that back-end cleverness. The essence

Creativity

7


of creativity doesn’t change just because the calendar does, but the pressures under which creative brands operate are intensifying at an incredible a rate.

Meanwhile, the tools and approaches that allow us to be creative in digital are constantly in flux. Here are a few we believe are going to be fluxing more than most in 2014.

As brands market themselves increasingly through utilities, content and timely communications, rather than traditional campaigns, creativity at this pitch is simply impossible without the means to support it. That’s why we expect to see brands investing in a new kind of infrastructure.

88


Given the saturation of media channels, the way brands are cutting through is by providing functionality

In 2014, we’ll all Instagram pictures of pictures of food until we curl into a ball and starve. Photo: Flickr/Tucano _ Tech & Style, Milano

Meanwhile, the tools and approaches that allow us to be creative in digital are constantly in flux. Here are a few we believe are going to be fluxing more than most in 2014.

The rise of inclusive design. 2013 was a big year for responsive design. In 2014 that trend will evolve into a more holistic, inclusive web design approach that renews the focus on users. The ever-growing range of devices and screens coupled with people’s varied usage requires highly-specialised device-specific solutions. Inclusive design will result in hyper-personalised, customised and tailored experiences, moving away from the egalitarian experience that purely responsive sites deliver. Rasmus Frandsen, Creative Director, Denmark

More appropriate typography: The movement to broaden the number of available webfonts has finally arrived. Most major type foundries now offer webfonts, including Monotype and FontShop. Even longstanding holdout Hoefler & Freer-Jones recently launched cloud.typography, which enables designers to use modern classics like Gotham in their designs. This is a huge technological step forward. No longer limited to a small range of system fonts, designers can take advantage of nearly any conservative or expressive font that meets their needs, which will have a huge impact on the quality - and variety - of web design. Matthew Jacobson, SVP, Creative, North America

Companies that are able to get out of their own way and move stuff quickly are poised to win. These are the ones who can be experimental and add things to culture in a speedy way. This is how the world is working now whether we like it or not. It’s fast, and it’s voracious, and brands need to use digital to find ways to match it for speed. Chris Clarke, Chief Creative Officer, International

We’ll see companies reinvestigating service design. Given the saturation of media channels, the way brands are cutting through is by providing functionality - through apps or utility experiences. But they need content behind them to keep them fresh, service departments to maintain them, technology departments to innovate. It’s not just about setting up a campaign and letting it run - organisations need to get to grips with the continuous launch and support of a stream of services. Disruption is everywhere, especially in industries like finance, but what has never been widely understood is the organisational impact on the client of this form of marketing. I think they are coming to the point where they can’t simply outsource it. Alan Davies, Chief Strategy Officer, Global


You might argue that the technological world moves too fast to capture the full impact of a coming year in a set of Decem-ber predictions. We might well agree with you, but let’s look at what’s already bubbling under as 2013 collapses in front of the TV in a tired heap.

Starting with TV, you obviously wouldn’t want to bet your house against smart television blurring ever further into the internet in 2014.

real dent on its ever-growing empire? Anything is possible in 2014, but that’s not to say it’s necessarily likely.

Will there also be lots of interesting niche techno-things that get astonishingly disproportionate amounts of coverage? You know there will. 3D printing needs to prove it’s not a mad novelty; plenty of far-fetched new interfaces will attempt to kick the mouse and the touch-screen into history; and all sorts of robot technologies will promise to change our lives while threatening to destroy our very livelihoods. Don’t worry about it too much - robots always say that kind of stuff.

Technology

9

Consequently, addressable TV advertising, telescoping, tablet commerce and dynamic ad insertion into video on demand content are all growers, against a backdrop of increasingly twitchy traditional broadcasters and increasingly popular over-the-top services.

Certain major tech brands are in a curious kind of limbo, where their power only appears to grow, even as the levels of love and trust they enjoy are increasingly called into question. Will Apple lose its shine as the average consumer realises fresh big ideas haven’t been forthcoming for quite some time now? Will the grumbling anti-Amazon groundswell make any

10

The internet of me: 2013 was about the internet of things, and how everything around us can be identified and con-nected. Now, with everyday appliances and devices getting smarter, smaller, and cheaper, we’ll see the reality of a con-nected experience truly driven by behavior. Simple predic-tive technologies, not unlike Google Now, will become readily available across myriad touch points, providing personalised and adaptive experiences in every part of our lives. We’ll start to see our cars, kitchens, televisions, and phones think ahead of us and anticipate our individual intentions. Paolo Yuvienco, Chief Technology Officer, Global

Touchless experiences you can feel. In 2013 we saw a lot of technology shift from the mouse to the touchscreen. In 2014 more brands will move from touchscreen to touchless experiences, experimenting with new technologies like ges-ture-based MYO and sensor-based Fundawear. There are op-portunities here for brands to connect with people beyond screen-based interactions; now, moving forward, we’ll see (and create) more digital experiences where people control things using voice, gesture, and eye movement. Marcus Mus-tafa, Head of User Experience, Global

