BLINK #7
#7
Media
Trends
Consumers
Published by
winning in 2020
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opportunistic and uncertain times.
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winning in 2020
FOUR KEY PILLARS
OF SUCCESS
Data, complexity and
technology, content and
talent will determine the
future’s true winners
NEW BRAND
ARCHETYPES OF 2020
Whether a sleeper brand,
shiny upstart or lean &
local, brands will serve new
purposes in the future
#MYLIFEIN2020
#Life360
Will all aspects of our lives
be fully integrated with
technology? Be careful –
YOLO (you only live once)
THE CONTENT
CONNECTIONS AGENCY
MediaCom’s 20|20 planning
process: how connected are
your content and communications strategies?
INTRO
We’re living in a world in which everything’s connected. And since I’m
sure you’ve seen enough PowerPoint slides saying exactly that, I won’t
bore you with lots of statistics about how many people are on their
laptops while they’re watching TV, or what percentage of people trust
online peer recommendations more than advertising.
The landscape shifts every day anyway, and we are likely to see more
change in the next five years than we did in the past 20.
The point is that this new hyper-connected world is supposed to be
exciting. It’s supposed to produce opportunities for smart advertisers
– not just headaches.
The key question is: how can you be sure that your brand is ready to
make the most of this brave new world? How can you be sure you’ll be
among the winners, not the losers?
The losers are likely to be those who continue to develop, plan, buy
and optimise each media channel in isolation. Those who build fiveyear plans – or even a one-year plan – and then tuck them away in a
file cabinet until next time. Those who set objectives for themselves
and their teams while remaining disconnected from the full experience
consumers are having with their brands.
#7 Spring 2014
26
Two current studies with hundreds of
thought leaders, visionaries and C-suite
executives suggest how brands can
prepare themselves for 2020.
We could be looking at a majority of
media dollars flowing through automated trading systems even before the next
decade marker.
Six years to
transform marketing
MediaCom Global
124 Theobalds Road
London
WC1X 8RX
UK
Tel.:
18
+44 (0)20 7158 5500
How will marketers
buy and sell media
Email:blink.magazine@mediacom.com
Web: mediacom.com
Facebook:@MediaComGlobalNews
Twitter: @MediaComGlobal
Editor-in-Chief:
Signe Wandler, MediaCom
signe.wandler@mediacom.com
Design & Layout:
Propellant, propellant.dk
Art Director, Karina Weisbjerg Hansen
Cover:
Serge Mendjisky, mendjisky.com
Our philosophy is that communication campaigns must never be
developed or measured in silos. It’s no longer enough to optimise each
individual medium or channel: to leverage the power of interconnectedness
– and capture the impact that paid activity has on owned and earned
channels – you must optimise the totality of the communication system.
This is the thinking behind MediaCom’s new planning process, 20|20
Connections. And we’re not just talking about delivering incremental
changes in a few metrics; our holistic approach offers the potential for truly
transformative change and significant improvements in performance.
You can read more about 20|20 Connections on page 6, and find out
what the smart CMO will do to embrace the world of 2020 on page
40. Be sure to check out the article on the new brand types of 2020
on page 14, too, and take a look at how a group of Millennials view the
years to come on page 22.
Printed By:
Vilhelm Jensen & Partnere
ISSN: 1903-5373
The opinions expressed in the
articles are those of the authors.
Minor textual contents may be
republished as long as the original author
and publication are cited.
Find BLINK in the “News & Insight”
section at www.mediacom.com
I hope you find this issue of BLINK useful as you prepare to face our
ever-changing future!
Regards,
Stephen Allan
MediaCom Worldwide Chairman and CEO
12
22
30
Interview with Carlsberg and Dell on
the role of marketing in 2020.
The Millennial view of the
next six years.
MailOnline and Vice explains how they
are preparing for the future.
Marketing in 2020
2
MEDIACOM BLINK #7
#Hashtag2020
Media in 2020
BLINK #7 MEDIACOM
3
#7
Contents
06
winning in 2020
12
marketing in 2020 by those who know
14
THE EVOLVING BRAND TYPES OF 2020
18
Six Years to Transform Marketing: Ready. Set. Go!
22
#Hashtag2020
24
A DIGITAL VISION OF 2020
26
How Will Marketers Buy and Sell Media in 2020
30
media in 2020
32
THINKING LIKE A START-UP
24
38
46
How will consumers adjust and adapt
to the digital world of 2020? Q&A
with Professor Jeff Cole, Founder of
the World Internet Project.
The device in everyone’s pocket may be
the key to improving the lives for millions across the globe through learning
and education.
How to incorporate the habits and
advantages of both big and small organizations to reap the benefits of true
innovation.
A digital vision
of 2020
Future of branded
education
organizing
for innovation
34
CONSUMER SEGMENTS OF CONSEQUENCE IN 2020
38
The Future of Branded Education and the Opportunity for Brands
40
The CMO in 2020: Blurred Lines
46
Organizing for Innovation
48
a guide to leveraging disruption in the media industry
40
32
34
14
48
06
4
MEDIACOM BLINK #7
A guide to leveraging disruption
in the media industry
To continue to appeal to marketers, 2020 dictates dramatic organizational
change at most publishing companies.
BLINK #7 MEDIACOM
5
article
WINNING IN 2020
To be successful in 2020, every part of an organization will need to work
together to achieve its goals. Here, we look at data, complexity and technology,
content and talent as the four pillars that will determine who the true winners
will be just six short years from now.
By Matthew Mee, Global Chief Strategy Officer, MediaCom Worldwide
Illustration by Luke Brookes
ata overload: extracting real
D
meaning from big data
The truth is that – regardless of how much data
you have – it won’t matter if you don’t know the
significance of it. The title of celebrated American
statistician Nate Silver’s book, The Signal from
the Noise, tells you everything you need to know:
what marketers need isn’t more data, but the
means to tell which elements from today’s deluge
of information really, truly count.
Case study:
Data-driven campaigns
Challenge
In 2012, a set of niche brands joined the
Japanese hair care category, offering new nonsilicone hair care products targeted at women.
The popularity of these products took P&G and
the other main category players by surprise.
Our challenge was to end the sales decline with
a smaller media budget.
The challenge is how to suss out what’s
most important without getting confused or
overwhelmed. This is where automated reporting
solutions can help: some of our own work at
MediaCom recently reduced the reporting
workload for a client and its agency teams by 30
percent.
How MediaCom Made a Difference
We needed something new that would outsmart
both our traditional and the new competitors.
By examining the historical data for each
brand and selecting key touchpoints based on
our primary target, affluent Japanese women –
P&G’s highest value consumers – we were able
to calculate the exact return on investment for
every single media dollar spent.
Finding the right way
to pull data
To help marketers gain insight and make the
necessary adjustments to strategy, big data must
be accessible, viewable and manageable. Only
then can agency teams and brand managers
make smart, fast decisions.
By 2020, smart marketers will have implemented
some form of automated data reporting. This
will allow them to easily see which markets
are performing well and delivering the most
profitable revenue. The best systems will
automatically feed data sources into displays
and reports that provide clear indications of
campaign performance – in real time.
6
MEDIACOM BLINK #7
The brands that get this right will significantly
reduce the time that highly-skilled media
analysts must search for raw data and transform
it into something usable. The absence of such
systems today means analysts can spend up to
60 percent of their time sourcing and writing
reports. In 2020, they will be spending much
more time on the actual data analysis that feeds
into meaningful decision-making.
This allowed us to create a non-linear
optimization system – the first of its kind in
the world. Our new Net Outside Sales (NOS)
planning system re-allocated budgets away
from lower-response activities in order to drive
overall category growth.
We then folded in broader considerations, such as
the capability of each channel to accommodate
the creative assets that would effectively address
our key brand barriers (particularly trial).
The result was a radically different media plan:
1. TV spend was cut six percent of the overall
budget, with the money saved shifted to digital
and magazines.
2. O
nline video – a whole new communications
channel – received a 200% boost in spend.
3. O
utdoor was removed completely, as its
effectiveness in driving awareness did not
translate into trial.
4. F
ive percent of the budget was shifted from lowprofitability brands to higher profit-generating
brands.
Results
Our new data-driven planning approach ended
a ten-month sales decline and put P&G back in
the driving seat in Japan’s incredibly competitive
hair care market.
The new data-driven
planning approach ended a
ten-month sales decline and
put P&G back in the driving
seat in Japan’s incredibly
competitive hair care market.
This very successful, first-of-its-kind approach
to media planning resulted in a nine percent
media efficiency increase. The sales impact of
an 11 percent cut in media spend was effectively
reduced to just three percent, thanks to the
gains produced by our optimization efforts.
NOS-based planning is now being used six
categories totaling $2 billion in annual billings
across Asia, including Face & Body Care, Fabric
Care, Hair Care, Home Care, Family Care and
Prestige, spanning a total of 30 brands and ten
markets.
BLINK #7 MEDIACOM
7
article
At the heart of this learning experience will
be acquiring the resources to understand the
ecosystem of devices and messaging platforms
in use.
Marketers absolutely
must figure out how to
handle this rising tide of
complexity.
Central to the process will be technology that
helps marketers track the paths consumers take
through the branded message ecosystem. Smart
marketers will work hard to ensure that these
technologies work seamlessly together.
Complexity and technology:
learning to mesh more
platforms and more messages
together
Marketing communications is only going to get
more complex in the next six years. There will be
more platforms to integrate, more messages to
manage and more personalized marketing to get
right (or wrong).
Ad management platform MediaMind has
developed its own complexity index to track the
challenges faced by marketers as they adapt to
the developing landscape. Factors making up
the index include the number of campaigns,
channels, creative variations and media owners
involved, as well as the number of third-party
data points that must be managed.
The results show that complexity is rising. The
overall index increased to 130 in 2013 from a base
of 100 in 2010, and – for the top ten advertisers –
to 180 in 2013 versus the 2010 base line.
Marketers absolutely must figure out how to
handle this rising tide of complexity. They must
identify which elements can be automated, and
which will still need a human to oversee them.
8
MEDIACOM BLINK #7
the creation of a custom dashboard solution: data
from all five ad servers would be automatically
pulled into a central database and made available
via a custom, interactive, Web-based user interface.
Data would be refreshed daily, giving agency and
client teams access to the most up-to-date results
across all digital campaigns.
MediaCom’s approach to every project is to
first define the connections ecosystem in which
we’re operating: how can we characterize the
relationship between a brand and its audience;
which paid, owned and earned connections
can we leverage; and what types of content are
needed to fuel them?
The Results
The solution delivered a 30 percent reduction in
the reporting workload for the client and its agency
teams. The group also benefited greatly from the
intuitive, graphical interface, which made it much
simpler to compare different time periods at just
the click of a button.
A creative layer – aka “the story” – can then be
developed and a content map sketched out so we
know which content pieces we need to develop
and coordinate.
Three technologies to get started with are:
1. C
entralized ad serving: ad serving solutions
help manage the complexity of display
advertising. Using this technology, campaigns
can be distributed from a single location
to many countries and the resulting set of
diverse publisher technologies. Ad serving
technologies also have their own data
collection and reporting engines.
The central principle is
that none of the content
pieces operate independently, even though
some might pull more
weight than others.
2. B
id management: bid management solutions
help set up and run digital campaigns across
all biddable channels, such as paid search, paid
social and display. Aggregating the handling of
these individual channels onto a single platform
helps reduce complexity.
3. T
ag management: tag management puts
measurement tags on client websites and digital
assets in a coordinated, centralized way. This
helps measure the productivity of a marketer’s
owned digital assets.
Case study:
fully automated reporting
The Challenge
A global MediaCom client was using five different
ad servers across 12 different markets. Accurately
tracking and reporting on digital campaign
performance consumed considerable time and
resources, as data had to be manually pulled from
the original five sources and then combined.
How MediaCom Made a Difference
MediaCom’s Global Data Solutions team proposed
The central principle is that none of the content
pieces operate independently, even though some
might pull more weight than others. Together,
they create an ecosystem across the target
group’s connection points and through time, add
up to an expansive brand story.
Content: engaging
the “me” generation
Many marketers think that content consists of
films, articles or books, but it can be anything
that they or their agencies generate. It could
be a tweet, a customer service message or an
emotional Christmas TV campaign.
Ultimately, brands need to become storytellers,
rather than simply creators of content.
Storytelling means adding relevance to a pool
of content through order, progress, drama and
meaning.
