DIGITAL MEDIA TRENDS IN 2008
- Category: Digital Media
- Category: Integrated Marketing
- Category: Mobile
- Category: News
- Category: Search
- Category: Social Media
2007 has been a big year, one dominated by growth in online video, the explosion of social media and the acquisition and consolidation of many major media, agency and measurement businesses.
So, what will be the major changes influencing digital marketing opportunities in the Australian marketplace in 2008? Here’s a few thought starters…
INCREASING CONTROL
Consumer control over media content will step up a notch, as uptake for products like Foxtel iQ, Tivo and web widgets like iGoogle make it easier for people to access the content they want and avoid advertising messages. Online video services will blossom in content breadth and viewer numbers, offering more opportunities to re-cut and re-use that TV spot, and for some audiennces will become an effective alternative to broadcast TV.
THE NECESSITY OF RELEVANCE
Marketers will need to raise their game to ensure communications remain relevant – the right message, addressed to the right person, at the right time, in an appropriate channel. This will drive continued migration of marketing dollars to the channels & tactics that ensure relevance. Search marketing will continue to draw budget from distribution, DM and traditional media areas while Google’s momentum will continue in new areas as it leverages the scale of its content network and monetises applications like Google maps.
Behavioural targeting will finally deliver on its promise as the technology comes of age and the accessible audience reaches critical mass. This will drive revenue for established publishers but will also enable new sales networks like DrivePM and Adconian to steal a significant share of ad dollars.
Nowhere will relevance be more important that on your mobile phone, where growth in 3G handset penetration will offer a very personal platform for extending brand activity. Smart marketers will leverage the timeliness and location sensitivity of the mobile channel to add another layer of engagement with their brand, the less savvy will at best be ignored, and at worst deplored by the people they are trying to engage.
ENGAGE WITH ME
And the tide of participation will roll on. 2007 has seen the onslaught of social media through MySpace, FaceBook, Bebo and the much hyped but relatively little used Second Life. Next year gaming consoles will attempt to usurp Second Life through leveraging their installed user base and graphical advantage to offer more user friendly versions of virtual worlds, like PS3’s Home. As user numbers continue to grow, we’ll see new tactics aimed at commercialising the audience of these communities, through new spins on video ads, product placement and the creation of a million brand generated applications. The best brand integrations will continue to be those that add value to the community they are infiltrating. Established media properties, particularly those in the news, classifieds and entertainment verticals, will also aggresively embrace UGC and collaborative tools to try to maintain their audiences and boost loyalty.
NEW SIGNPOSTS FOR SUCCESS
Finally, as Marketers we’ll need to take another look at how we measure success. We’ll need to throw away some of the tired exposure based media currency metrics and aggresively implement new ones that better reflect our objectives – ‘cost per friend’ as a success metric anyone?
