Future

Trend #4 in a 5 part series following Marketing Goes Real Time, The Web Leans Back and Brands Take User Generated Data Seriously.

4. THE CONVERSATION CHANGES FROM MOBILE TO MOBILITY

2013 will definitely not be the year of mobile, but it might be the year of mobility.

After all the behavioural statistics are compelling with 15% of Australians total media attention spent on their mobile screen.  Yet the medium only commands 0.4% of all advertising investment.¹²  Why?  What is broken?

Consumption and usage certainly isn’t heading backwards.  In fact in the next 5 years mobile data demand will grow 13 times to 11.2 Exabyte’s per month!¹³  Yes, you may be wondering what an Exabyte is.  To try and put that in perspective in 1999 the University of Berkley concluded that every single piece of information ever created in any form by humanity equated to about 12 Exabyte’s.  So soon roughly 2000 years worth of data will be consumed every month just through the mobile screen!¹⁴

Consumers will also increasingly use their smart phone in a lean free way, accessing information on the go and using it to make decisions on the fly (95% of smartphone owners use their device to find local information with 88% taking action on the same day¹⁵).  Brands and agencies alike need to get to grips with this third (location) contextual dimension or risk seeing their upper funnel activity become less effective as customers make more decisions in the moment.

Mobility has also been recognized by one of the established cornerstones of the web.  Google’s recent refresh of AdWords and the roll out of Enhanced Campaigns blends deep contextual insight with the power of search intent to create a hyper relevant screen experience with mobility front and center, and if anyone can make mobility work, its Google.

As a result we will begin to see the conversations we are having evolve;

Brands will begin to embrace the idea of mobility over mobile.  This means moving beyond a device or operating system toward creating a truly location neutral experience that adapts based on the context it is being consumed in.

There will be a significant lift in hyper local marketing, albeit off a low base, as brands (especially retailers) offer solutions to some of the markets bigger problems.  We will see brands successfully and consistently bridge the physical/digital divide, retailers will conquer show rooming, agencies will unlock the power and pathway of mobile analytics delivering increased accountability & insight and we’ll see brands find additional value streams for their customers which can be delivered on the fly.

Sources:

• 12 – Bohemia Attention Study 2012
• 13 – Cisco VNI Global Mobile Traffic Report 2012
• 14 – The University of Berkley, The Data That Defines Us 2003
• 15 – Google, The Mobile Movement 2011

According to the New York Times the average man will spend 19 years ad 8 months at work, or about 28% of an average 70 year life span.  Scary thought!  With that in mind it might be worthwhile brushing up on the future of work with this nifty deck from PSFK.  If you are interested in downloading the full report then head over here, its costs cash money though.

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What an amazing year 2012 has been and what a huge opportunity 2013 is.  Everything is changing at an accelerated rate and there has probably never been a time where so much of what we know is ready for disruption.  JWT Intelligence always does a great job of providing us with more than a glimpse of the future with their ’100 Things To Watch…’ series, so here’s a look at what we can expect in the year to come.

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Will 2013 be the year of the mobile?  I hope not, because if you’re still waiting then then you’ve missed the first boat.  Personally the year of the mobile was in 2007, the year the first iPhone was released.  The industry and market shifted dramatically and consumer behaviour went through a cataclysmic change.  Every year beyond 2007 has just further cemented the importance of the mobile screen.  Not convinced?  Then check out the following report by ThinSlices Mobile Development.

In JWT’s eighth annual forecast of future trends technology continues to take center stage.  As a result many of the surrounding trends, from business models, to personal ID’s and crowd sourced product build on the accelerating role of tech in our lives. You’ll also notice the emergence of health as a growing human priority, not surprising given the speed at which our lives revolve at now and the increasing stress that comes with a multi-multi-tasking society.  Enjoy and share.

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Nowhere near as dystopian as the movie but Hyundai have certainly taken a futuristic approach to their latest teset drive campaign in South Africa.  Instead of actually driving the car you virtually put it through its paces, learn a little more about the vehicle and can instantly brag about your exploits socially.  Does a virtual test drive then equate to an actual test drive?  I wonder.

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Apparently 2013 will be the perfect storm of necessity and opportunity.  Trendwatching.com believe some economies will do OK(-ish), others will be shaky, but in whatever market or industry you look at the opportunities are still there, you just might need to look a little harder or act a little smarter.  Think about the changing global economy (Eastern influence continues to grow), changing consumer needs (transparency and availability through mobile), big business bothers (Best Buy, HP, any department store you care to think of), not only new technologies but old technologies being applied in new ways (GPS for one) and new business models (death of ad funded, rise of free-mium, death of free-mium, rise of…).  What’s not to look forward to in 2013?

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The rising influence of technology, increasing transparency, consumer voice, shifting retail models, global accessibility, accelerating veticalisation of brands, smartphone ubiquity, the list goes on and its why many people believe we are in the midst of an economic shift on par with the change experienced during the industrial revolution.  The world we live in is altered everyday by the continued impact of digital.  Some days the increments are small, others its huge.  Brands and businesses rise and fall, products get smarter or more connected, platforms and experiences appear and disappear, it all adds up to what Peter Fisk succinctly calls, Game-changers.  A presentation well worth a read.

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It’s that time of year again…and by that I mean Q4.  From this point on my trends prediction is that we’ll start to see an acceleration on the release of 2013 digital trends presentations!  Here’s the proverbial first cab off the rank by Dynamit which covers CMO/CTO convergence, Mobility, The Quantified Self (!), Fragmentation and Location.  Enjoy.

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The digital advertising industry has come a long way since its inception. From HP’s Pong Ad, to Apple iAds, to smart versioning and in stream video. A lot has happened. To celebrate that journey PointRoll have released the following infographic which maps the last 25 years in byte size form.

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