Clearly, owned media (such as shares, likes,
Facebook comments, subscribers or followers)
is not the sole driving force behind a successful
campaign. Based on 15 KPIs and a thorough
brand content analysis, we investigated 1,500
YouTube videos from 25 different brands in
Germany to identify what made them successful.
Quality of content is key, and – of the 32 videos
with more than 10 million views – Dove’s Beauty
Sketches, Old Spice’s “Scent Vacation” and
Heineken’s UEFA short films scored the highest.
But how many of these could there be?
To be part of the six billion hours of video viewed
every month on YouTube (where 100 hours of
video are uploaded every minute), brands need
to create and distribute content that engages
consumers across all connection points on an
ongoing basis. Sound intimidating? It doesn’t
have to be.
BLINK #7 MEDIACOM
9
article
The American cookie brand, Oreo, is a good
example of turning plain creative into relevant
content. As part of its 100-year anniversary
campaign in 2012, the company monitored daily
trending topics in pop culture and created new
content on a daily basis for 100 days. For example,
Oreo created a brilliant visual of a moon boot
stepping in the cookie cream to celebrate the
anniversary of the moon landing.
while Facebook and Instagram activity reached
91 percent of all Swedish women 18-35.
have a different skill set than today’s business
drivers.
Sales of the Venus razor rose dramatically, with
online sales of the product up 570 percent and
in-store sales rising by 36 percent.
The art and science of managing staff – and
helping them make a difference – is very different
than it used to be. Employees have more power
in their relationship with employers, just as
consumers have more power in their relationship
with brands.
At MediaCom, we don’t talk about the
development of a “talent” strategy anymore;
our commitment is all about creating and
implementing an innovative engagement
strategy for both new and existing employees.
MediaCom understands how such stories evolve
(and where they should be placed) because our
heritage is knowing and delivering messages
alongside the content that target audiences love.
At one time, that work involved studying
newspaper readership data and diving deep
into TV viewing figures. Today (and tomorrow),
it means understanding the consumption and
digital journeys taken by consumers via blogs,
search, mobile, video and many other platforms.
In The Truth about Talent, Jacqueline Davies
and Jeremy Kourdi argue that – in the current
business environment – conventional approaches
to talent fail because they are process-heavy and
don’t reflect the employees’ experience of the
interplay of social, demographic, economic and
geographic influences that affect their everyday
lives. For example, it’s not always about the
money. If employees feel connected to the
“brand,” stimulated by their work, have a voice
and are given the opportunity to progress, they
are more likely to achieve greater success for
themselves and the business.
Case study:
Venus Tag the Weather
Sweden gets very cold in winter. For five months
of the year, sub-zero temperatures engulf the
region, and darkness and snow force people to
stay indoors. As a result, Swedish women don’t
shave much. Why bother, when they have to
swaddle themselves in coats, thermal pants and
long johns just to leave the house?
This is bad news for Gillette, whose Venus
women’s razors suffer a serious sales decline in
the country each winter. While MediaCom can’t
change the weather, we could help our target of
Instagram and Facebook lovers dream of sunnier
days, and – if we could get them to “think warm”
– perhaps they would start paying more attention
to their legs… and use more Venus shavers.
Using Instagram as our platform, we asked
Scandinavians to upload their best pictures of
winter using the hashtag #venuscompetition, and
we implemented a carefully planned incentive
system.
In just two weeks, we attracted more than
5,800 Instagram photos and reached 444,500
Instagram users. The campaign site attracted
over 160,000 unique visitors, with 80 percent
visiting via a mobile device. We also reached
a total of three million unique mobile devices,
10
MEDIACOM BLINK #7
Talent: identify the people who
can make a difference
There are two kinds of people: those that make a
difference to your business and those that do not.
The people who will
make a difference in 2020
may have a different skill
set than today’s business
drivers.
That’s as true now as it will be in 2020. But the
people who will make a difference in 2020 may
In many corners, in fact, the old rules no longer
apply. Consider that today’s workforce freely
shares personal salary information and has
access to global peer data from a variety of
websites such as Payscale and Glassdoor. And
in many marketing departments, the junior
workforce will have more technical knowledge
than their managers. They also consider tenure
longer than 12 months to be a hindrance to their
careers.
Rebalancing the power means a new approach to
many aspects of traditional talent management.
Talent specialists need to work with line
managers to ensure performance management
is an ongoing, day-to-day part of the work, rather
than a once-a-year process that everyone dreads.
Career development needs to be highlighted,
with new opportunities across the organization
promoted broadly. Employers also need to be
more flexible regarding family commitments and
make it easy for employees to introduce potential
new colleagues into the company.
Three things to do to cultivate talent
1. Have talent teams utilize social media to create
a more immediate and relevant conversation
with employees. This includes keeping the
performance conversation alive throughout the
year, rather than looking at it on an annual basis.
2. I nvolve employees in the talent process. Allow
them to introduce talent to the business via
their own social networks, and share stories of
mobility across the network.
3. E
nsure that all employees believe they can grow
and flourish in your environment.
Case study:
MediaCom expands internal
recruitment process
Once a year, MediaCom invites all employees
to submit ideas that they would implement if
they ran the company. In 2011, a German team
submitted an idea – now called YouX100 – that
was recently implemented. YouX100 allows
current MediaCom employees to recommend
their friends and former colleagues for unfilled
positions at the agency.
Essentially, we’ve built a global careers website
that allows employees to instantly share
MediaCom jobs with their social networks and
get rewarded for a successful introduction.
Ultimately, YouX100 makes it easier to find talent
by expanding our global candidate database and
providing staff with incentives to recommend
talented individuals they know.
YouX100 works as follows:
1. All MediaCom job opportunities are uploaded
onto the careers section of MediaCom.com.
Any MediaCom employee can apply for these
positions.
2. A
t the same time, MediaCom employees
can share links to these jobs via their social
networks.
3. F
riends apply by following the link (thereby
being tagged as a referred applicant) and are
directed to a microsite that allows the individual
to complete an application specific to the open
job.
4. I f the referred applicant is hired and
successfully completes a probation period, the
employee who shared the link is paid a referral
fee.
BLINK #7 MEDIACOM
11
interview
MARKETING IN 2020
BY THOSE WHO KNOW
MediaCom posed three questions to two seasoned marketing executives
from highly competitive sectors. How will the role of marketing have
evolved by 2020? Here’s what they had to say.
Christian Godske, Group Media Director, Carlsberg Worldwide
1Iwill have changed by 2020?
How do you think the CMO job
The CMO of 2020 will have to be extremely
agile in order to cope with massive amounts of
information, which will have to be used to refine
and improve communication activities on the fly.
But even with the assistance of systems and tools
that can model different scenarios, deciding how
to act in the moment will still be in the hands of
the pressured CMO. The CMO will be a Space
Mission “Flight Director” of communication!
However, even with new channels and data and
analytics, experience, wisdom and intimate
consumer knowledge will still be at the heart of the
job, along with a bottomless passion for connecting
with consumers and creating tangible results.
2I
What will the marketing
organization structure
look like in 2020?
Keeping with the NASA analogy, the marketing
organization will be made up of an increasing
number of “Flight Controllers” – specialists
in their respective fields. They will no longer
necessarily be gathered in the same physical
location, but will all contribute their expertise to
an increasingly complicated equation.
The link between marketing and content and PR
will be stronger than it is now, because both can
be so effective in facilitating storytelling and to
getting closer to consumers. Product development
and point-of-sale, off- and on-line, may also
become part of the marketing world as the CMO
becomes responsible for forging and managing
the end-to-end consumer experience. IT and
data management will become the backbone of
12
MEDIACOM BLINK #7
the marketing organization, delivering data and
intelligence vital to the decision-making process.
3I
What are the key things you
believe advertisers must think
about and beginning acting
upon to be ready for 2020?
Advertisers – indeed, entire organizations – need to
get far more sophisticated in their ability to draw
actionable insights and commercial meaning from
reams of data, chatter and research. Marketing is
not just about emotions and feelings: it’s a two-way
street, fueled by quantifiable intelligence that exists
to solve one on the most complex challenges of our
time: what to sell, to whom and how.
To succeed, CMOs need to begin viewing their
organizations as structures as fluid as the consumer
marketplaces they serve: dynamic and responsive…
not tied to an antiquated org chart. But that doesn’t
mean being everywhere and nowhere at once. Focus
on what’s important and simply view the marketing
functions, teams and talent as a living ecosystem
that can move and change to suit those priorities.
At Carlsberg, we call this “Fluid and Focused.” It
works. It’s not easy, but it works.
Jennifer Statham, Executive Director,
Global Marketing Technology and Agency Strategy, Dell
1Iwill have changed by 2020?
How do you think the CMO job
By 2020, the successful CMO will keep a maniacal
focus on the customer, but have a greater focus on
business value, digital experience and financial
efficiency.
Customers are re-defining how they engage with
brands. The “CMO of tomorrow” will master the
emotional connection with customers by using
data and technology to strengthen the brand and
truly understand and anticipate customer needs at
every stage of the customer lifecycle (all customer
touch points).
Digital channels will become increasingly
important. With this, the data we are able to
capture about our customers will continue to
grow exponentially. With an understanding of
the power of analytics and technology, CMOs will
be able to know their customers like never before
and must be agile to adjust to customer feedback
in real time. Close CMO partnership with the
CIO/CTO will be commonplace, as successful
CMOs will be using technology to garner
customer insights for competitive advantage.
Finally, the CMO will share responsibility with
the CFO and CEO for delivering business results
and steering the company to financial success.
2I
hat will the marketing
W
organization structure
look like in 2020?
Marketing will become the “Office of the Brand,”
inclusive of customer experience and a number
of vital “non-traditional” functions:
• Analytics/business insights will inform all sales
and marketing go-to-market initiatives.
• A
technology office that sets strategy, scales
innovation and drives an integrated marketing
technology solution that embraces data quality
management.
• A
content creation and curation suite that
enables high-quality content to be effectively
leveraged by employees and customers through
the channels of their choice. Content will be
generated as much by users as by company
experts; library scientists will be employed to
help manage and bring the content to life.
• S
ocial is more than a communications function but
rather a part of every marketer’s job description.
• I nnovation permeates across the marketing
organization and every team will test and pilot
new ideas – with a focus on agility and with
permission to fail.
3I
What are the key things you
believe advertisers must think
about and beginning acting
upon to be ready for 2020?
• Be the champion of customer experience. Help
educate all functions that every touch point feeds
into a holistic, integrated yet individualized level
of engagement with every customer.
• C
reate an ecosystem for delivering content that
is consumable by both employees and customers,
agnostic to marketing vehicle and able to be
easily packaged for individual needs.
• D
evelop an engine of high-quality customer data
that serves as the organization’s single source
of truth, and an analytics environment that can
turn that data into insight and revenue.
• D
evelop your strategy based on customer insights
and relationships, but be flexible to adapt and
change your plans in real time.
BLINK #7 MEDIACOM
13
article
THE EVOLVING BRAND TYPES OF 2020
Are all brands the same in terms of how they’re created, what they represent and why
consumers care? Not on your life. And the more we understand this, the greater chance
we have of capitalizing on the differences.
By Nic Hodges, Head of Innovation & Technology, MediaCom Australia
Illustration by Michelle Carlslund
For the most part, agencies agree on
how the industry will operate in 2020.
Channels will be programmatically
bought, always-on marketing plans
will be automated and, when possible,
all communications will be targeted
and social.
term’s traditional definition as a
non-tangible asset that provides
consumers with a familiar shortcut
in decision making and marketers
a concept around which to build
values and heritage still universally
applicable?
Simple, right?
I would propose that – in a world of
always-on, individualized everything
– a number of new “brand prototypes'”
may be useful. I’d like to highlight
three examples: The Sleeper Brand,
The Shiny Upstart and The Lean &
Local.
The danger of this vision is that
– as agencies and advertisers
become
increasingly
enamored
with optimization algorithms and
multivariate creative – they lose track
of one of the most vital questions
of all: how and why are consumers
viewing and interacting with brands?
Or perhaps we should back up a bit
and inquire as to the very nature
of brands in the first place. Is the
By understanding how and why these
new types of brands are emerging,
we will be better able to prepare for
consumers’ anticipated interactions
with them in 2020 – just a few short
years from now.
The Sleeper Brand
Alana Chandler, a 46-year-old health
and diet coach from Texas, is one of
Amazon's top reviewers. In 2009,
Alana had her eye on a steam mop:
specifically, the $1,745 Ladybug
XL-2300. Being an avid reviewer,
Alana decided that rather than just
buying the mop she'd always wanted,
she would review the top five steam
mops available on Amazon.
