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Predictions for 2012

I’ve been reading a lot of predictions for next year with regards to tech-media, strategy and audience.  After the past six months of planning, execution and follow up for Digital World Expo, I’m posting this just a few hours before midnight to get my input out there as well.

2011 saw A LOT of movement within the digital media and interactive marketing realm.  The mobile app space is literally exploding and the portability of media through gadgets and new products from the ‘big boys’ has become a sea of formats everyone is racing to accomodate.  The conference kickoff was a big success and we’re looking forward to an even better (and bigger) event in 2012… or “v201.2″ as we’ve been calling it. 

Anyway, back to the ‘predictions’.  With all the changes and advancements over the past few years, you can expect these areas of interactive media to grow and become a bigger ‘beckoning’ for your time and budgets…

Video

Video has had a strong presence since the high-speed penetration finally hit the critical masses about 7 years ago.  But with new technology available in targeting, mobile consumption on the fly, and the essence of cheaper production tactics, video will continue to take center stage for attention.  2012 marketing and audience strategies in digital channels should all include some form of video production whether it be ad units or full feature webisodes.  Video is an “attention getter”, it ‘engages’ your customer more than any other format of media and will continue to do so.  Take advantage of the trending tools available to track, deploy and develop video because they will get attention.  Be sure to pay attention to your branded components and overall impact the video has on your customers.  Put yourself in their shoes and make sure it’s not received as “hoakey” or a poor grade production.  There are a lot of videos posted that simply don’t have the professional treatments, yielding an unwanted reaction from your audience.  Take your time, use the professional resources out there and make sure your video work exemplifies your brand quality and service levels.

Mobile Apps

I used to just say “mobile”, but now that over half of consumers today have smarfphones, I’m narrowing it down specifically to mobile apps.  Over 3 billion downloads are expected in 2012 and the market just keeps getting larger and larger.  2010 introduced “studios” that create apps for a fairly decent price, but as we saw at Digital World Expo and even since – a number of tools are emerging allow for a “do-it-yourself” execution.  Therefore, companies with big budgets who might not use do-it-yourself tools, but should certainly see the competitive app developer landscape bring creation costs down.  Independent workers and smaller companies can expect services where they can enter the app market for a small fee. 

The apps I retain on my device are full of utility.  I only keep the ones I use at least once per month.  Apps should be built with the mindset of how they can be used to manage day-to-day lives, unless they are entertainment only.  After all, games don’t help us manage our daily life, but they do give us a social/extracurricular activity outside of our workday which is often needed.  There will be another expolosion of apps out there, just like there was an explosion of websites back in ’99.  You may even see some of the worlds largest online publishers take a second seat to competitive app interfaces produced by companies leading the charge and taking over the mobile browsing time of users. 

Augmented Reality

With the recent holiday campaigns by Starbucks and other retailers, augmented reality will find its place amongst large marketing campaigns in 2012.  AR tools will be developed and allow even more insights into audience interaction and activity.  AR will also be used to initiate sales conversions more frequently and begin to enter the world more often through interfaces outside of mobile devices and computing.  Augmented Reality will no longer be a ‘novelty’.  Both today’s leading companies and independents will find the sweet spot in AR and how to apply it where it makes sense to drive more users and conversions.

Those are my 3 picks for emerging media in 2012.  No comment around ‘social media’ this year.  I think that 2011 saw that area come to fruition and most companies leading the charge have successfully integrated it into their regular operations rather than a promotional tool.  The trick will be to discover online social tools that will start bleeding audience away from the ones we are used to.  History suggests that as soon as a well-used platform starts to experience SPAM or comment stuffing, users will start looking elsewhere for their outlets.  We’ll see if any major shifts in platforms occur in 2012.  With technology and audience preferences changing so rapidly, I’m guessing we will.

Happy New Year!