The world is changing rapidly and media is at the heart of these changes.  The trends below are not new trends, but current trends that will become a lot more prevalent next year.

In 2011 lots of things will get even bigger – by the end of next year there will be many more internet users (not necessarily on desktops), mobile users, online shoppers, online gamers, social networkers,  and data being generated - and we are taking this as read.

Changes predicted a few years ago have happened, including mobile ‘arriving’, the ubiquity of social media and online video; in the light of this 2011 will be a year of consolidating on these gains and refining techniques in the new landscape.

These are 11 trends that we expect to see:

 

1 – Monetisation 

Facebook will start to make lots and lots of money.  Facebook say they’ve only really made enough ‘to keep the lights on’ so far, but once they really start the money will come flooding in. Through deals with partners like Paypal they can take a percentage of transactions, and with more and more things sold on the site, this will soon amount to billions. Other media owners will do longer term and deeper deals with brands on more of a revenue share model – for example a permanent position on the site paid for by a share of sales, rather than by impressions or clicks.

Entertainment companies will continue to prosper, but the big winners will be companies that take micropayments – for example a small amount to download an extra level of a game, or sell a virtual item that makes the game easier, like the tractors in Farmville. Mobile game companies like Rovio have made millions from downloads of games like Angry Birds for less than €1. However at the same time a few big, expensive blockbusters like Call of Duty will also break records.

Implications for brands – Think about what you have that can be sold, and the ways in which you sell.  Can you sell directly, or through channels like Facebook and the app stores?  Do deals to make sure that you sell in the best environments.

 

2 - More Advertising

Advertising will continue to be a major source of revenue – for some.  This year we’ve seen new ad formats on YouTube – currently over 2bn videos views are being monetised each week – and also banners appearing for the first time in Google search results (albeit just for image searches so far). 

Within ‘advertising’ we also include content that appears on media for payment.  For example Twitter is introducing new ad formats, and other publishers are pushing the boundaries of what they will feature on their sites for payment, and how closely they are willing to let brands integrate with their content.  It’s not just online either – there’s lots of innovation in outdoor media, with more electronic and digital ad formats on the high street. Even graffiti is being used to promote brands in some places.

Implications for brands – Advertising isn’t going away, but it is changing, particularly with the rise of branded content.  Develop strategies to produce and place this, as part of your media & marketing schedules

 

3 – Partnerships and Sponsorships

Brands want to get closer to content and to technology, and more will be paying to integrate and sponsor, rather than to simply advertise.  There have been so many examples of this in 2010, including Lemsip sponsoring a selection of Films on Demand on LoveFilm in the UK, and RedBull sponsoring a film by cyclist Danny McAskill.  Bands like Weezer, OK Go and Faithless have been willing to do partnerships with brands to help pay for their music. We’ll see more long term deals with publishers for sponsored content and sections as part of a larger advertising deal, and, as mentioned above, media owners taking content from eCommerce sites on a revenue share model, rather than as straight advertising.  Media owners will also offer up their data for partners to use, as is already happening with The Guardian’s Open Data Partnership.

Implications for brands – Look to form strategic long term deals with suppliers that best fit your audiences and objectives

 

4 – Targeting, Data, Algorithms & Location

All digital marketing activity generates lots of measurable data, and 2011 will see more focus than ever on testing and refining to get better results  in paid media, owned media (brand websites) and earned media (social interaction).  Targeting will bring addressability – the ability to target and re-target small groups of people and individuals.  There will also be more focus on path to purchase and smoothing out the online shopping experience.  It’s harder to increase your conversion rate than to increase your ad-spend, but it’s cheaper.

Algorithms will continue to develop, not just for search, but for location-based and social media, for example in recommendations based on what similar people and friends like.  Search is great when you know what you’re looking for; if you want a recommendation for something you never knew existed, it isn’t.  Data from a location based service like Foursquare could give us a much better set of recommendations for a week in New York than a guide book.