Amazon are responsible for more than
15,000 reviews and, in many cases,
these connected consumers have
shifted the balance of power away from
the best-known brands and their multimillion dollar ad campaigns.
While a readily identifiable brand is
still an asset on sites such as Amazon,
it's little more than the cost of entry.
Beyond that point, product success
is increasingly in the hands of the
consumer.
By 2020, this trend will have only
MEDIACOM BLINK #7
Additionally, marketers will not only
need to listen for feedback, but also
implement pathways that can feed
such reviews and comments directly
into the organization’s product
development processes.
This will
become a requirement, as consumers
Silicon Valley’s vaunted Y Combinator
(ycombinator.com) startup accelerator
program with an innovative idea for a
smart watch that could talk to mobile
devices and have a battery life of a week.
But unlike many of his photo-sharingapp building classmates, he struggled
to raise money from investors to make
his idea a reality.
Rather than trudging up and down
Sand Hill Road, as so many before him
have done, Migicovsky instead turned
to Kickstarter, the crowdfunding
platform that allows anybody to
The result was a 2,000-word review
that had a remarkable effect: it sent the
poorest-selling mop of the five, which
Alana had rated as the best, straight
to the top of the steam mop charts on
Amazon.
People like Alana are not paid by the
brands whose products are reviewed.
The current top 10 reviewers on
become more entrenched. According
to research by Google and Nielsen, 40
percent of all mobile searches related
to shopping are being completed in
stores. Meanwhile, the likes of Amazon
are building and acquiring technology
that is increasingly making consumer
reviews even more searchable, social
and powerful.
For a further glimpse of the future, we
can look at the latest Android mobile
operating system. A search for a
local restaurant or product no longer
delivers results solely from the Web;
the search result will also link directly
through to apps like Yelp or eBay that
display the most helpful reviews or the
best price available.
14
But just remember: a future in which
the consumer is in control is not a
future in which brands have lost all
control. The role of brands in this
future continues to be one of creating
top-of-mind awareness – the cognitive
shortcuts that drive repeat purchase.
who take the time to share feedback
may become increasingly unhappy
(and vocal) if their comments are not
acted upon.
And just to make things a bit more
challenging, brands that do not listen
will soon find others doing so instead.
Companies like C&A Marketing
(camarketing.com)
crawl
Amazon
reviews looking for unmet consumer
needs and interests. When C&A uncovers
what it believes is a sizable trend, it
makes that exact wished-for product,
which more often than not becomes an
instant best seller on Amazon.
The Shiny Upstart
Eric Migicovsky was accepted into
upload an idea and get committed
sales before spending time and
money developing a product. With
nothing more than a few prototypes
and a polished video, his product – the
Pebble smart watch – raised more
than $10 million from almost 70,000
people across the world.
While the Pebble watch is an
extreme success story, Kickstarter
has catapulted unknown brands into
stardom overnight in categories, from
medical devices, kitchenware and
fashion to 3D Printers, games consoles
and a new Veronica Mars movie.
Watching the videos for any of the
above products is exciting, and it's
BLINK #7 MEDIACOM
15
article
not often you can say that about an ad
(which, after all, is what a Kickstarter
pitch video really is). They are exciting
because everything about them is new:
the idea, the product and, perhaps
most importantly, the brand. The
Pebble watch could not have been
made by Omega or Apple. Its success
relies on being perceived as a shiny
new upstart… a true challenger brand
that is created by real people who
Existing brands can learn from
these shiny upstarts. In a world in
which content is becoming pivotal to
communications, these new brands
are telling stories that inspire and
move people in a way that is pure and
authentic.
These new brands are transparent; they
exist alongside the consumer, not above
him or her. And they listen to and
But just remember: a future in which the
consumer is in control is not a future in
which brands have lost all control.
understand their customers (and
funded by consumers tired of being
treated like lemmings with wallets).
Kickstarter brands are the polar
opposite of the faceless global company
pumping out yet another step-change
product update. The truth is that a wellmade video can now be as valuable as a
100-year old brand, and the newness of
these brands can work in their favor in
terms of producing interest, funding,
distribution and sales.
work with their customers. All of these
characteristics will be essential for any
2020 brand, and all of them are possible
for any brand right now.
The Lean & Local
If you're a professional chef or a homekitchen wannabe, you obsess about
your knives. And the category isn't
exactly short on options, particularly
from big brands like Global, Shun
and Wusthof. Luckily, a crowded
category didn’t stop Joel Bukiewicz
from creating some of the world’s
most talked-about knives from a tiny
workshop in Brooklyn, New York.
Cut Brooklyn’s mission is "to build
you a beautiful knife that performs
at the very highest level for a lifetime
of service and enjoyment." It's that
simple. Bukiewicz’s brand is lean,
free of superfluousness and low on
grandstanding. The guy makes knives
– 5 to 8 custom knives a week. His
website at cutbrooklyn.com is lovely
but basic, his social media strategy is
to tweet photos of his new knives and
his SEM is non-existent. Such a sparse
and straightforward approach comes
across in every element of the business,
right down to an apparent lack of
ambition to become a mega-brand.
Has Bukiewicz’s “This is what I love,
take it or leave it” attitude worked? Wideranging global news coverage from The
New York Times, Wired, Gizmodo, CNN
and others says yes. And, of course,
there’s the more than half a million
views on Vimeo, a mad following on
Facebook and the only half-joking pleas
on the Web for someone to buy this or
that person a Cut Brooklyn knife if they
“have $600 just lying around.”
Now, don’t get me wrong: this is not to
say that Cut Brooklyn couldn't become a
global brand. There isn’t much stopping
these lean and local businesses from
expanding rapidly, as long as the expert
craftsmanship is maintained and the
community of people around the brand
remains passionate. For consumers, it
doesn't matter that a brand comes from
somewhere near them; it simply matters
that a brand comes from somewhere
and, ideally, someone.
Community is vital to such a lean and
local brand, and it comes in two forms:
the geographical and the virtual. In
both cases, the role of the brand is to
become something larger than itself,
creating a personal experience that
cannot be replicated by the big guys.
Provenance is becoming increasingly
important in product marketing, and
lean and local brands are leading the
charge by creating stories founded on
real, physical places.
The strength of physical places is also
becoming evident in the activities
of brands that were born online. Jeff
Raider, founder of online prescription
glasses retailer Warby Parker, recently
opened "Harry's Corner Shop" in
New York City’s West Village. This
16
MEDIACOM BLINK #7
brick-and-mortar store serves as a
physical presence for his Harrys.com
e-commerce brand, which promises to
“give you a great shave at a fair price.”
Read from the website at http://harrys.
com/cornershop: “Harry’s Corner Shop
was designed to be a neighborhood
shop – a modern store built with respect
for the community atmosphere of the
traditional barbershop. It’s an intimate
spot where regulars and new-comers
can hang out, get a haircut and shave
from experienced barbers, discover new
and interesting products that may add
to their grooming routine or their daily
lives, and build long lasting relationships
with others in the neighborhood.”
As you might expect, Harry's isn't just
a barbershop. It's stocked with locally
sourced products from pajamas and
briefcases to motorcycle helmets and
notebooks. And while all the products
can be purchased from the Harry’s
website, the existence of a real store is
an almost mythological element of the
brand for the thousands of customers
who will probably never set foot in it.
Beyond brand stories, being “local”
will also likely become an economic
necessity. As the Chinese economy
strengthens, transport costs rise
and new technologies such as 3-D
printing mature, more brands will
be manufacturing in locations much
closer to their customers. Delivery
will be factory-to-home through selfdriving cars or drones, cutting out the
middlemen (sorry, FedEx) and giving
brands another opportunity to create a
unique and memorable experience for
customers.
The purpose of brands
in 2020
Over the next few years, new brands
will be created and existing brands
may evolve to a mix of The Sleeper, The
Shiny Upstart and The Lean & Local.
Currently, there are opportunities
for all brands to test new ways of
communicating with consumers based
on these three brand types.
From sleeper brands, we need to learn
that the bottom of the funnel is out of
our hands and that we work to uncover,
analyze and act upon real feedback
from real people. Particularly for larger
consumer-facing brands, there is a
wealth of information and feedback from
real consumers that is unfiltered and
authentic.
From the shiny upstarts, we can learn to
tell stories about new ideas and products.
These stories should be communicated
early and often, inspiring people in a
transparent and authentic way.
From the lean and local, we can
understand the importance of both
physical and virtual communities.
Whether or not a brand has a true
geographical provenance, could a
physical presence help and what role
could it serve? For both physical and
virtual communities, it's also important
to exist for something bigger than the
brand.
BLINK #7 MEDIACOM
17
article
Six Years to
Transform Marketing:
Ready. Set. Go!
at the University of Pennsylvania, takes
a slightly different approach by offering
a vision of what advertising could and
should be.
Both studies anticipate a time when
the global middle classes, according
to the Organisation for Economic
Co-operation
and
Development
(OECD), will have doubled to 3.2 billion
people by 2020. As a result, more
consumers will be able to make brand
choices based on preference, not just
price, and consumer empowerment and
the demand for transparency will be at
an all-time high.
Based on interviews with hundreds of thought leaders, visionaries and
C-suite executives from leading brands and agencies across the globe,
two current studies suggest how brands can prepare themselves for 2020.
So how can brands and their agency
partners prepare? Given that everything
seems important, how can priorities be
established? And how will we know if
we’re on the right track?
By Signe Wandler, Global Marketing Manager and Stephanie Fierman, Global CMO,
MediaCom Worldwide
Surveying the future
The MARKETING 2020 program is by
far the most global and comprehensive
CMO study ever conducted. Published by
the global marketing strategy consulting
firm EffectiveBrands, the survey takes an
in-depth look at the future of marketing
and how it can best focus and organize to
support business growth.
Marketing 2020 also identifies the future
role of marketing in delivering business
strategies and explains how to equip
the marketing function for success. The
1.
Growth
2.
Marketing
ROI
3.
Brand
Health
Over-performers' top KPIs
18
MEDIACOM BLINK #7
Marketing works closely
with the CEO to establish the
company’s strategic growth
agenda.
“Global, Local and
Regional Brand
success is measured
against clear KPIs.”
We can already see these principles
in action on brands like Old Spice, for
which Wieden+Kennedy capitalized on
a surge of popularity by producing 200
YouTube videos in 48 hours.
findings, along with interesting and
informative commentary from leading
marketing executives, were reported in
the Fall 2013 issue of ANA Magazine.
The ad campaign in 2020
Advertising 2020’s conclusions provide
important context for Marketing 2020’s
predictions surrounding the changes
coming to the CMO role and the overall
client-side marketing organization.
ADVERTISING 2020, from The
Wharton Future of Advertising Program
Essentially, the Wharton work argues
that successful advertising campaigns
In addition to being faster and more
responsive, the central philosophy of
“KPIs are clearly
linked to business
performance.”
breaking down the silos
“Personal rewards
are linked to these
KPIs.”
“Marketing works
closely with IT.”
“Marketing works
closely with HR.”
evolved advertising will be based on
audience feedback and response. A key
metric could be, for example, the number
of appearances on media’s “most
emailed” lists, as brands stop looking at
such recognition as fun and interesting
and more as quantifiable input that can
be used to make future content even
more attractive.
Advertising 2020 sums up its recommendations with the acronym AGILE
Advertising campaigns of the future will
imitate the principles of the digital newsroom.
The need to respond with new
iterations is another aspect of the
newsroom trend: the always-on message. Today’s campaign-based message
will be ditched in favor of constant
communication – both offline and
online – that will evolve based on
changing circumstances.
embedding strategy
and tracking the execution
Establishing marketing as
partner for growth
of the future will imitate the principles
of the digital newsroom, where content
production and distribution will be
faster and vastly enhanced. Much of
the budget will be spent on adaptation
during the campaign, rather than
booking media and finalizing all
creative ahead of time.
CHOPS: All Touchpoints Orchestration; Glocal; Insights from Data and
Privacy/Permission; Live Newsroom
Model; Extended (Opened) Innovation;
Context; Human Emotion and Story;
On-Demand;
Prioritize
Adaptive
Experimentation; and Social Impact.
Winning organizations
in 2020
Marketing 2020 envisions the most
successful marketing departments of
the future aligned against super-clear
strategies and business goals.
engineering less, engaging more
“Marketing works
closely with Finance.”
“In our company, we ensure
that all employees are fully
engaged with our brand
purpose.”
“I am proud of my brand’s
purpose.”
