Marketing tools & strategies
Which technology do you think will fade away?
Cummings: Classified advertising in print will finally disappear, going the way of stock quotes offline. DVDs will start to fade behind the onslaught of digital content distribution via online, cable and satellite.
Hespos: Third-party rich media. Of course, I’ve made that prediction for several years running and many of them are still hanging in there. I guess I thought they’d die a quick death once Motif, Atlas Rich Media and others made them irrelevant, but some are still clinging to life yet.
Coffin: All technologies fade away, but they don’t die. The marketplace will make broad use of the many technical features and benefits of the internet without presuming that one or the other is the magic bullet.
Guild: Tech won't fade. It will consolidate.
Which technology do you feel will have the most impact in 2007?
Gluck: Social networking. I think companies are just beginning to figure out its value. We’ll see more niche plays, and better network analysis. Companies are just beginning to invest in the type of analytics necessary to identify key innovators, influencers, brand evangelists and early adopters that is quantitative, sociological, and statistically supported. This doesn’t just apply to MySpace or Facebook either. Consumer packaged goods, automotive companies, entertainment brands and others are beginning to how their networks grow and evolve.
Epstein: Call me biased, but in-game advertising technologies open up an audience of close to half a billion people on a worldwide basis, with a depth of engagement that is unparalleled by any other media. The types of ad creative that truly utilize the gaming media are only beginning to be discovered.
Bill Hague: Google and its efforts to make the ad-buying process more transparent and streamlined.
Hespos: I think widgets are going to be big. Marketers are likely to latch onto the notion that extending value to their customers in the form of widgets and the functionality they bring can build loyalty and relationships.
Coffin: Video.
Huxley: I think that the upcoming advances in local and mapping technology will finally come into its own in 2007. Beyond Craigslist, the offerings by Google, Microsoft and Yahoo will allow for user ratings, targeted advertisements, and much more. The natural integration of online local and mobile has the potential to create new consumer behaviors and services, as evidenced by offerings such as Dodgeball, a local social network.
Cummings: Market penetration of DVRs will reach a tipping-point (crap, did I just write that?) in major metro markets, causing gold rush for online video advertising.
Guild: Streaming video and the RSS feed. We have been quietly hearing about RSS, but no one seems to understand that RSS stands for “Really Simple, Stupid." 2007 is the year.
Horan: Video will continue to build upon the momentum set in 2006. The key will be how advertisers and marketers deliver on the promise. It’s not about converting the 30-second TV spot, but rather creating unique content for the platform. Pre-roll, midroll and post-roll have a place, but we need to fully understand what works best and what other formats can have an impact. Through OPA research and other sources, we’ll learn more in 2007 about what resonates with the consumer.
Which technology company will be instrumental in driving new media in 2007?
Coffin: Third-party ad serving companies.
Cummings: Apple, as always, with others doing poor imitations.
Huxley: Microsoft certainly isn’t a dark horse in this area, but with the consumer launch of Vista, the continued rollout of adCenter to platforms beyond the web, and new possibilities provided by Xbox Live and Zune, they are still a central part of more areas than any other company. The wholesale integration of web services and the Live platform allow for the unique targeting of consumers as well as new, engaging creative in forms much richer than previously possible such as desktop gadgets (gallery.live.com) and Hi-def VOD via Xbox Live.
Horan: There is no question that companies offering innovative video solutions will be in high demand and will play a key role in shaping new media in the year ahead. Blogging also continues to show great momentum. Companies that can help move blogging to a more mature and advertising-worthy content delivery platform will be important part of new media in 2007.
Gluck: 1. Google. 2. Google. 3. Companies acquired by Google.
Which technology is on your wish list for 2007?
Hespos: My wish list includes one of the new Macintosh notebooks, which is something I’d like to leave around the office so that any downtime can be spent publishing webinars, podcasts and such for our clients.
Coffin: The always-on computer. Zero boot time and/or rebooting.
Philalithes: Instant transportation in a "beam me up, Scotty" way is definitely on my technology wish list. On the advertising front, though, 2007 is likely to see a growing number of advertising models emerge which will enable consumers to generate advertising revenue from their own content. Sites like revver.com already operate in this space, however, next year is likely to see this model expand. In addition to advertising revenue, content creators could also start to generate revenue through their clips or images being broadcast by established news or gossip publishers.
What type of targeting will increase in 2007, if any?
Gluck: Local will improve greatly. Behavioral targeting is proving its value now and will increase -- in terms of dollars invested as well as accuracy.
Coffin: Psychographic.
