[Forecasting 2017]: Digital Disruption Will Reach New Speeds
December 13th, 2016 | Veronica Holmes, Partner, 361 degrees
As the industry prepares to turn the page on another year marked by massive changes, ACA is asking the experts to predict the trends they think will disrupt 2017. First in the series was Stephan Argent of Argedia Group, with his forecast for agency search management. Next up is Veronica Holmes, identifying top digital trends for next year.
Ten years from now, when we connect all the dots, 2016 and 2017 will be noted as pivotal years in the world of digital media. We now live in a world where Internet connectivity and mobile technology is accessible to, and embraced by, almost everyone.
http://www.internetsociety.org/map/global-internet-report/
In the world of media, today’s headlines highlight where advertisers are investing their money and how media companies are monetizing (or not) their assets.
2017 will see an acceleration of digital disruption and shifts in consumer behaviour that will without a doubt infect the relationships between marketers and their agencies and platform partners. The savvy will adapt and emerge with better tools and processes to sell their products.
| Trend | Importance |
|---|---|
| Making Use of Ambient Intelligence | As more people and things are connected to each other, providing more context to data, the experience for marketers will become smarter. Marketers must start tapping into the data generated by consumers in both the physical and virtual world to understand the customer experience throughout the purchase journey. |
| A New Standard for Entertainment | Virtual reality, 360 video, Pokémon Go… gamers have set the standard for entertainment quality. But even the best of these don’t hold attention for long. Marketers creating video content… make sure it looks really good, grabs attention in the first three seconds and works with and without audio; and be prepared to make a lot of it. |
| Perfecting Personalization | We’ve all experienced related stories, related products, and other recommendations. The technology that produces this is getting better and better. Marketers tapping into data can use it to deepen their connection with customers. I don’t mean just for targeting programmatic media but for developing creative, marketing collateral and websites that adjust dynamically based on what you know about a specific customer, or customer segment. |
Making Use Of Ambient Intelligence
My phone reminds me where I’ve parked my car. Sharing my location enables services to find the best pizza near me. I chat with customer service on a social platform without realizing I’m interacting with a bot. Technology just is… and it’s everywhere.
Beacons are an example of ambient intelligence, but much of the hype has been focused on proximity marketing and notifications. Notifications are often detrimental to the customer experience and proximity marketing requires the user is operating their smartphone in a way that can messages can be delivered.
A far more interesting and scalable way of using location is to understand the way consumers interact with their environments. For instance, the way they move through a store, if they purchase a product after seeing an ad, how long they have to wait for service, the list is endless… It’s important to know how the technology works. Lat/Long is only accurate up to 100 metres and will not provide a sense of which floor a user is on, nor, obviously, work underground. Marketers not using their own beacons should understand where the location data comes from. Many apps and websites cache data and location information is not necessarily “fresh.”
Ambient technology, in the form of virtual assistants, is gaining ground. While not used often, 98% of iPhone users have tried Siri – the issue apparently being context, as users tend to prefer talking to their devices when alone. Amazon’s Echo will soon be available in Canada, and may be the best product to stimulate adoption, as it answers questions more suitable to a social context, for instance, playing music or providing weather conditions on command. In a Toronto hackathon held earlier this year, the winning team developed an application for Echo that controls a fridge, providing information on expiration dates and recipe ideas.
Compare the virtual assistants
Bottom line: marketers will be able to tap into the network of connected objects to better understand their customers and possibly develop new products and services as a result.
A New Standard for Entertainment
Gaming is really expanding its reach beyond the stereotypical basement-dwelling millennial male. With a projected reach of 260M users for 2017, there will be new media models in the e-sports segment.
Amazon, Facebook, Google and even traditional media companies such as Disney, Time-Warner and Sony are actively developing e-sports programming and platforms. The WSJ/Activate estimate e-sports will be bigger than most of the established sports in the U.S. by 2020. This is not just for gamers anymore.
Virtual reality and 360-video may also seem more suited to younger audiences, but the rise of video viewing on smartphones and the integration of 360 in YouTube and Facebook platforms has broadened the reach substantially. Already, the default view on Google’s Street View is a 360 panorama. Marketers can use the same approach to allow customers to virtually tour a retail location or watch immersive experiences such as fashion shows, and showcase a cruise vacation.
Sales of VR devices will reach 10M by the end of 2016 and, in the meantime, VR headsets are becoming more common in experiential venues – even movie theatres. Don’t even get me started on the headset-less Magic Leap, which I’ve been eagerly anticipating since 2015.
2016 was also a reminder that attention is precious. Despite tremendous popularity, Pokémon Go had a shelf life of three months.
That was short…
Part of the challenge is creating experiences that can be shared widely and without friction. Coca-Cola Israel made bottles that will take a selfie when held at a 45-degree angle. While they were only available at a Coke-sponsored event in July, the earned media coverage has reached much larger audience.
Marketers who showcase their products and services through video already know that an enormous amount of content is required to satisfy all distribution channels. In this age of binge-watching, content marketing will require dedication.
Bottom line: Consumers are rapidly adopting new forms of entertainment and demanding more from the experience. Marketers will have new channels to explore and new tools to make their content more compelling. Splits between working and non-working budgets need to be redefined in this age of content and social marketing.
Perfecting Personalization
Personalization can be explicit, such as creating a personal playlist in Spotify, or implicit, such as the suggested products changing on Amazon based on the user’s previous browsing and shopping behaviour. Personal playlists are the number-one preventer of churn on streaming music services. 11.5% of revenue on e-commerce sites is earned through personalized recommendations.
Retailers, such as Sportchek, are already using personalization to impact the bricks and mortar experience. The future holds many more possibilities.
Programmatic creative is an opportunity for marketers to turn the data that they’ve been using to reach audiences into creative that speaks to each segment, or potentially, individual, in a more relevant and compelling way. In this case, the technology is in place, the creative know-how is in development.
Websites are also getting more personal, dynamically assembling based on user profiles. Jeff Bezo’s Washington Post has leveraged the personalization smarts of Amazon to drive readership and revenues. Marketers will be interested in the products, such as PostPulse, that embed branded content throughout the site experience.
Bottom line: There are many opportunities to connect online to offline (and the reverse) that marketers will want to explore – but they all hinge on having access to good and usable data.
A Final Word
It’s certain that major market forces, such as U.S. and EU politics, will have everyone on edge in 2017. Uncertainty drives opportunity.
In 2017, I’ll be keeping a close watch on China. Consider that many Chinese have become consumers and digital adopters at the same time. E-commerce and social platforms lead the way for product and service discovery. E-Commerce activity amounts to 13.5% of retail purchases, 50% higher than in the U.S. Over half of Chinese consumers have used their mobile phone to pay for a transaction vs. 19% in the U.S. China’s Singles day (11/11) got a record $17.8B, 32% above 2015 sales numbers.
A deep dive on the shift of Chinese consumers here.
Veronica Holmes is a partner in 361 degrees, a media, creative and content production company helping clients make intelligent choices in their marketing approach.