38%
58%
48%
58%
47%
67%
52%
68%
18%
29%
14%
26%
30%
40%
43%
60%
72%
84%
2006
2013
Under
Over
Under
Over
Under
Over
Under
Over
Under
Over
Under
Over
Under
Over
Under
Over
Under = Under-performing brands
Over = Over-performing brands
BLINK #7 MEDIACOM
19
According to Marc de Swaan Arons,
Founder of EffectiveBrands, “Just
knowing what your strategy is turns out
to be a major differentiator.” Joe Tripodi,
Executive Vice President and Chief
Marketing and Commercial Officer at
The Coca-Cola Company, frames it like
this: “The marketing function needs to
be leading the growth agenda for the
company. We have a company-wide
‘big hairy audacious goal’ of doubling
our sales between 2010 and 2020. We’re
trying to double in ten years what it
took us 120 years to achieve.”
But measuring financial growth alone
is not enough, says Tripodi. “I’d like to
redefine EPS from ‘earnings per share’
to ‘economic value, partner value,
financial- and value-based approach
gains more respect and power in the
corporate decision-making process.
Fifty-eight percent of today’s marketing
teams claim to work closely with their
CEOs to drive growth: a fifty-three
percent increase since a similar study
in 2006. Responses also show that
marketing is playing a larger role in
approving growth-oriented investment
decisions (like entering new markets)
in thirty-three percent of companies, up
from nineteen percent in 2006.
show the way. The CMO’s influence has
dramatically increased.”
De Swaan Arons agrees that CMOs
are critical to achieving the highest
goals of an organization. “The CMO is
often the executive with the sharpest
understanding of the marketplace, and he
Identifying and adhering to this purpose
will be vital to building successful
brands as measured by hard KPIs, such
as lead generation and revenue growth.
To accomplish this, Marketing 2020
findings show that over-performing
companies actively engage employees,
consumers and departments far beyond
the marketing team.
establish purpose and
leading based on data
Having a clear and compelling purpose
will be a vital brand characteristic in
2020; those that demonstrate a clear
societal purpose will consistently
outperform their competition, and the
most accomplished brands will offer
functional, emotional and societal
benefits as key parts of a whole.
The CMO is often the executive with the
sharpest understanding of the marketplace.
and social value,’” he says. “Those
companies that are ruthlessly focused
on earnings will be left by the wayside.
It’s not just what you sell, it’s what you
stand for.”
Research supports Tripodi’s point of
view that the CMO who adopts a more
Alongside the need for purpose will
be a greater understanding of data.
The Marketing 2020 study reveals
that delivering far-reaching consumer
experiences will require brands to
analyze and understand data effectively.
This will feed into cross-platform social
capability and content creation – both
important drivers of future success
or she needs to translate that far beyond
the traditional marketing mix to be taken
seriously by the CEO and executive
peers. Those who have accomplished
this have successfully pivoted from
a position of being perceived as the
big spender with little respect in the
boardroom to an equal peer who can help
Top Marketing 2020 CMO Priorities
1
Lead by
example in a
digital world.
3
2
Engage
the total
organization.
Inspire and
empower vs.
control.
5
4
Build
marketing
capability.
Ensure brand
consistency
throughout.
Source: EffectiveBrands
20
MEDIACOM BLINK #7
– and give brands the power to more
fully measure the return on investment
of their activities.
the global ‘charter center’ for Christmas,
based on its previous outstanding performance during the holiday season.
Walmart, for example, has established
its own R&D division, @WalmartLabs.
The center’s marketers and technologists have developed tools like the
“Social Genome,” described as “a giant
knowledge base that captures interesting
entities and relationships in the social
world.” The Genome constantly churns
through a vast knowledge base of public
data, social data and proprietary data,
including contact information and
purchase history, in order to identify
online mentions of products sold by
Walmart. The company can then reach
out to each individual with information
and relevant offers (and the Genome
knows whether someone who says ”I
love Her!” is referring to the Spike Jonze
film or his girlfriend).
“‘Global’ used to be at the top of the
food chain,” he said. “But now the real
opportunity is going to be the networked
entity. It’s going to be all about finding
the people who do the best work, letting
them do it, and letting [that work] get
socialized around the world.”
The 2020 organogram
Delivering such sophisticated, datadriven messaging and advertising will necessitate radical organizational change.
The 2020 marketing organization will be
nimble and networked. Global marketing
departments will allow for greater local
The 2020 marketing
organization will be
nimble and networked.
Leading brands will also partner with
more outside organizations and agencies
to spark creativity and flexibility.
Companies that
invest in marketing
capability training
programs significantly
outperform their
competitors.
And finally, the CMO’s role will also
change – he or she will no longer sit
at the top of a pinnacle, but instead
orchestrate everything from the center
of a spoke-and-hub model focused on
coordination and integration.
specialization and regions will lead key
initiatives, rather than relying on wideranging global directives.
From that central position, the CMO will
also oversee much greater investment
in training; the Marketing 2020 results
already show that companies that
invest in marketing capability training
programs significantly outperform their
competitors.
In the interview with ANA Magazine,
Coca-Cola’s Tripodi described how
the company has begun using “global
centers” – regional divisions given
responsibility for the development of
content meant to be broadly shared. For
instance, Germany was asked to become
How CMOs begin to tackle these
dynamics today will determine who will
come out a winner in 2020. These two
surveys are a good reference point to
start asking informed questions about
whether your organization is preparing
for the future.
For more on the Wharton Future of
Advertising’s (WFoA) Advertising
2020 study (and for a complete
conversation on AGILE CHOPS),
visit wfoa.wharton.upenn.edu/
ad2020/.
Executives from WPP’s Ogilvy &
Mather, OgilvyOne, The Futures
Company, Kantar, GroupM and
Wunderman, in addition to
MediaCom clients The Coca-Cola
Company and Mars, Incorporated
contributed to the study. WFoA’s
Academic Director, Jerry Wind,
presented exclusively to MediaCom’s
clients at the Cannes Festival of
Creativity in 2013.
For more on Marketing 2020
visit effectivebrands.com/
index.php?/global-marketing/
global-marketing-2020
or visit slideshare.net/
effectivebrands/change-or-die-anamagazine-marketing2020-story.
BLINK #7 MEDIACOM
21
article
#HASHTAG2020
What does 2020 look like in the eyes of those who will shape the future – the Millennials?
By Jox Petiza, Strategy and Content, MediaCom Malaysia
Illustration by Luke Brookes
For many young professionals, it’s
easier to talk about how they imagine
their 30s will be different than their
20s than it is to consider the Year 2020.
It’ll be important soon enough:
Millennials (Generation Y) will make
up the majority of employees at 50
percent of US companies by 2020 and
75 percent of global organizations by
2030.
So what are these young people
thinking about? Check out their
answers to a simple question: “What
do you think will happen to you and
the world in 2020?”
#2020experience
It’s encouraging to note that most of
the answers were generally optimistic.
“Life 360” was a term used more than
once to describe a holistic future where
family and career are balanced with
the help of technology. Contrary to
today,” said a digital media team lead
in Jakarta.
There are some, though, who foresee
nothing short of an apocalypse.
These Millennials seek alternative,
or underground, news online. “The
environment will be much worse than
it is today. We will be close to broadscale armed conflict,” said a team
leader from Japan. They may have
faith in technology and humanity, but
their hope does not extend to political
systems.
This group has gone beyond
conventional preparations for the
future, including learning how to open
cans (of food) without a can opener.
They’re not paranoid; they’re just
preparing to survive.
#onelifeonedevice
Our
panel
expects
seamless
integration – not just of multiple
“Life 360” was a term used more than
once to describe a holistic future
where family and career are balanced
with the help of technology.
the selfish stereotype, Gen Y wants
to contribute to collective efforts such
as sustainable living, organic farming
and promoting a better world. “I just
want to be a better person than I am
22
MEDIACOM BLINK #7
devices, but of human cognitive
and emotive functions. No more
multiple transactions, SIM card swaps
or currency exchange. A planner
from Malaysia foresees a “universal
card,” which she thinks will merge
daunting application and validation
transactions by the time she becomes
a busy working mom.
Surprisingly,
Millennials
hope
technology will help them slow down,
not go even faster. They expect devices
to simplify life and make people more
reflective, especially about privacy.
A young manager from New York
imagines that “the need for privacy
will become a huge issue and will
create almost a new industry for people
who wish to protect themselves from
privacy invasion.”
“I imagine the world will have become
so ‘noisy’ – with streams of unedited
and uncontrolled information from
all over the place – that there will be
an opportunity to create platforms
that help individuals counteract that
clamor, speed and invasion of privacy,”
notes a media planner executive from
Indonesia.
#YOLO (You Only Live Once)
Generation Y consumes content to
find inspiration and help them figure
out what they want to do with their
lives... or just where to live next.
Online search (particularly Google)
helps them make savvier choices.
And they’re not settling.
Millennials have become career
slashers,
working
at
multiple
professions that may not necessarily
relate to each other. One Filipino
expat in Singapore has continued
booking casting calls while working
as a planner. More people refuse to be
referred to by one designation, with
the Internet enabling the constant
search for the next gig.
Content
curation
and
image
management via LinkedIn, Tumblr
and other sites are just some of the
proactive steps taken by young
professionals, especially when they
have one foot out the door. It’s just
a matter of being aware of what will
appear in Google’s search results.
What if you could
organize the FUTURE?
Millennials are organized, but depend
on automation to pay bills, budget and
manage their day-to-day activities.
Most Millennials, particularly the
youngest of the generation, can
theoretically imagine 2020 but are
vague on the details (even though it’s
only six years away). Most talk about
wanting to settle down and have a
genuine and happy family life.
Imagine a life app that could run for
a year before it served up possible
mates, based on every transaction,
interaction and connection made
(or missed) in the prior twelve
months? Or one that encourages you
to start eating healthier (or invest
in insurance for a probable bypass
surgery)? Millennials assume that
technology will lead to better decision
making... and more free time to think
about global issues.
Gen Y’s heightened interest in politics,
the environment and humanity may
be an opportunity for brands to
reshape their identities. Social causes
could become brand definers or fuel
product innovation.
Bottom line: Millennials have
expectations of themselves and
of the world, and plan to be active
participants in that future.
BLINK #7 MEDIACOM
23
interview
A DIGITAL VISION
OF 2020
How will consumers adjust and adapt to the digital world of 2020?
MediaCom’s Signe Wandler discussed this topic with Jeffrey Cole, Director
of the Center for the Digital Future at the USC Annenberg School for
Communication and Journalism and Founder of the World Internet Project.
Below are some excerpts from the conversation.
The Evolution
of Social Media
MediaCom: Will Facebook’s growth and
dominance continue in the lead-up to 2020?
Cole: Facebook already has more than 1 billion
users, and will eventually become a phone
directory for the planet: anyone who wants to find
someone, somewhere, will turn to Facebook. This
is all the more remarkable considering that 1.3
billion people – the Chinese – are blocked from
accessing the site.
But will Facebook be able to maintain its popularity
with teenagers, its core audience? That’s not as
clear. For this age group, an online community
is like a nightclub; when the place becomes too
popular, or the uncool kids begin showing up, they
are out of there. And the worst thing that could
happen to a group of teenagers in a nightclub is
their parents show up… and now their mothers
want to friend them on Facebook.
Nevertheless, it’s an open question as to
whether any other platform will ever establish
such dominance. When [1Q13] research showed
that Tumblr had become more popular among
American teenagers than Facebook, reporters
scrambled to ask whether Tumblr would become
“the new Facebook.” The answer is that Tumblr
became the Facebook of 2013. If you asked
24
MEDIACOM BLINK #7
teenagers now, in 2014, they would tell you that
they are much more likely to be on Snapchat
than Tumblr or Facebook, so Snapchat will
be “the Facebook of 2014,” and so on and so
on. While this trend away from Facebook has
started in the US, Canada and the UK, it seems
to be part of a global trend.
MediaCom: Where will the new social media
challenger brands come from?
Cole: It's impossible to know. Some will come
out of nowhere, like Snapchat. But one thing is
for sure: there are a lot of ideas out there, and we
will be hearing about the best ones sometime in
the near future.
Retailing
MediaCom: How will shopping evolve and what
role will digital retail play in 2020?
Cole: E-commerce will continue to grow at
an extraordinary rate. We can already see
that people are willing to buy almost every
conceivable product and service online, from
toothpaste and batteries to jeans and televisions.
Half the diapers in America are sold online
through subscription models and, by 2020, that
percentage will probably be higher.