Implications for brands – Assess the data that is currently generated, and prioritise based on how well it relates to your objectives.  Focus more on measuring the most relevant, and develop tools to be able analyse these more easily.  Make sure that you experiment with new algorithms and companies that are looking at 3^rd party data, particularly in social and location to try to integrate into your own data.

 

5 – Asian Influence

 Asia will have a greater influence on the media world, both in terms of numbers, but also in ideas and business practices.  There are now over 420m people online in China, nearly 900m mobile subscriptions (including 39m 3G customers), and 175m cable TV subscribers.  Sites like Tencent are far more profitable than Western social networks through virtual goods sales, and Japanese social network Mixi delivers 84% of page impressions to mobile users. 

Western companies are trying to learn from Asia, and at the same time the web is becoming a lot more universal because it’s becoming much more visual – witness the success of mainly visual blogging platforms like Tumblr – and new visual search technologies, and this will reduce the differences between what the West sees and what Asia sees.  Finally, the group buying (Groupon) idea originated in China, as ‘tuangou’ a few years before it took off in the West.

Implications for brands – Think more visually, and try to make communications more accessible to people of all languages.  Keep an eye on developments in Asia, and try to borrow or re-apply the best ideas.

 

6 – Technology for self improvement

Just as food marketing took things like vitamins out of the bathroom cabinet and into the kitchen, technology will take health checks, fitness tracking and education into the living areas of the home.  Mobile apps allow people to measure their fitness and progress towards goals; for example Sleep Cycle plots your sleep patterns, and wakes you up at the best time in the cycle.  Adidas’ miCoach acts as a personal trainer.  Gaming mechanisms have been built into some apps to encourage competition, and make the process fun.

Implications for brands – Work out if self improvement and measurement is relevant to what you do, and if so try to get involved.  However only do it if you can do it well, and do something that is different to things already out there.

 

7 – New companies

The speed of change, and the speed that information spreads, mean that if anyone has a really good idea for a business or service it can grow very quickly.  For example Tumblr has grown to over 11m users in 3 years, mobile developer Quest Visual achieved instant fame with the release of it’s translation app Word Lens, and and coupon service Groupon has over 200 different sites in over 30 countries in two years. The reported $6bn valuation for Groupon will inspire lots of others, and lead lots of investors to risk money on relatively conceptual start-ups. 

Implications for brands – Monitor new technologies, and try to get in touch with the most relevant new companies with a view to testing on projects

 

8 – Streaming rather than downloading

The US now sees almost as much music streaming as downloading, and the popularity of services like Spotify in Europe are also increasing the popularity of the idea of not having to own music.  YouTube also supports this trend – many teens use YouTube as a music player, queuing up tracks for when friends come around.  In the US Netflix predict that customers will watch more video streamed in Q4 2010 than on DVD.

Implications for brands – The move to streaming changes the media landscape, so make sure that your content is available, and your messages are being seen by streamers as well as downloaders

 

9 - Brands will be more ‘human’

Brands will adopt more human traits as they try to communicate and connect with people through increasingly social channels.  Within advertising characters have always been created to personify the brand, but now more brands will try to get their own personality and try to do more human things like arranging games (Cadbury) or organising parties (Smirnoff).  This will be particularly true for FMCG / CPG brands, as they refine how they act within the social space and try to give themselves likeable personalities.

Implications for brands – Make the brand more ‘human’!  Build on its existing personality, but extrapolate human traits.  View this as a long term commitment

 

10 – The internet will become more automated

There may be now more machines than people connected to the internet than people.  Machines send regular messages to other machines, for example busses on transport networks providing their location, or weather sensors constantly checking in to update on conditions.  Soon analysis of this data will produce new services and efficiency savings – but people won’t need to be involved.

Implications for brands – Is there any machine data generated by the brand’s processes that could be of general interest, and could be shared?  If so, share it!

 

11 – Celebrity

The power of celebrity will rise.  Celebs have now been freed from the studio or label system by Facebook and twitter, and now interact directly with fans, who can act on their endorsements.  Sean ‘P Diddy’ Combs’ involvement raised sales more than trebled sales of Ciroc Vodka in 2 years through his endorsements.  Lady Gaga has multiple sponsors placing products in her videos, and has an official role with Polaroid.  Celebrity endorsement isn’t a new thing, but it’s easier for the individuals to deal directly with the companies and be more involved in the process. 