Philalithes: As the issue of Ad Avoidance becomes an ever increasing concern, advertisers are naturally becoming more attracted to targeted, non-intrusive forms of advertising.
Guild: Local, local, local.
Cummings: Segmentation based influencer targeting. The buzz metric companies will finally be able to compile the first aggregated targeting based on someone’s ability to influence in the online world. Micro-networks of geographically dispersed individuals will command the highest premiums, and then those people will find even newer ways to become more anonymous, thus masking the true influencers behind the narcissistic screamers who crave attention. Our society will implode in a shallow Paris Hilton’esque media quality vacuum sometime late in the year.
…or maybe the ability to finally target based on geo-location will finally improve beyond Yahoo!, which would expand the market to truly local opportunities.
What's the next big thing in mobile?
Hespos: At some point, a bunch of bigwig industry execs are going to come to the sudden realization that the business they thought was pushing content to mobile phones is actually in mobile utilities and interactivity. I’m hoping it will happen in 2007, but it seems institutional inertia is a force that ought not to be underestimated.
Gluck: Better local apps. Just take a look at some of the mapping applications like Google Maps to see what 2007 will look like. Entertainment content and mobisodes have novelty, but I think consumers think of their mobile devices as communication and utility devices. Marketing that increases efficiency and utility will succeed on mobile platforms.
Coffin: Advertising.
Cummings: GPS location-based triggers will finally come to fruition. First from social networking in finding your friends, then a Helios model for one of the major carriers or an automatic Dodgeball-type network, and then at the end of 2007, the GPS-based phone advertising for McDonald's or Banana Republic.
Guild: .Mobi will take off (people are still slow on the uptake). Most think .mobi is a site about whales.
What needs to change about user-generated media to make it more useful from a marketing standpoint and less from an entertaining standpoint?
Gluck: Better analytics. I hinted at this above, but I think the problem is not with the media, it’s with marketer’s understanding of it. It’s still so new, it’s not clear what its impact is yet. I think we’ll find over time that there is great value in letting your consumers become evangelists for your brand. It can be extremely inexpensive, highly viral and very cost-effective is done well. However, the devil is in the details. We’ll start to understand patterns of virality: degree centrality, betweenness centrality, network centralization, network reach, boundary spanners, and peripheral players. This is all pretty new and marketers are just beginning to harness this data to better understand how their brands interact with consumers.
Coffin: Interesting question. In other words, you could be asking, how do consumers have to change in order to make them more useful to marketers? I think the answer is that consumers do not have to change, nor does their self-generated media. I’d propose that marketers need to change and embrace user-generated content as a by-product of the "consumer is in charge" phenomenon that has been manifest for a decade or more. Marketers need to focus their energy on developing great advertising. That’s what the consumers want from them. Great advertising. Great products. The consumer can handle the rest right now, a considerable benefit for all.
Huxley: Marketers benefit when they incorporate consumer media and feedback upstream in their launch process. When users focus on creating communications for a brand, they often feel a connection more towards the media than the product. However, if a company uses user contributions as part of its product development, users feel invested not just in the product, but as in the brand as a whole. This strategy isn’t appropriate for every category, but when it is, it can be a very powerful tool for building loyalty and community.
Philalithes: The search options and the overall organization of sites need to change to make them more useful from not only a marketing perspective, but from a user perspective. Once improved navigability and overall "ease of use" is established, better ad targeting will naturally follow.
Horan: We need to change our expectations for user-generated content. UGC is incredibly valuable, but the question is whether the environment provides the appropriate marketing platform. Consumers rely on branded content and marketers recognize the value of the environment. With quality branded sites such as the NYTimes.com or Edmunds.com, comes a trust and authority that is truly unique and extremely powerful.
Cummings: The lowest common denominator of society is low. It will always be low. We are elevated by those who seek to engage and educate, but we have the same lizard brain as everyone else, no matter how suppressed. We secretly enjoy the entertainment. What user-generated media will do is expose those who do have the talent to elevate to the major media outlets. They will be absorbed into a growing trend of user-generated media expansion. Not everyone went to the best colleges, were taught by great minds, came from the right background; and therefore have not had the same opportunity to work as reporters, journalists… what this medium has done is give those with a voice, a real platform to express. They will become the new communicators for society. What society has to do to ensure that the discourse becomes one beyond just entertainment, and reinstitute civics classes across our educational system, to improve the level of civic discourse; thus elevating the number of those that our society produces.
User-generated content is sadly a reflection of us, of our willingness to not educate civics. It will remain so, and will not evolve, until that is addressed. What needs to change about user-generated content is us.
Guild: Large companies will lose share to targeted community sites!