Brick-and-mortar stores will remain important,
although there may be fewer outlets. The
successful ones will have found a way to be
additive to the decision-making process, rather
than just duplicating what can be accomplished
online.
MediaCom: What key trends are you seeing now
that will be even more significant in 2020?
Cole: Two things. One is that retailers are finally
coming around to the idea that the offline and
online retail experience must be completely
seamless. Customers should be able to buy
online and return to the store, or buy in the store
and return online, and there has to be a specific,
understandable reason for any price differential.
The most successful retailers understand that
consumers may buy online today and be in their
stores tomorrow.
The second trend is that the very definition of
online retail is changing. Take Amazon, for
example. Amazon believes it can sell just about
anything to anyone, anytime. In the US, it has
begun Sunday delivery, and Jeff Bezos has
suggested (only half-jokingly) that the company
may eventually use drones for home delivery.
Not wanting a costly shipment to contain only
$4 in batteries, Amazon is making deals with
fashion houses to deliver much more expensive
goods, and is also moving aggressively into
selling wine. Ultimately, I believe that Amazon
will become a major force (if not the major force)
in automobile sales.
will continue to tell brands what they think of
their products, marketing campaigns, corporate
social responsibility campaigns and anything
else on their minds. What will change is that
consumers will increasingly expect brands to
anticipate and respond quickly to both “good”
and “bad” feedback.
MediaCom: What should brand marketers do
now to prepare for the landscape of 2020?
Cole: The goal of any brand should be to foster
a very steep learning curve and institutionalize
a very shallow action curve. By that I mean
brands need to study, track, watch, explore and
investigate everything.
Every CMO should be asking herself, what’s
next? Brands, for example, should be paying a lot
of attention to Google Glass, Nike’s FuelBand,
the FitBit Flex and other wearable technologies
right now. You may not need an expensive
strategy embracing each of these technologies,
but how can you know for sure, and what
innovation processes can you implement so
that you can change your mind if circumstances
change? The pace of technology development
is not going to slow down; marketers need to be
in a constant state of test-and-learn, 365 days a
year, in order to intelligently decide what makes
sense for their businesses.
I mean, who knows? Just this weekend, I saw
an advertisement for “Fine Art at Amazon,”
with an Andy Warhol acrylic Campbell’s Soup
print selling for $166,250… plus free shipping, of
course.
Brand Marketing In 2020
MediaCom: How do you view the relationship
between consumers and brands?
Cole: What social media has shown us is that
consumers want to have relationships with
brands. I always tell clients that their customers
will talk whether they’re there or not, so you
may as well have a social media presence to
(a) move the conversation forward, and (b)
intervene when absolutely necessary. This is not
a dynamic that is going to change. Consumers
Jeffrey Cole
Jeffrey Cole is Research Professor and Director of Center
for the Digital Future at the USC Annenberg School for
Communication and Journalism. In 1999, Cole founded
the World Internet Project, a longitudinal study of the
effects of computers and Internet technology on all
aspects of society in more than 30 countries.
BLINK #7 MEDIACOM
25
article
How Will
Marketers Buy
and Sell Media
in 2020
What will it take to win in 2020? Looking six years into
the future of digital media is no easy task.
By Scott Ferber, Chairman and CEO, Videology
Illustration by Johan Thörnqvist
Three years ago, who could have predicted that 40
percent of all US brands would use programmatic
buying platforms as our recent Online Advertising
Survey showed? And today, many major agency
holding companies are projecting that within
the next three years, 30 to 50 percent of all media
buying will be automated.
From our vantage point as an advertising
technology provider for some of the largest brands
and media holding companies, as well as from the
findings of a survey across North America that
Videology recently commissioned from Forrester
Research, certain trends do seem quite likely to
progress and accelerate well into the next decade.
Here are a few:
26
MEDIACOM BLINK #7
1Iand digital media will
Lines between traditional
continue to blur
In fact, by 2020, those delineations are likely to be a
distant memory. Television and online video offer a
good example of this convergence trend. In our fall
2013 survey of publishers, marketers and agencies
conducted by Forrester Research, we found that 61
percent of respondents agreed that planning for
online video and linear television would merge
within the next three years.
In many ways, this expected shift in the way that
media is planned is simply the logical extension
of the way media is expected to be consumed.
While we are already seeing a spike in viewership
across online and mobile devices, 34 percent of
respondents to our survey expect a significant
increase in consumers’ time spent viewing videos
on connected TVs and tablets over the next three
years. On the other hand, only 7 percent expect a
similar increase in linear television via antenna,
cable or satellite providers. Some of this content
will be device-specific, such as original content
developed by online publishers. Increasingly,
however, the same content will be available
across multiple screens. As a result, planning will
become much more about a comprehensive video
strategy, rather than a device-specific, siloed
media strategy.
2Ikey to uniting screens
Common measurement will be
Half of all respondents to our survey said that
the biggest challenge in video advertising
today is the ability to measure audience across
all video platforms. Not surprisingly then, the
single most important driver in achieving the
holistic planning between television and online
video has been the rollout of digital ratings by
companies such as Nielsen. In our Forrester
survey, 56 percent said that they now use digital
GRPs in order to holistically plan digital video
with television.
Of course, not everyone believes that the
introduction of online ratings into the digital space
is a good thing. They argue that digital media has
the ability to deliver one-to-one addressability
based on advanced targeting criteria that goes
Introducing a well understood metric between
screens marks a leap
forward for the industry.
well beyond the age and gender limitations of
traditional ratings. The truth is, however, that a
common currency – even one less than perfect – is
the needed catalyst to begin the flow of television
dollars to other video platforms. Introducing a wellunderstood metric between screens marks a leap
forward for the industry.
Of course, moving forward several years, that metric
may look quite different than it does today.
BLINK #7 MEDIACOM
27
article
As the availability of data proliferates across
devices, along with the ability to tie media exposure
to outcomes, measurement may look very different.
Whether the measurements are tied to actual offline
sales, engagements, or other hoped-for behaviors,
we may be able to rid ourselves of proxy metrics –
such as ratings – and begin to track actual desired
outcomes. This will be true across the growing
array of connected media, including video, but
also stretching into mobile, social and out-of-home
placements.
3Iwill be connected
Activate Data
Marketers may be sitting on the best
asset – first-party consumer data.
Partner with data management vendors
or develop your own technology to turn
this data into actionable insights.
(Almost) Everything
Which brings us to our next point – while we are
currently juggling an increasing array of devices
which is alternately fragmenting and pinpointing
the engagements that marketers can have with
consumers, that world of devices is only going
to grow. And it won’t be limited to releases of the
latest and greatest smartphone.
According to IBA Research, by 2020, more than 30
billion devices will be wirelessly connected to the
“Internet of Things.” Think beyond Google Glasses
By 2020, more than 30
billion devices will be
wirelessly connected to
the “Internet of Things.”
to watches, car windshields and refrigerators. The
opportunities to connect with consumers and
contribute in real ways to their daily experiences
could change the definition of advertising and
what we come to think of as “media.” (Interestingly,
in our survey, 55 percent of respondents said that
they expect video viewership to significantly/
moderately increase over the next three years on
devices “yet to be identified.”) This also means
that a tremendous amount of data will be available
for analysis. Understanding what to do with it and
sifting through what means something or does
not will be the challenge.
4Ithe game changer
Technology will be
Few would argue that the migration of viewing
habits, proliferation of connected devices and
28
MEDIACOM BLINK #7
Plan & Measure Holistically
As consumers access content
seamlessly across devices, it’s
increasingly important to look at
bottom line campaign success, rather
than individual performance on a
given medium. While still evolving,
measurement metrics such as reach
and frequency across television and
online video is now a reality.
Measure Against Goals
Define what it is exactly that you hope to achieve
from a campaign, and understand what metrics are
currently available to help you measure specific
brand objectives such as awareness, purchase
intent or even off-line sales. Measurement gets
more sophisticated every day, so ask your agency
or vendor partners for frequent updates.
growing importance of data to inform advertising
decisions have made media planning and
buying more complex. In our survey, 66 percent
of respondents said that technology will be the
differentiator in responding to these changes.
What will they be trying to achieve with this
technological power? When asked which
capabilities would be important to the future of
media buying, 69 percent pointed to the ability
to target ads to individuals, 69 percent cited the
ability to buy audience across all screens and 66
percent chose the ability to evaluate audiences
on buying behavior. Moreover, 67 percent of
publishers and 78 percent of agency executives
believe that video buying across all platforms will
become more automated over the next three years.
Data lives at the heart of most automated ad
technology solutions, particularly as it applies
to the ability to target ads to the most relevant
consumers. As a result, changing privacy
regulations around the world will continue to
be an important – and fluctuating – part of this
equation. Technology must continue to prepare
for a world of restricted data – particularly as it
applies to cookies – and a world of cross-screen
viewing where cookie-less environments abound,
such as mobile or linear television.
There is also a critical need to develop alternative
and complementary ways to achieve addressability.
Opt-in registration data is one example, as is
contextual targeting data. For example, a consumer
watching a how-to video on building a deck is likely
to be interested in do-it-yourself supplies while
someone viewing a video on the top ten beaches
in Europe may be a likely prospect for a travel
advertiser. Technology must continue to innovate
to look for ways to improve ROI for advertisers –
which we know targeting achieves – while fully
protecting the privacy of consumers.
5Isolutions need apply
No cookie-cutter
Experiment
Media, measurement and
technology is moving so quickly,
forward thinking marketers must
be willing to test for ever-evolving
best practices. Fortunately, digital
media allows the ability to course
correct swiftly and even optimize
for results while a campaign is still
running.
Technology will be a game changer, but what
will this technological solution look like? More
importantly, what will buying and planning look
like on a tactical level? Will linear television look
more like digital? Or will digital video look more
like linear television? According to the Forrester
survey, the answer to both questions seems to
be “yes.” While more than 70 percent said that
programmatic is an important capability for the
future of video ad buying, an equal number say
that the ability to buy specific programs – similar
to traditional TV buying – will remain one of the
most important capabilities. The key here seems
to be flexibility.
Programmatic means automation. It means the
end of tracking buys on Excel spreadsheets. Does
it mean real-time bidding? Yes, sometimes. But
it also means guaranteed buys, program specific
buys, flighted campaigns, gross ratings points
Technology must continue to prepare for a world
of restricted data.
and all the other metrics that are important to
TV-centric brand advertisers – as well as the
metrics important to advertisers who traditionally
benefit from digital-specific engagement tactics.
Holistic planning and buying requires holistic
technology that works across all brands and
advertisers to meet their diverse marketing
objectives.
Clearly, change is coming. And generally, with
change comes some level of anxiety. What is
perhaps the most striking finding from our study
is that while industry executives acknowledge
the challenges posed by the growing complexity
of media, they are generally optimistic across
the board on what this will mean for the future
of advertising. The majority (68 percent) of
advertisers/agencies believe that advertising
effectiveness will improve. More than half (54
percent) of publishers believe they will earn more
for their inventory.
So that takes us back to our thesis – what will
media buying and selling look like in 2020? We
can be fairly certain that automated, data-driven
strategies will continue to grow in importance. As
always the question is: How quickly will adoption
grow? Speed is usually predicated on a win-win
scenario for all parties. With both the demand and
supply-side of the ecosystem mostly in agreement
on the benefits, we could be looking at a majority of
media dollars flowing through automated trading
systems even before the next decade marker.
BLINK #7 MEDIACOM
29
interview
Media in 2020
Digital has transformed how we work, how we play and how we
consume content. It hasn’t always been pretty, but – for a media
owner – success in the digital space goes to the very heart of the
organization’s mission. MailOnline and Vice both know this, and
are taking different routes to the future.
By Andy Walsh, Global Head of Integrated Communications Planning,
MediaCom Worldwide
Traditional readership and viewership
have declined, as have ad revenues.
Faced with rapid change and a new
set of intermediaries (both for revenue
and content distribution), not all
organizations have moved swiftly and
successfully into the new age.
The big question at the heart of the
content producer model remains:
how can you make unique content
for which an attractive target group
will either pay or at least visit in large
numbers?
Digital abilities
Many have invested time and money
to answer this question. La Presse,
the French-language daily newspaper
published in Montreal, has spent
millions on a tablet edition designed
to help readers and advertisers take
advantage of the interactive abilities of
digital, and the Financial Times is still
tweaking its business and editorial
practices after introducing metered
access way back in 2007.
