How is online behavior changing year-over-year, and how will these changes impact the way you engage your audience? Take a look at the latest data from this year's Surveying the Digital Future study.

Everything is coming apart
While no one is likely to be shocked at the idea that the marketing industry is at the mercy of the economic crisis, it may come as a surprise that the media channels that are supporting it have been in steady decline for a while now. Of course, the signs have been visible, if you were looking for them: Scheduled media has almost disappeared, thanks to TiVo and broadband programming. Newspapers that used to come once a day are no longer sufficient to keep up with the constant flow of information from around the world. Music labels that used to release artists' content in bursts every two years can't keep up with audience demand for more, more, more.

The trick, now, is to extract key learning from the media shifts we are experiencing, and to direct it to help our organizations be more flexible and more capable of adapting to upcoming trends.

One person who is well equipped to flatten out the learning curve for marketers is Jeff Cole, the director of the USC Center for the Digital Future. The CDF has been studying the impact of digital media for the last decade, querying the same web users every year to identify patterns that are influencing current internet consumption, as well as those that can assess online behavior in the future. In his presentation at the iMedia Brand Summit in Colorado Springs, Cole discussed the big media and advertising issues in the digital area, and outlined some indications that the industry is coming together in encouraging ways for marketers.
 
Out with the old
Cole gave an overview of the demise of old media, declaring that the end of printed newspapers is close at hand, most magazines won't be far behind, and that as music is almost free already, purchased music may follow as well. Even sentimental favorites like photography and tangible products like DVDs and software programs are being replaced by digital devices and cloud computing options.

As these devices personalize the digital experience down to individual preferences, the rules of digital advertising itself obviously become more complex. For example, indications show that the more personalized a medium is (cellphones, social media, etc.), the less likely consumers are to accept interruptive advertising.
 
But…
There's one factor that could be the saving grace in the media implosion: Broadband. Broadband has changed the game in many fundamental ways, not only changing the rules of online and providing unparalleled opportunity for marketers, but also growing the importance of traditional media, such as newspapers.

Cole remarked that while the speed involved in broadband connection was an important change, "it is the direct connection and convenience that changed our relationship with the internet," he said. "Always on" means we no longer had to aggregate our tasks for concentrated online time, which moved online to center stage in the home and in our lives. 
 
Bringing it all back together
So where are the opportunities brought about by broadband penetration likely to appear? According to Cole, they will be everywhere -- even in those media we are starting to consider dead.

In a broadband world, Cole explained, online is making newspaper companies able to compete with televised news -- it has audio, video, it's current, and it can be updated in minutes. This means that newspapers have a chance to get back in the business of breaking the news, rather than playing catch-up to lower-trust options like blogs. 

Consolidation will be seen like never before
While the shift to digital will no doubt weed out many media players, the ones that are left stand to be bigger and more capable of delivering for marketers. Cole gave an example in the world of radio. Instead of every market having its own jazz station of varying quality, only the best jazz stations will survive, and they will have widespread distribution and appeal.

Advertising is how digital content will survive
There are three ways to support content -- steal it, pay fees or subscriptions, or accept advertising. Cole asserts that only one of these will prevail, but that the laser focus on one business model will enable many more options for that business model in the future. 

Cole contends that content on the web will be overwhelmingly through advertising, as we've already seen an understanding and willingness to accept ads as the price of "free content." Cole also believes that in a digital world that has so much choice and content, the brand will become shorthand for credibility and reliability, because it will have the equity of recognition and longevity that consumer-created content will not.

Cole also said that addressability, new metrics, and a reversal of the laws of nature makes the new and more complex rules of advertising worth the effort. "With proper counsel and navigation, advertisers are poised to enter a new era," he said.

Cole's final words of advice to marketers are to forget Web 3.0, the next new thing or the killer app… for now. "We will be there when we never have to think about broadband speeds and can get anything we want, when we want it, wherever we want, and can set our own schedules and create our own environments," he said.

Jodi Harris is senior editor at iMedia Connection.

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