The marriage of Chinese money and US tech companies. In 2014 we’ll see China become a big investor in the tech com-panies of Silicon Valley, particularly those looking for their


second round of funding. Following Tencent’s investment in Snapchat, US tech companies will court Chinese investors for large amounts of capital, while Chinese companies will see this as a rapid path to global revenue streams. Justin Peyton, Strategy Director, MENA & Asia Pacific

Cyborgs for all. Next year we’ll continue to see constant and at times terrifying advances in robot technology. We are now starting to see the beginnings of what this may mean to consumers in the field of home automation, with ever more effective applications of robot technology in the form of lawnmowers, vacuums, and self-driving cars. In 2014 these technologies will become more commonplace in the home, helping with chores, completing tasks you never had to be-fore. And hopefully ironing your clothes. Mark Agar, Head of Technology, UK

Image recognition gets recognition. Next year when you want to search for something on your phone you won’t have to type it into your search engine, you’ll simply be able to take a photo. Mobile image recognition has been around for a few years now (like Google Goggles) but 2014 will be the year it really takes off. We’ll see much deeper investment from re-tailer’s like Macy’s with its Star Gifts app, or eBay with its Mo-tors app. And the technology itself is becoming more preva-lent too - CamFind passed one million downloads in October, and thousands of developers are currently working on apps for Google Glass. Nicolas Dubost, Strategic Planner, France

We’ll see the reality of a connected experience truly driven by behavior.

Left-handers use smart phones too. Less a prediction, more an observation. Photo: Google Now


Everyone has been talking about big data in 2013, and they’ll talk about it every bit as much in 2014, it will continue to power new products, new systems of insight and entire new industries.

The revelation of 2014 will not be the true power of data, because that was the revelation of 2010 to 2013. We all know, because we’re always being told, that more data was created in the last ten seconds than was produced in the previous trillion years, or something along those lines. We know that

join up the user experience. That doesn’t simply happen on a spreadsheet - agencies need to be structured in the appro-priate way to make their contribution, and brands will need to find new ways to integrate a roster of inter-dependent disci-plines. Perhaps one agency will handle all channels; perhaps agencies will need to get better at interacting. Data has re-drawn the map of what’s possible, and brands and agencies now need to redefine how they go about reading it.

Data

11

healthcare stands to be revolutionised, that the mechanics of advertising have already changed beyond all recognition, that data is the key to all things.

That’s all well and good, but the more pressing challenge of 2014 for brands and agencies will be to remake their own little worlds to take account of data’s possibilities.

For marketing departments, a key significance of data is the ability to connect all media - paid, earned and owned - and

The birth of people-based analytics (PBA). With the emer-gence of always-on, wearable devices such as Fitbit, Galaxy Gear and Google Glass, we’ll see new types of analytics for understanding audience behavior. The ability to look at real geo-location, motion, patterned behavior not just through media consumption or product purchase but through other everyday aspects of a consumer’s life creates both new data and new uses for this data. In 2014, wearable devices will help marketers deepen their understanding of the consumer’s shopping process, product consumption, and offline social interaction—and with that, they’ll find countless opportuni-ties to add utility to their products and to the lives of their audiences. Jason Kodish, SVP/North America Strategy & An-alytics Lead

The utility of mobile leads to bigger (and better) data. For years now, marketers have spoken about a post-PC digital world, with mobile at the center. In 2014 not only will we see more brands providing value to their consumers via mobile (which they should be doing already) we’ll see them leverag-ing bigger and better data à la Google Now. Just a few ex-amples: public transportation apps will know and understand your personal behaviour (improving your commute); phar-maceutical companies will help you with your daily medicine

12


We’ll see new types of analytics for understanding audience behavior.

intake; and more sport brands will focus on helping consum-ers get fit. Chung Chao, Strategist, Netherlands

More full customer lifecycle attribution. Attribution model-ing came about because of the need to manage media spend more effectively across digital channels. However, as far as maximising channel and conversion optimisation it’s only been the tip of the iceberg. Some agencies are already doing this, but 2014 will see an explosion of attribution evaluating touch points across not only display but also social, web, mo-bile (app and web), multi-visit, multi-device right through to advocacy. In short, more and more marketers will be attribut-ing across the full customer lifecycle. Alex Loveless, Head of Analytics, UK

Streamed data over bulk data. In 2014 the real-time data trend will intensify across Europe, with more companies gath-ering insights from streamed data versus just bulk data. It’ll change the way European companies handle big data, with dedicated task forces responding in real-time to seize oppor-tunities for brands. We already have the necessary technol-ogy available - what’s needed now is an evolution in analytics skill sets, as marketers learn how to harness streamed data in a way that provides real-time value to consumers, while stay-ing ahead of brands’ needs. Niels Handberg, Director of User Experience, Denmark

Tech will soon have the measure of everything we do. Exciting or terrifying? Let’s do what we can to make it the former. Photo: Fitbit

That’s why we’ve put these predictions together. If you agree with them, it’s because our attempts at futurology contain an essential essence of wisdom. If not, please see instructions on how to make a paper aeroplane at the back.

Being innovative is all about being brave and experimenting, not being scared of failing.

UP

11

22

3

4

55 CU

T H

ERE

CU

T H

ERE

a collection of thoughts on what ahead.boletines.prisadigital.com/digitaslbi - globalpredictions...

Documents