There will also be more micro-celebrities (‘Famous for 15 people’) and they will also become more powerful and influential.  The media will start to employ writers and photographers on the basis of their networks – that is, the size of the audience that they can bring with them.

Implications for brands – Decide whether this is appropriate for the brand, and if so investigate who the right sorts of celebrities would be.  Start small, learn, and build on success

This is the script for the YouTube video Next Generation Media.

It’s provided so that people can follow the arguments more easily (it does go pretty quickly) and see the sources for the statements.

 

We think that media is one of the most exciting and fast moving forces in the world.

People spend more time consuming media than almost any other activity.

On average 18-24’s globally spend

-          over 3 hours a day watching TV

-          over 2 hours a day listening to the radio

-          purchase 2 magazines a month (Source – Synovate, 2009)

The average UK Mum clocks up over 26 hours of time online per month (Yahoo, 2009)

2/3 of Europeans stream or download video content at least once a week (Future Foundation Entertainment Futures, 2008)

Media fulfils multiple roles and needs in people’s lives:  

Entertainment, Information, Self expression, Relaxation, Belonging, Me Time, Communication

 

Media has become more complex – we think about the transformation of media in three ways - – technology, people and content.

 

Today’s media landscape is almost unrecognisable from 30 years ago.

 Technology, people and content have all TRANSFORMED.

Technology has changed – There are new devices, and more devices

iPod – 2001

Sky Plus - 2001

Nintendo DS – 2004

X-Box 360 – 2005

PS3 – 2006

Wii – 2006

iPhone – 2007

iPhone 3G – 2008

Nexus One – 2010

iPad – 2010

Web  applications which are part of our daily lives are still in infancy….

Facebook – 2004

YouTube – 2005

Twitter – 2006

iPlayer – 2007

Hulu – 2008

iPhone App Store – 2008

 

“In the last few years Facebook has been the most important thing in my free time activities.” (Source - Synovate, 2009) 

 

People have changed

In 1950 29% of the world’s population lived in cities – now it’s more than 50% (Source – UN Dept of Economic & Social Affairs, 2005)

In 1960 the average age for a woman in America to marry was 20 – now it’s 26  (Source – The Rise of the Real Mom, Advertising Age, 2009)

In 1960 38% of women in America went to college – not it’s 66%  (Source – The Rise of the Real Mom, Advertising Age, 2009)

The number of single person households in the UK has doubled between 1971 and 2008 (Source – Social Trends, ONS, 2009)

The average French midday meal now lasts 38 minutes, less than half the time taken in the 1970s  (Source – Datamonitor, 2006)

In 1997 34% of women in Spain worked; in 2008 it was 55% (Source – Eurostat, 2006)

In 1960 Americans spend 24% of their income on food – in 2002 it was 12% (Source – US Department of Labor / VisualEconomics 2009)

 

Content has changed: 

Content can be consumed any time, any place, any device
Channels have fragmented
Content has become social in new ways

In 1979 there were 3 UK TV channels; in 2009 there are 512 (Source – Aegis)

The number of channels available on Pay TV in Italy is rising: from 120 in 2003 to 199 in 2009 (Source – Aegis)

Formats are proliferating in TV – 445 original programme formats were exported globally in 2006-8, twice the number from 2002-4 (Source – The Format Recognition and Protection Association (FRAPA) 2009

 

Online videos have driven broadband uptake, and led the demand for cheap access devices

Talent shows have increased interactivity with media, for example through texting

Social networks have driven mobile internet adoption, and daily internet usage

24 Hours of video were uploaded to YouTube each minute in March 2010, up from 6 hours per minute in 2007 (YouTube, 2010)

Content is “always on” – there is more content available and more ways to consume it

Understanding how people choose, engage, create and interact with content has become more complex

Media is transforming, communications are transforming….