Two different media companies
that continue to adapt to the rapidly
changing digital universe are Vice, a
new-model media owner valued at $1.4
billion, and MailOnline, the website of
the Daily Mail, a tabloid newspaper in
the UK. With 10 million daily unique
browsers, MailOnline is the world’s
largest English-language newspaper
website.
Organizational focus
One could argue that Vice’s challenge
is easier because it doesn’t have legacy
issues; global growth has been driven
by the disintermediation that digital
invariably produces. According to
Matt Elek, Vice’s EMEA managing
director, “The companies that rely on
distribution to create audiences rather
than pushing themselves to produce
amazing content will eventually be
weeded out.”
To nurture that kind of proactive
30
MEDIACOM BLINK #7
development, MailOnline formed a
separate team that’s part of the same
UK-based
newspaper
publishing
group. “We’ve never been integrated
at all beyond working alongside each
other, and we’ve always allowed the
digital side to grow organically and
naturally according to its needs,” said
Martin Clarke, editor and publisher of
MailOnline. “Not being integrated has
been a big plus for us, and being able to
hire the right digital people has been
critical to our success.”
A competitively-superior
proposition
Both Vice and MailOnline are
determined to keep their propositions
distinct, feeling that this provides a
barrier to entry. For Vice, this means
remaining focused on its core younger
consumer.
“We’re not locking in on our 22-yearold customers and following them for
the rest of their lives,” explains Elek.
“We need to be constantly replenishing
our base because, fundamentally, we
make content for a younger millennial
audience that’s always shifting.”
For MailOnline, competitive advantage
may just come down to style. While
news and celebrity images can be
found all over the Internet, “The one
thing Daily Mail and MailOnline can
never be accused of is being bland,”
says Clarke. “So long as we keep our
distinctive editorial voice and style,
it will be very difficult for anyone to
imitate us.”
Expansion strategy
MailOnline’s expansion is centered on
English-speaking markets while the
Vice portfolio looks to hit influencers
wherever they are.
“All of a sudden, kids in Berlin know
what’s cool in New York, and knowing
what’s cool in Paris is pretty much
a fact of life,” said Vice’s Elek. “As a
result, their attitudes towards what’s
cool and trendy are a lot more global
than they used to be.”
And MailOnline? With 168 million
monthly global unique visitors,
the franchise has built up a global
audience that should be attractive
enough to advertisers to fund a free-toview business.
“We’re still committed to an ad-funded
model,” insists Clarke. “But what
changes for us by 2020 is that we’re
expecting increasing amounts of
revenue to come from outside the UK.
We have big audiences and editorial
operations in the United States and
Australia, and we’re setting up a joint
venture with Mi9, a leading digital
media company in Australia. We could
be operating from many other regions
within the next six years, either in
partnership with others or on our own.”
Universal takeaways
So what does the success of Vice and
MailOnline teach us as advertisers?
1. D
igital eliminates the power of
incumbency. MailOnline has taken
on established celebrity titles
around the world, while Vice has
challenged existing content makers
and built an attractive audience
of influencers. Advertisers need
to look beyond their current go-to
media outlets.
2. A
unique voice is important and
impactful. Advertisers should put
a higher priority on distinctive
platforms.
3. S
uccess requires a combination of
both old and new skills. Having the
ability to harness data that can help
optimize content and performance
will become essential. Brands that
want to take a newsroom approach
to content marketing also need
these skills.
4. A
s we head towards 2020, we should
be looking to the media brands that
have identified new ways to build
attractive audiences.
BLINK #7 MEDIACOM
31
M:FILES
THINKING LIKE A START-UP:
A FEW LESSONS FROM OUR
TRIP TO SILICON VALLEY
Silicon Valley: a place where techno-dreams become reality. Home to some
of the brightest digital minds in the industry, it’s also a place that can offer
marketers some important lessons about innovation, process and culture.
On a recent fact-finding mission to Silicon Valley,
innovators from Apple, Facebook, Google and
Twitter offered tips for brands looking to take their
digital strategies to the next level. Below are a few
highlights, along with some ideas that marketers
can act upon right now.
FIVE THINGS TO
LEARN FROM DIGITAL START-UPS
1. Be innovative… but also productive
Innovation is about delivering productive ideas
in new or existing areas of your business. Start by
identifying the white space where technology can
add value for both your target audiences, then strike
fast. Silicon Valley companies assume turn around
times of 12 weeks, not 12 months. Companies
can’t afford to let their ideas stall behind cautious,
process-driven strategies.
32
MEDIACOM BLINK #7
2. Apply test-and-learn techniques
Looking at every new idea and technology can add
stress to already-pressured product development
and IT queues. Allow space in your processes to
take a chance and experiment. Many companies
in Silicon Valley run “test-and-learn” projects on
the side; this gives them the option to experiment
and follow up on opportunities without impacting
major initiatives.
3. Make talent want to work for you
Many start-ups compete not on salaries and titles,
but on the basis of corporate culture. One of the
most important factors in a successful culture
appears to be instilling a sense that employees can
easily spread and absorb new ideas. What’s also
essential is an environment where employees can
think big, think fresh and think new.
4. Ignore structures and focus on connections
Traditional businesses like placing things in boxes:
mobile vs. desktop, online vs. offline and creation
vs. distribution. These organizational models
don’t exist in Silicon Valley. Instead, companies
are focusing on creating a complementary user
experience across all devices, with mobile as the
first screen. To gain similar business advantages,
agencies and marketing departments must find
ways to integrate specialists into silo-free structures.
5. Understand data and how it can drive your
business
In Silicon Valley, the gods are the programmers
and engineers. Everyone is focused on the product
and delivering a connected experience. The
successful marketer of the future will need to learn
how to “speak tech” like everyone else. This means
investing in analytics capabilities and training to
sort through big data and uncover insights that
deliver real business advantages.
ACT ON THESE FIVE THINGS RIGHT NOW
1. Be mobile first
The age of the PC is over; mobile is king. Forrester
Research predicts that, by 2017, US mobile users
will spend $90 billion via mobile payments – a 48
percent increase from 2012. Google and Facebook
are already building for mobile devices first and the
Web second, but too many brands are still focused
on the Web. This has to change.
2. Think native advertising
The old forms of interruption and forced viewing
are toast. Advertising is going to need to adapt to
be as relevant and targeted as the personal content
consumers share on Facebook, Twitter and elsewhere.
Ads also need to be useful, interesting or entertaining,
with the same focus on feedback and sharing.
3. Be more personal
Personalization is an art and science that all brands
must master. Brands need to create hundreds (or
thousands) of ads and micro-target them, testing
which combinations work best. In addition, brands
must help consumers manage the mass of content
that is created every second, and learn how to use
data to personalize this content. Consumers want
relevant content, filtered through smarter algorithms.
4. Data+tech content=success
All brands should be aiming for a virtually perfect
union of data, technology and content: this is the
success metric of the future. In addition, data
planning, attribution modelling and personalized
messaging will become as important as the
creative and strategic skills agencies have taken
decades to develop.
5. Remember to “dual screen”
Marketers need to assume that individuals are
multi-processing via multiple screens at all times.
The relationship between Twitter and Shazam
is a good example of this dynamic. Twitter is for
amplification of the “moment,” and the tool of
choice for people to talk about TV content. Shazam
connects TV with the mobile web; people recognize
the music/sound of a show or ad, and are linked to
a mobile website or a full mobile experience via
the Shazam app. Adding the Shazam logo brings
three times the engagement and double the
word-of-mouth.
BLINK #7 MEDIACOM
33
article
CONSUMER SEGMENTS OF
CONSEQUENCE IN 2020:
ARE YOU PREPARED?
By 2020, several consumer segments with distinct needs, preferences and
identities will have emerged as significant audiences for many brands.
Marketers that begin paying attention now will reap the benefits.
By Annie Griffiths, Strategy Director, MediaCom USA
Illustration by Jacob Stead
As in personal relationships, it takes time to build
credibility with consumers who do not know and
trust you. As a result, brand marketers need to look
out to the horizon to identify consumer groups
that are gaining in influence and financial clout,
and decide which deserve their attention and
investment today. Those who wait too long – or ask
for preference and loyalty too soon – are likely to
be passed over in favor of those who show sincere
interest (and investment) before they “have to.”
Building bridges can be as much about creative
and messaging as it is about finding the exact
right media channel to leverage. It’s also
34
MEDIACOM BLINK #7
about understanding the subtle nuances that
distinguish one segment from another. The
“reasons why” that resonate with your current
core target audience(s) may or may not differ
from those you know less well.
We currently see five target audiences that are
not only gaining in buying power and influence,
but are also too often pigeon-holed in terms of
their presumed habits, preferences and needs.
Marketers are advised to look more closely
to ensure that their actions have the greatest
chance of resonating with the members of these
segments.
Boomers
(Born 1946–1964)
Boomers are the largest generational segment in
our lifetime. In the US, those born between 1946
and 1964 account for almost one quarter of the
population and control nearly three times the
amount of disposable income held by younger
generations.
1946 to 1964: think about that. While we label
them all “boomers,” what this means is that
older members of this segment are likely to have
been personally (and perhaps dramatically)
impacted by World War II, while others were
born many years later into the decade of peace
and love. How could all these people share the
same values? How could they look and think the
same? The answer is that they can’t, and yet… how
often do we see boomers represented as whitehaired, happy retirees, fussing over golf clubs
or grandchildren? The answer is, too often – and
that has to change.
Four things to remember:
• B
y 2020, most boomers will be retired and able
to spend money on items that will fuel more
active lifestyles than those their parents lived at
the same age. There will be big opportunities
for cars, travel, electronics, health and medical
insurance brands.
• B
oomers are more youthful and energetic than
their age would suggest regarding behavior,
lifestyle and use of personal technology.
• T
he digital revolution has changed the way we
carry out everyday tasks, and it’s no different for
boomers, who enjoy the convenience of doing
anything and everything online far more often
than many brands seem to expect.
• B
oomers are adopting new technologies and new
media at a fast rate. They use technology not
only to manage their lives and stay connected,
but also for selfish, personal enjoyment… just as
their younger compatriots do.
Millennials
(Born 1977–1994)
Millennials (sometimes called Echo Boomers
or Generation Y) will make up nearly half the
global workforce by 2020. Many have seen their
families live through economically challenging
times, including the financial crisis of 20072008. In 2012, The Associated Press reported
that one in two new college graduates in the US
were either unemployed or underemployed, and
those in Greece, Spain, France and many other
countries have experienced very high levels of
unemployment and less than stellar prospects.
For many, finding full-time work will mean
having disposable income for the first time.
By 2020, many will be starting their own families,
making them likely buyers of automobiles,
household furnishings, clothes and baby items,
in addition to medical and financial products and
services.
Five things to remember:
• Millennials tend to consider themselves as
unique individualists. They appreciate being
able to personalize your content and products to
suit their own preferences.
• T
his group is not just a target segment: they see
themselves as a generation to be catered to and
served. They need to be told why your product is
relevant to them.
• B
rands with a purpose are transparent and
authentic. Millennials expect you to clearly
express a point of view and reinforce it in every
decision you make.
• T
echnology is a useful tool but, for this group, it
is a means to an end. Millennials expect you to
bend to fit their device and platform preferences,
not the other way around.
• A
nytime, anywhere communication is a key
expectation for this group. Millennials expect
your brand to be accessible via every channel.
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article
Dads (Men who have children
living with them)
The number of dads involved in household
purchasing decisions will be on the rise between
now and 2020. There are a number of factors
driving this dynamic, including an increasing
number of females making more than their male
partners and a rising population of single-father
homes. In the United States alone, the number
of such households has increased from less than
300,000 in 1960 to more than 2.6 million in 2011.
Three things to remember:
• W
hen it comes to ads for products and services
targeted at parents, dads don’t want to be
forgotten, and they don’t wish to be viewed as
an appendage. Messages that include involved
fathers have a greater chance of being well
received without producing a negative reaction
among women.
• D
ads have not yet caught up to women when
it comes to using digital channels for everyday
shopping and buying. When grocery shopping
for the family, dads are more likely to use
traditional media to help make decisions.
• M
ore fathers are not only breadwinners, but also
caregivers. This new, more personal role can be
acknowledged in advertising messages to great
effect.
LGBT (Lesbian, Gay,
Bisexual, Transgender)
In use since the 1990s, the term “LGBT” is an
adaptation of the earlier “LGB,” which itself began
replacing the word “gay” when describing a larger
mixed sexuality- and gender-based community.
