The future of interactive advertising
With the end of the year past, and the countless Top-10/100/etc. lists gone, the online media machine has turned to predictions for 2011 - offering ‘what’s next’ in terms of digital.
Over on Quora (a social network-style Q-and-A platform that is the latest hot thing in digital itself) there are questions like:
The beautiful thing for a site like Quora, is that the answers to this question will alway be interesting and evolving, since innovation never stops, and the future will go on and on. But if I can take my crystal ball down off the shelf for a moment, I would say that even for just the more immediate future, things will be plenty interesting:
- We should see the focus on social move to include location and context much more fully. The rise of location through Foursquare and Facebook Places hasn’t truly hit mainstream yet, even though industry insiders now look at it as almost old fashioned. Expect to see a lot of Brands doing their “first” in local-social Acts in the coming year, and more and more of these happening right in the supermarket aisle or checkout line.
- The rise in tablet and touch computing will continue to make digital interactions more pervasive throughout our daily lives, increasing the number of opportunities for Brands to participate, but also increasing digital ‘clutter’. The challenge for marketers will be deciding what content and experiences are appropriate for these devices, just as they continue to develop strategies around mobile content and experiences (which will be a strong trend in its own right).
- Now that High Definition/HD is a common option among video content, expect to see that everything will roll out in 3D - and get used to people trying to get you to wear funny glasses to enjoy their content. Thankfully there are plenty of newer technologies to save us from this fate. It can be a fun experience if the content is appropriate, but will require careful planning to ensure it doesn’t feel gimmicky.
- We will see more major themes running through interactive campaigns about “live”/real-time interaction - with celebrity influencers, sure, but also just regular folks, or niche-leaders. ESPN’s John Kosner stated last year that for their properties, “real-time is expected.”
- Expect to see Brand activities that offer you a chance to become a virtual part of Campaigns for Good/Sustainability/Green/Etc. Causes and Responsibility will be center-stage for interactive marketing, and although consumers won’t let Brands get away with greenwashing, they do like to know that their favorite companies (and by extension, themselves) are making a difference.
- We’ll hear a lot about spam filtering as an industry challenge, but I think this is a red herring. Although there continue to be ways to avoid advertising messages, the key criteria for creating engaging experiences that don’t get avoided is relevance. If there is not a clear purpose for the activity, and a reason for that specific consumer to participate, then it is doomed to be perceived as noise, and should rightly be filtered out.
These are examples of things to consider in terms of what’s on the near horizon, but any predictions should of course be tempered with the knowledge that the majority of digital marketing budgets in the near future will continue to be spent on slightly more traditional activities - good old Display and Search!
What trends do you see as about to go mainstream?