 

“The world will go faster. Something that takes 30 minutes today will take 10 minutes tomorrow. We’ll save time.” Italian male

New media is transforming communications

Old media is transforming and evolving

People/content/technology will continue to evolve

Welcome to Next Generation Media from Aegis Media

 

TRANSFORMING COMMUNICATIONS

<

10 Trends for 2010
These are the ten key trends I've identified for 2010. Nothing
changes on New Year's Day - these are all trends we're currently
seeing, but the ones most likely to have the most impact.
It's a given that the strong growth trends will continue – there will
be more people online, more time spend online, more mobile internet
use, more videos uploaded, more blog posts published and so on.
The two overriding themes for 2010 will be the rise of mobile internet
and the continued use of cloud computing and storage. Most of the
individual trends make reference to these.

1 - Mobile
The most interesting technological developments are likely to come in
mobile services and applications. Penetration of the mobile web (3G)
is rising, currently standing at 15% of all phone users globally
according to Ovum and Morgan Stanley, and the number of devices that
are capable of offering a rich web experience is ballooning. By the
end of next year it will be relatively hard to buy a mobile phone
without a sophisticated operating system, just as it became hard to
buy a mobile phone without a camera about 7 years ago. If the average
contract length is 18 months, then 2/3 of mobile users will be
replacing their handsets next year, and many will be trading up to
smartphones (phones with advanced features like email, web browsing,
and the ability to edit documents).
The market for apps will continue to grow, with the iPhone app store
likely to hit 3 billion downloads before Christmas, and (maybe) 8
billion by the end of 2010. But there will be strong competition from
Android (a slew of new phones expected in early 2010), Nokia (through
Symbian and Maemo), and Blackberry. App developers will develop apps
for all platforms.

2 - The Cloud
Cloud computing is essentially the storage of information and
resources in cyberspace rather than on an actual computer. Webmail is
cloud computing - essentially you can access it from any computer or
advanced phone anywhere in the world, as long as you have internet
access.
The cloud also allows the simultaneous use of multiple devices – a
laptop sometimes, a mobile at other times, and so on. Similarly
software and music don't need to be owned - they can just be accessed
when needed. Spotify and MySpace Music are classic cloud examples -
you don’t need to have the music downloaded to a device when you can
access it whenever you want.
Google Wave is also an example of the cloud in action - documents and
apps can live in a place to be accessed by multiple users. (Google
Wave will make sense in 2010, by the way. Once it integrates with
Gmail - 'Do you want to turn this conversation into a Cloud?' and
YouTube 'Do you want to watch this video with a friend?' it will
become much less baffling.)

3 - Augmented Reality
Augmented reality puts a virtual layer on top of a real world view.
It's become a bit of a gimmick in desktop computing (turn on your
webcam to see a mini movie), but in mobile apps it can be used to show
local landmarks or utilities on top of a standard map or panoramic
view, as seen through the phone's camera. Once these start to
proliferate, maybe with voucher codes integrated, smartphones will
suddenly have a whole new appeal.

4 - Mobile payments
In Japan ecommerce giant Rakuten made 16% of all revenues from mobile
sales in 2008, a number that has been steadily climbing from 4% in
2004. In the west a few success stories like iPhone apps from
companies like Ebay and Pizza Hut show that mobile commerce is likely
to be big business in the West too. & there's more - the idea of
using a mobile phone as a virtual wallet, or being able to 'text'
money to friends seems likely to gain traction next year.

5 - Asian influence
The Asian influence will rise. Already China is the largest single
online country, and the ability to create urls with Asian character
sets will spur the web still further. The lack of common languages
and keyboards will start to become less relevant with the rise of
picture based search, such as Google Goggles, where you just need to
take a picture of an object to find out about it.
Asian sites could well start to focus on the West, with search engine
Baidu possibly launching, and messenger site QQ showing the rest of
the world how to monetise through virtual goods.