Whichever term is used, this group has significant
purchasing power: in 2012, an estimated $790
million in the United States alone (MarketResearch.
com). And do members of the LGBT community
make purchasing decisions differently than their
non-LGBT counterparts? According to a Harris
Research/Witeck Communications study, 88
36
MEDIACOM BLINK #7
percent of LGBT adults and 70 percent of nonLGBT adults are likely "to consider a brand that
is known to provide equal workplace benefits for
all of their employees, including gay and lesbian
employees." The study also found that 62% of
non-LGBT adults were no more or less likely
"to purchase everyday household products and
services from companies that market directly to
gays and lesbians," while 58% percent of LGBT
adults were more likely to do so.
As LGBT citizens gain legal rights around
the world, including the right to marriage and
adoption, they will become a more influential and
vocal group. Why should brands care?
Here are just a few statistics related to the rising
spending power of LGBT households vs. the
general market in the US:
• 2 3% higher median household income and 24%
more equity in their homes (Prudential)
• 2 6% of gay men say they will pay more for top
quality brands.
• 30% have taken a major vacation in the past year.
• 40% bought a new smartphone in the past year.
(The last three figures are from a Community
Marketing, Inc. 2012 survey of 13,000 LGBT
Americans)
Three things to remember:
• While the LGBT segment is currently more
inclined to spend on experiential, non-tangible
services such as travel, home and tech products,
this is changing as their households become
more traditionally familial. For example, as more
LGBT households include children, messages
about toys and other kid-focused products and
services will become increasingly relevant.
• T
he LGBT community is more richly varied
than it is often portrayed. The portrayal of upper
middle class white (and sometimes AfricanAmerican) males is no longer representative of
the entire segment.
• A
lthough sexuality is an important part of
the LGBT identity, members of the LGBT
community have wide-ranging interests and
concerns, including the environment and social
justice.
Hispanic (Multicultural)
Hispanics are the largest minority in the US,
and the majority of the population growth in the
country is attributed to this segment. By 2020, it
is projected that this group will make up almost
20 percent of the US population. Most important,
this demographic segment will have buying
power of nearly $2 trillion in 2020.
Hispanic Millennials are seen as trendsetters
and tastemakers for all population groups. As
their numbers swell, their influence will continue
to grow.
Things to consider when targeting this segment:
• Advertising in Spanish matters, even among
English-dominant Hispanics. Spanish-language
advertising is generally more effective for
Hispanics.
• L
atinos aspire for true biculturalism, celebrating
their ethnicity and blending with select aspects
of mainstream American culture.
• C
ollaborative decision-making is common
among Hispanics. As a result, the argument
could be made that advertising should be
geared toward the influencer rather than the
decision-maker.
• H
ispanics are early adopters of mobile
technology.
It is critical that brands recognize the new wave
of consumer groups that will have enormous
purchasing power by 2020. Those that don’t will
run the risk of losing their customer base, falling
behind and becoming irrelevant; those that do
are likely to earn loyal and vocal new fans.
BLINK #7 MEDIACOM
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article
The Future of Branded
Education and the
Opportunity for Brands
The device in everyone’s pocket may be the key to
improving the lives for millions across the globe through
learning and education. Dan Chapman at MediaCom
MENA looks at how mobile ed works and the evolving
opportunity for brands.
By Dan Chapman, Regional Digital Director, MediaCom MENA
Photography by Torben Larsen
38
There are now nearly as many mobile
devices in use – six billion – as there
are people on the planet. Surprised?
You shouldn’t be. What’s also not
surprising is that 68 percent of the
growth in mobile usage is coming from
developing and emerging markets. In
Africa, for example, more people will
have mobiles than electricity in less
than two years. Mobile subscriptions in
many Arab states, including Egypt and
Saudi Arabia, are at over 100 percent
penetration (meaning there are more
mobile subscriptions that citizens).
Driving this surge is the reduced cost
of mobile equipment, lower tariffs and
a lack of fixed line infrastructure.
percent. Juxtapose this with the Arab
states, where literacy sits at 75 percent
and, in Sub-Saharan Africa, just 63
percent. And yet, 50 percent of the
population in Saudi Arabia is under
the age of 25, and there are 200 million
youths between the ages of 15-24
across Africa.
Many believe that mobile connectivity
will become the very foundation of
education in markets around the world,
such as the Middle East and Africa
(MEA). If literacy is a proxy for the
spread of education, consider these
statistics: 84 percent of individuals
around the world are considered
“literate” – that is, those over the age
of 15 who can read and write. In the
United States, the literacy rate is 99
Power of mobile
The power of mobile to make a
difference is clear from the “Arab
Spring,” when millions of protestors
used their humble devices to turn
local uprisings into a movement.
Mobile phones enabled participants
to provide a “you are here” audio and
visual experience to people around
the world via social media, telephony
and SMS. This provided everyone
MEDIACOM BLINK #7
One reason for these abysmal statistics
is that nearly 50 percent of the MEA
population lives in rural areas, with
no access to education, and significant
societal pressure to begin working. On
average, children in MEA leave school
at 13.4 years of age, the youngest age
anywhere around the world.
The branded opportunity
Where can brands make a difference?
The answer is everywhere.
Hershey’s sponsors CocoaLink as
part of its commitment to corporate
social responsibility. It is one of the
few mobile initiatives supported by
a major brand, which is a big miss
for many marketers when it comes to
producing higher employee morale and
marketplace goodwill. And, FYI: brands
that implement impactful CSR and
sustainability campaigns are eligible to
be listed on the Dow Jones Sustainability
Index (DJSI), a group of stocks that has
consistently outperformed the equity
market since 1999.
Wired Mothers is an initiative that
explores how maternal health can be
improved through linking pregnant
mothers to health facilities using
mobile phones.
– the activists, as well as the millions
who watched from near and far – with
instantaneous reports and running
accounts of events as they occurred.
Some have called the Arab Spring
the largest learning phenomenon the
world has ever seen.
What’s also apparent is that the mobile
phone is the perfect publishing tool.
Its ability to link consumers to the
education process at any time of the day
or night makes it an excellent platform
to communicate key messages on a
wide range of issues, creating a more
empowered populace.
The mobile opportunity
Mobile devices have been used in MEA
for various educational and healthrelated initiatives, all with positive
outcomes. Here are several examples:
The Wired Mothers project in
Zanzibar connected pregnant and new
mothers with primary healthcare units
in an effort to reduce high infant and
maternal mortality. The participants
received SMS reminders for routine
Mobile subscriptions
in many Arab states,
including Egypt and
Saudi Arabia, are
at over 100 percent
penetration.
healthcare appointments, and allowed
them to contact primary healthcare
providers at any time if problems arose.
The program transformed attitudes in
a country where having a baby was
described as “just a lucky gamble,”
and gave expectant mothers hope and
confidence.
In conflict-ridden Somalia, mobile
access offers vivid evidence of the
effects of civil war on ordinary people.
Al Jazeera’s “Somalia Speaks” project
enabled Somalians to talk about
the personal impact of war through
crowdsourcing and SMS. Over the
course of just a few days, more than
4,000 text messages were sent. The
resulting posts offer a glimpse into
the suffering of people caught in the
middle of a civil war.
The BBC was applauded for the mobile
English language course it offered
in Bangladesh. Over 2.3 million
subscribers received English phrases
by SMS, which they could then practice
in the workplace. Research indicates
that speaking and understanding
even a few simple English expressions
often leads to salary hikes of up to 200
percent in this part of the world.
CocoaLink is a widely-used mobile
service that connects 15 communities
in western Ghana, delivering practical
tips on farming practices, farm safety,
child labor, personal health, crop
disease prevention, post-harvest
production and crop marketing to rural
farmers. Over 8,000 farmers receive
this information via SMS and text
message free of charge. The service
is available to any Ghanaian with a
cell phone, and tips are delivered in
English or the local language.
It’s not an exaggeration to say that
mobile devices have played a major role
in achieving economic empowerment,
changing
governments
and
disseminating vital information across
MEA. Brands must recognize that
this is an opportunity to support and
connect with a massive youth audience
eager to learn and improve their lives.
There are 200 million youths between
the ages of 15-24 across Africa alone.
Across the region, this age group uses
its phones to share information among
friends, enable peer learning and adopt
self-directed personalized learning
habits. Think of how many brands, in
categories that have appeal for young
people aged 15-24, could become key
players in making a difference and
earning brand respect and preference
at the same time.
All it takes is a clear vision, a desire to
help and a mobile phone – a device that
will play a much more fundamental
role in improving the lives of millions
in the next five to ten years.
Which brands will seize the opportunity?
BLINK #7 MEDIACOM
39
point-of-view
The CMO in 2020:
Blurred Lines
By 2020, “I hate these blurred lines” may be only hazily
remembered as a lyric from a controversial pop song, but it may
as well be the contemporary CMO’s lament.
By Kris Chronister, Chief Marketing Officer, Jewelry.com
Illustration by Esther Aarts
Marketing leaders have an increasingly
uncertain road to follow, with new
opportunities emerging every day and
establishing channels either adapting
or dying. Lines are blurring between
traditional and digital marketing. Lines
are blurring in the arena of brand
ownership, where companies must yield
power to consumers. Lines are blurring
between technology and marketing
functions. Lines are blurring between
B2C and B2B best practices. Lines are
blurring in the C-suite on a “who does
what?” basis.
I mean, it’s tough out there. And 2020 is
only six years away. What’s a CMO to do?
If you’re not digital,
you’re dead
By 2020, the applicability of digital
marketing will not be experimental,
in doubt or optional. It will be a core
element of marketing, if not THE
core of marketing. CMOs who are not
digitally savvy will face almost certain
obsolescence…and effective “retirement.”
While traditional marketing mediums
are not likely to disappear, they will
most assuredly integrate with digital
for maximum effect. Imagine billboards
40
MEDIACOM BLINK #7
that are actually just blank spaces upon
which customized images are projected
via your glasses or your “active”
windshield. Car Company X will be able
to customize offers to their own drivers
and targeted non-buyers. This offer
could be personalized based on what
car model you last purchased and when.
What if a billboard said to a current
owner, “Hey Kris, thanks for driving
Car X! Get a $50 discount on your next
fly based on individual household
characteristics. Imagine a smart TV
world where we show the Joneses at
422 Main Street the message “Save 10%
today,” display a QR code and take them
to our responsive-design site? And if
they don’t bite? Thirty minutes later,
we can run the spot again with a free
shipping offer via a different QR code.
Or there’s a “Tweet me that offer” on the
Jones’ remote… or a viewer could simply
Don’t think of 2020 as a deadline by which you
must achieve full integration; think of it as the
you’re-dead date if you’re not already there.
service.” What if you could simply touch
your temple or give the windshield a
thumbs-up to have that offer delivered
instantly to your phone? No more
hoping people will remember a special
URL or 800-number: just the right offer,
accepted at just the right time. And
instantly trackable, too, whatever the
consumer may choose to do.
By 2020, we may even see broadcast
ads customized and versioned on the
nod her head twice once we’ve hit on the
exact offer that closes the deal?
“Huh?,” understand this: the multichannel retail CMO in 2020 will be
successful only if the business is truly
and fully converged, with no artificial
digital/traditional distinctions. Marketers need to stop whining about
showrooming and move aggressively
ahead with creating a singular
shopping experience regardless of
what medium a shopper happens to be
using at any given moment. Different
prices online and offline? Good luck. A
store employee with no knowledge of a
shopper’s online habits and abandoned
shopping cart? Not a chance.
Indeed, the successful 2020 in-store
experience will bear little resemblance
to what we know today. Just the
application of individualized digital
billboards and offers in the physical store
environment would be revolutionary.
Don’t think of 2020 as a deadline by
which you must achieve full integration;
think of it as the you’re-dead date if
you’re not already there.
Omni-channel retailers:
if you’re not all digital,
you’re on the right track
Now before you read the line and say
Kris Chronister
Kris Chronister is a long-time marketer with both agency- and client-side experience. Prior to joining Jewelry.com, Kris
was CEO of a nutraceuticals start-up, head of marcom for Tyco Electronics, CMO for Lehman Brothers Bank and digital
director at Ogilvy & Mather for brands including Nestle, Volvo, Jaguar, American Express and Schering-Plough.
BLINK #7 MEDIACOM
41
point-of-view
Big retail becomes
small experience
Another key change in retailing
will involve curation, or much more
focused
in-store
merchandising
strategies. This is a result of the
Google Effect forever changing our
expectations. On the Web, you may
get 500,000 results, but you only look
at 10 or 20. Now imagine today’s big
box retailer, fashioned the same for all
and far too opaque in its floor design
and structure. No. Just as they do on
the Internet, consumers will want to
feel like they’re shopping at a near-100
percent relevant “boutique,” even if it’s
tucked inside a large national chain.
