The end of the year is a good time for reflection, and planning. We look back at what’s happened over the previous year – in media themes and innovations - and then try to predict which are going to be bigger in the next year. Here are five trends in media that we think are going to be very important in 2015.
Video – A year ago when people talked about online video advertising the main perception was YouTube pre-rolls. In the past year Facebook bought and integrated video ad technology LiveRail and now has video ads on its feed, Instagram has introduced video ads (US only so far), as have Tumblr, Twitter and others.
As many more options for online video become available, brands need to think more carefully about how they use video, including which channels, how to integrate with other screens, and how to make ads as much impactful as possible in the first few seconds, to counter skipping.
Connected TV – Connected TV has quietly taken off; there are now more than half a billion connected TVs in the world (if you include connections through gaming consoles, Google ChromeCast and more), and now over half of TVs sold in the UK are connected. Users of connected TVs are starting to behave differently, watching more catch-up and VOD content.
While this brings more opportunities for ad avoidance and skipping, it also offers more opportunities for targeting through TV in similar ways to online. This includes ad serving, programmatic, using location, demographics and more, plus the possibility of interaction in ads.
Virtual Reality – Facebook bought Oculus Rift, the immersive virtual reality company, back in March 2014, and it’s expected that a device for consumers (complete with games) will be released in 2015.
For brands the opportunity comes in the form of enhanced engagement – unique experiences that make people talk. There is also lots of potential for virtual reality in eCommerce (imagine a personalised landing page with recommended goods feeling like a real shop). But beware of the hype – whenever it’s released Oculus Rift will have comparatively small penetration in 2015 - and beware of ‘Second Life’ ideas being re-badged as new concepts.
App simplification & integration – Apps dominate mobile use – they make up 86% of the time spent in mobile, according to Flurry – and are currently in a period of evolution.
The first evolution is that they’re becoming simplified. Facebook has recently split out Messenger and Groups, and is likely to split out other core features, into apps that are designed to give the best performance for just one thing. Instagram launched a new feature Hyperlapse (speeded up films), but did so as a dedicated app, rather than an extra feature in the original app.
Brands need to bear this in mind when they think of how people use their services on mobile – make them as straightforward and simple to use as possible, rather than just replicating everything that the desktop site does.
The second evolution is that apps are starting to link to each other. It used to be the case that apps were self-contained – you’d open a map to see where you had to go, then open another app to order a taxi to get there. Now (in this example) you can order a taxi from the Uber app from a button within the Google maps app – and the driver already knows where you are and where you want to go.
These links between apps will grow, so using an app will become more like using the web. Brands need to think about how their apps could fit into other apps – what partnerships could be formed, and whether they do have something of value in their app ecosystem.
Voice – Siri was only the start – now Google is handling lots of spoken searches, and as voice recognition technology improves, voice controls will be deployed in more and more different scenarios, for example Amazon’s recent ‘Echo’ in-home device.
Brands need to think about how people will find their products if they’re using voice assistant technologies – is the name of the brand ambiguous when said out loud (‘Four Candles’ / ‘Fork Handles’)? Can brands cope with consumers wanting to talk to them more (rather than communicating through text)?
By Dan Calladine, Head of Media Futures at Carat.
PrivSec Conferences will bring together leading speakers and experts from privacy and security to deliver compelling content via solo presentations, panel discussions, debates, roundtables and workshops.
For more information on upcoming events, visit the website.
comments powered by Disqus