6 - Video
2010 sees YouTube celebrating its 5th birthday, with a global reach of
nearly 40% of all internet users each month. 2010 could also be the
year that it expands its offering into full length films, TV shows and
sports events, either for rental or pay per view. It has worked hard
over the past two years to secure professionally made content, and
successfully screened back catalogue films mainly in the US, and
concerts globally. It even screened the Olympics in 2008 in countries
where the IOC had not sold the official rights. World Cup 2010 –
will we be watching live games or even official highlights packages on
YouTube? & we’ll see lots more smaller scale live events screened
online via sites like vshare, ustream, justin.tv.
The BBC’s iPlayer and Hulu could also grow beyond their national
boundaries in 2010, but so far expansion has been slower than thought.
YouTube could now be the most likely global video channel for
long-form video.

7 - Twitter
There are currently approximately 1.5 million tweets an hour, and
Twitter will continue to see huge growth, but a new type of user is
emerging – one that treats it as one-to-many SMS and MMS. A year ago
most of the people I knew who were on twitter also had a blog. These
days many new twitter users have previously only had a web presence on
other services like MySpace. Particularly in the US many twitter
users seem to give their address as a MySpace page, and tread twitter
as a comms network for their circle of friends, tweeting instead of
texting to many. While a few months ago it was reckoned that young
people don’t tweet, it seems that young people are increasingly
getting into it.
Twitter itself will stay as the core serviced, but extra functionality
to simplify it, and make it more usable will come, like the list
feature introduced recently. The money will start to come in too,
although not through conventional ad placement or even search ads.
Services like twitter also illustrate how employees are the new face
of the brand, for example Frank Eliason at Comcast, Scott Monty at
Ford, and Twelpforce from Best Buy.

8 - Measurement
Measurement and understanding is key to communications – the ability
to see how a campaign has worked, and understand why – and 2010 will
see major advances in the measurement of social media effectiveness
and mash ups in measurement between different media. Agencies are
learning to see in the new climate, and getting more sophisticated in
how they measure campaign effectiveness. Clients are also getting
more open about sharing results of initiatives (where they are
successful, clearly…). Expect to see examples of campaigns across all
media measured in terms of revenues but also engagement, and
combinations of the two.
Direct sales campaigns have long been far more interested in response
metrics than delivery metrics like clicks and views. Increasingly
‘branding’ campaigns will also look to success metrics over delivery
metrics.

9 - Fun
The digital world will be more fun. As people’s usage increases the
web is seen as a mainstream entertainment channel, as demonstrated by
the rise of video sites, social networks, and online gaming. More
blogs will start aggregating random things, like cake decoration gone
wrong, strange photos from yesteryear, or bizarre homemade items.
Similarly services like Foursquare will grow in popularity, due to
their game-playing nature. Foursquare is a mobile service that asks
you to report in whenever you visit a local place of interest – the
person who checks in most often becomes the ‘Mayor’ – adding a fun
twist to something that could have been dull.
It’s also the case that people are very willing to pay small amounts
for ‘fun’ mobile apps and games. For example the singer T-Pain sold
300,000 of his ‘autotune’ apps in 3 weeks at $3 each. It’s pretty
pointless, but great fun.
The number and complexity of stunts will also increase. In 2009 we've
seen flashmobs, pop up shops and even events like the creation of a
giant punch bowl for Courvoisier ("so big you can row in it"). People
like these - there are bound to be more of them.

10 - Rejecters
Finally, let's not get carried away with our future visions. A lot of
people do not yet live digitally. They don't download music, much
less download films or TV. They aren't on twitter or Foursquare, and
didn't apply for an invite to Google Wave. In fact in the UK,
according to research commissioned by the Government's Digital
Inclusion Team, over 15% of the population have never used the
internet. There are a lot of people who are very happy with mobile
phones that will make calls and send texts, and not do much else.
They don't have a PVR, blu-ray or HDTV. These people will remain a
very important group, and mustn't be ignored. Most of the ideas I've
written about here are moving from the early adopters to the
mainstream, but there will always be people who lag behind, and are
happy to. The huge sales of Susan Boyle's album on CD show that there
are lots of people who don't download (in the US only 6% of first week
sales were through iTunes).

In essence we need to understand the future, but be aware that a lot
of people are still living in the present.