The rules of media, marketing and corporate reputation are being rewritten, consumer behaviour and technology are evolving in step, and our space is moving faster than ever. Digital driven disruption is changing the marketing, media and PR playbook for everything from customer experience and publishing to the meaning of truth.
In 2017 digital consumption prevails, so expect brands to accelerate quickly towards becoming their own media publishers. Technology platforms are news providers, publishers are brands and brands are publishers. In the battle for eyeballs, we’re all in the entertainment business. Companies will become more strategic and invest more in content creation as a means of creating a direct pathway to customers, given compelling content has the potential to attract, and keep, attention. But traditional media is not dead yet and is worth its weight in gold if your story is one of the six or seven stories washed and recycled throughout the day.
This will be the year of crowd-sourced truth; digital information is shared so quickly that lies go global faster than truth can pull its pants up. Facts are now less influential than emotion in shaping public opinion – Fake News is now a thing and a new term has been coined ‘alternative facts’. While PR will push back and authoritative journalism will prevail, there’s no guarantee millennials will even read it. I expect to see more and more traditional media introducing dedicated digital news channels which deliver content directly to younger audiences to digest on their preferred social media platforms, like SBS Viceland.
Speaking of social, expect 2017 to be the year of the Snap. A 10 second brand experience may not be enough to make a sale, but it can start a relationship with the four million-plus Australians who create content on the social platform every day. The big difference will be the rise of social augmented reality (AR), merging the virtual and physical worlds. AR will change the way brands engage with customers and deliver experiences, with immense potential.
Transparency will become increasingly important for brands in 2017. ‘Gotcha’ moments are just a search and click away, meaning the whole world has a front row seat to the latest scandal or controversy via social media. Accuracy is king in the social and digital realm.
A lack of this transparency means cynicism towards big business has been off the charts recently, and, as such, the most successful brands of 2017 will be the most human. Being human and brand authenticity go hand in hand with building trust. While big data will help you build the story, being human will deliver a greater the connection.
Influencers are another aspect of media and marketing that will come under scrutiny in 2017. While 75 percent of brands use influencers, more than half say they struggle to measure its effectiveness. Different platforms provide different types of data to brands, but little detail on watch time or demographics. Brands need data beyond reach and engagement to measure ROI and justify influencer spend.
As the lines of marketing expertise become increasingly blurred, campaigns will require better integration and intelligent analytics due to the sheer number of digital channels used to reach consumers.
Personalisation will be a brand’s best friend. We will see the personalisation of everything, as companies increasingly leverage technology and big data to deliver more targeted solutions and experiences that deepen engagement. It’s one-on-one, delivered en-masse. By delving into customer intelligence and technology, marketers will deliver a better customer experience through more personalised, relevant and meaningful campaigns.
A continuation of this personalised content is cognitive technology. Cognitive technology like Siri will deliver competitive advantage, particularly to conversion-driven companies with online sales funnels who harness its capabilities to deliver more personalised, intelligence-based content experiences. Cognitive uses dynamic data to get to know people, learn from them on the fly, and create highly targeted one-on-one customer and content experiences.
In a world where time is the enemy, the ‘wait’ of expectation around speed of response can be the nail in a brand’s coffin. Brands with time-consuming processes and delayed responses will fail in the social sphere. While PR used to work with media to inform the public, the public can now break the news or take a brand down with a timely tweet, post or rumour.
In 2017 more than ever, if you snooze, you lose.
By James Wright, CEO Red Agency