In a world I know well – jewelry – this
is already happening. Jewelers are
competing with dotcoms and big
national chains by actually reducing
their inventories and offering more
customized service. Instead of
trying to compete with the endless
assortments available online, they
use countertop systems that create
photo-realistic renderings of custom
designed jewelry, configured precisely
to the customer’s requirements. Once
a design is set, a CAD (computer aided
design) is sent to a highly automated,
US factory that quickly makes and
drop-ships the item. No retailer
selling on the basis of inventory
size can replicate this experience,
and no digital outlet comes with the
reassuring in-person advice and
guidance of a real jeweler.
Perfume counters of the future may
consist of only testers, and instant
shipment to your home via interaction
with the physical counter. Items like
housewares or tools may simply be 3-D
printed on demand right at the store.
Indeed, in a sort of “reversal of fortune”
scenario, it may be e-tailers who end up
scrambling to provide an experience as
pleasurable and instantly gratifying!
Of course, your site needs to be just as
responsive: instantly offering up your
42
MEDIACOM BLINK #7
customer’s preferences, sizes and prior
orders – gathered in whatever channel
– and reconfiguring itself based on
shopper history.
Yes, being a retail CMO in 2020 will
be a huge but exciting challenge.
Such a marketer will not only have
to integrate digital and traditional
marketing, but also apply a huge dose
of merchandising, fulfillment and store
integration expertise, as well.
As an aside, this may make the CMO
in the retailing sphere an even better
candidate for CEO.
B2B marketers: You’re
not off the hook either
B2B marketing will face the same
quantum convergence, whereby the
digital versus traditional dynamic
disappears and all the old rules get
rewritten.
Let’s take a long-standing soldier
in the B2B marketer’s arsenal: the
trade show. In 2020, your booth will
auto-scan visitor barcodes, which
will deliver custom information and
recommendations to salespeoples’
tablets while simultaneously feeding
data to your website, which will be
customized for that prospect the
moment they happen to visit. You’ll
be sending welcome emails before
visitors even leave the booth – and
each will be fully customized, prospect
by prospect.
In truth, that’s all simply digital
integration that could be done today –
there will be more by 2020.
By then, your booth may be reconfiguring
itself based on a visitor’s badge-type
via walls that are organic LED video
panels that instantly change based on
a viewer’s preferred language, business
role, vertical, etc. They’ll change color
and content, pull relevant information
from your site or cloud-based datamart
and automatically pull up customized
demos. If the competition pays a visit,
maybe the walls could just go blank!
At a fundamental level, B2B CMOs have
a huge advantage in this brave new
world; they typically know more about,
have more contact with and have more
direct channels to reach their customers
and prospects. Because of the richness
– and more importantly, specificity – of
this data, the B2B CMO has a much
better chance of moving out of a reactive
marketing world and achieving truly
prescient marketing by 2020.
Big data is like
high school sex
Everyone claims they’re doing it, most
really aren’t, and the ones who are, ain’t
very good at it… yet.
But the current crop of “high schoolers”
will be adults in 2020, and big data will
have morphed from a hot phrase to a best
practice. Comprehensive integration of
all internal and selected external data
to seamlessly deliver highly specific
and relevant experiences will become
necessary for success.
Personally, I condemn the term “big
data” as being too imprecise, and
missing the main point: it’s more about
the relevance and precision of the data
and – like everything else – the value
is in how you use it, not that you have
it. By 2020, the best marketers will use
their small, medium and big data to
deliver on-the-fly custom pages, apps,
experiences, offers, ads… even phone
calls with customers.
ROI is not a 4-letter
word in 2020
Thankfully, it will soon be almost
impossible to dispute that marketing
delivers ROI and that its impact can be
tracked. That’s effectively true already,
but it’s not easy to do.
Packages that measure full-cycle
engagement from first engagement
through ZMOT, into the funnel and
through to conversion and ongoing
engagement are already out there; even
Google Analytics’ recent upgrades have
dramatically improved its path-analysis
functions and the price is, of course,
right. My expectation is that Google
will continue to improve and innovate
its analytics…maybe even buying other
analytics partners to produce a datagathering juggernaut. We’ll see.
The biggest challenge remains crosspartner tracking. CMOs will have
to integrate data with partners, and
will probably make data-sharing a
deal prerequisite. This is particularly
critical for CPG and other B-to-B-to-C
companies that must ensure that thirdparty retailers track and turn over the
right data.
Bottom line: in 2020 there will be
few acceptable “cost centers” in
the corporate world. You’re a profit
center or you’re not a player, pure and
simple. The tools are largely there,
and certainly will be in short order.
Insisting that marketing needn’t
be a profit center…insisting that the
value of marketing cannot be defined,
tracked and analyzed…these are the
surest ways to opt out of a C-suite role.
Whose brand is it, anyway?
While it’s presently fashionable to
claim that consumers “own” your
brand, this weird fuzziness will
eventually settle into a co-ownership
situation.
Successful CMOs
will “parent” rather
than direct brands.
In a 2020 world in which the customer
is a true stakeholder, successful CMOs
will “parent” rather than direct brands.
They will need to understand that
user experience has a direct impact
on brand equity, and therefore ensure
that a customer has every reason to
advocate for rather than denigrate the
brand. High-value CMOs will master
the balancing act of giving customers a
sense of participation while preserving
guardrails and not allowing their
brand to be driven from its innate roots
and core values.
The 2020 CMO must also be a
diplomat and, in many ways, a
consumer ombudsman. When brands
and customers butt heads the CMO
must morph into the Chief Diplomatic
Officer, accept that the customer’s
right to guide the brand is here to
stay and negotiate a stand-down of
hostilities.
Bringing it all together in
consumer finance: a case
study
The world of consumer finance is a
wonderful petri dish in which to swirl
many of these issues because its
CMOs face every issue in the book for
two critical reasons:
1. Financial dealings are involved in
every step of life. A bank provided the
ATM that the cash for lunch came from,
another bank provided the credit card
used for the shopping and a mortgage
banker provided the HELOC that’s
being used for the vacation.
2. Financial services have a rather
unique relationship with the customer.
ZMOT
The Zero Moment of Truth is a term coined by Google and refers to the online decision-making moment that follows
from the inevitable online research that is done prior to a buy.
BLINK #7 MEDIACOM
43
point-of-view
When a consumer buys shoes
and hands over the plastic, they
get something they want without
concurrent pain. But when the credit
card bill comes due, they get the pain
without the concurrent payoff. RBS or
Santander or HSBC isn’t “the enabler
of my great new shoes,” it’s the bearer
of bad news.
Localized information is also a huge
opportunity for consumer finance.
Use your smartphone in 2020 to scan
the back of your card and instantly
get your balance, available credit, due
date, etc. Scan the credit card placard
on a retailer’s door or website and
see how many points you get from
spending there and download special
An augmented reality mobile app will enable
a hungry individual to look down the street
for restaurants that take American Express.
Dynamics like these require finance
CMOs to go above and beyond, and
those in 2020 will have to use all the
tools available in a digitally converged
world to foster customer delight.
Websites, for example, must be truly
responsive. When I log on to my
account, I’ll expect to see information
organized the way I want it, or be able
to quickly drag and drop to change.
I’ll see reports based on the spending
categories I’ve defined. I’ll see my
statement organized as I wish: maybe I
want to see transactions sorted by size,
rather than chronology. Let me create a
graphic “speedometer” monitoring my
spending during a custom time period.
And let me use a dashboard where I
can control everything I experience
online and by mail.
time-sensitive offers. An augmented
reality mobile app will enable a hungry
individual to look down the street for
restaurants that take American Express.
In short, it won’t just be about alleviating
the need for me to punch in my card
number AND repeat it to the rep who
answers, and real social engagement
won’t mean posting cute pictures
with a hashtag on Twitter or Facebook
and getting a bunch of likes. Those
are positive things, but they won’t
deliver true brand promise and value
perception for the 2020 consumer.
The CMO / agency
relationship in 2020: more
blurred lines
For decades, CMOs have faced two
related challenges when it comes to
their agencies, and these challenges
have only worsened with the advent of
digital.
I’m talking about market complexity
and agency specialization.
On one hand, a large agency of
record (AOR) can be very attractive:
it understands the business, provides
extensive resources, ensures everything is in synch, seeks efficiency and
provides the CMO with a single point
of contact (or throat to choke).
44
MEDIACOM BLINK #7
On the other hand, it is very difficult
indeed for a large, creative AOR to
provide and maintain cutting-edge
competency and deep, focused
resources in specialized practice
areas. CMOs will always be tempted
by nimble “boutique” shops that
focus solely on one function, whether
it be SEO, e-mail marketing or social
media, etc. In many cases, extreme
specialization can produce better
tactics that risk off-brand messaging
and come at the cost of consuming
client time, effort and focus.
Smart CMOs in 2020 will seek out
agencies that prove adept at straddling
this fence, and I think that is most likely
to succeed via a horizontal network
model – something Sir Martin Sorrell
is now describing as “horizontality.”
Certainly by 2020, a CMO will want
to choose a social media agency, an
inbound agency, a media agency,
a branding agency, a retargetingremarketing agency, etc. because each
is completely focused and wickedly
current… while also being inextricably
tied together.
CMOs are calling on
our agency partners
to wipe out one of
our “blurred lines.”
In short, we CMOs are calling on our
agency partners to wipe out one of our
“blurred lines.”
The marketing industry is rife with
speculation about the CMO gig,
ranging all the way from sure death
to the next best path to the CEO
office. The acronym shuffle usually
involves the CMO/CIO/CDO roles,
but you could add in another dozen
less-common variants, such as Chief
Content Officer, Chief Revenue Officer
and Chief People-Pleasin’ Officer (yes,
that title actually exists).
I will say this: the much-ballyhooed
convergence of the CMO and CIO
roles into a “Chief Digital Officer” is
not viable.
The level of deep, full-time expertise
required by each role is to allconsuming.
Technology
issues
of cloud-based computing and
applications, server management,
as the hub of a wheel that manages “in
situ” experts supporting marketing
functions in other departments.
Analytics is clearly critical, but may still
reside under the CIO. Customer service
may end up executing social media
strategy but may reside under the COO.
Similarly, merchandising, shipping, etc.
are not likely to “report in” to the CMO.
I’ll say this: marketing’s need to reach
into those (and many other) functions
will require a consummate “matrix”
manager in the CMO spot.
That said, the reason the CIO/CMO
debate is so common is because it’s
becoming the CMO’s most critical
(and necessary) alliance. CMOs who
do not “speak tech” with extreme
fluency – and probably some hands-on
experience – are nearly unemployable
in 2020. Those who have not “grown up
CMOs who do not “speak tech” with extreme
fluency – and probably some hands-on experience – are nearly unemployable in 2020.
DNS management, storage issues,
security issues, hosting, bandwidth,
networking, etc. will continue to
require a full-time CIO, and the
ever-increasing breadth of marketing
demands a full-time CMO.
By 2020, though, I do suspect the
CMO role will have evolved into a
hub-and-spoke arrangement, with the
core marketing functions reporting
directly to the CMO, but with the CMO
digital,” with a natural understanding
of the lingo, the nuances of online
development languages and all the
underlying technologies face a real
challenge; it’s rare for someone who
has learned a second language to ever
be as fluent as a native-born speaker.
CMO speak the language of his
closest friend, the CIO… because the
lines between digital and traditional
communications will soon be history.
It also means the consumer can now
function very visibly as a key partner in
the brand – one who will speak loudly
when unhappy and who doesn’t care
how tough or interdependent your job
may be. CMOs must treat consumers
as partners, not arms-length prospects
or buyers. And as that partner, CMOs
must leverage data – both big and small
– to know consumers better than they
know themselves by delivering rich,
relevant experiences based not only on
the past, but also the predicted future.
Finally, CMOs must accept that – in
an increasingly trackable, monitored,
tech-wearable world – delivering demonstrable ROI is a necessity that
relies on being able to set expectations
appropriately and deliver on them
reliably.
2020’s going to be tough – and crazy.
But for the CMO who is fascinated by
and only wants to delight consumers
while dreaming about brands, it’s going
to be one of the greatest gigs around.
What’s it all mean?
Ready or not, digital is no longer an
outlier – it’s a permanent, core element
of marketing that demands the 2020
I don’t claim to know how this will
happen, but large networks should
arguable have the advantage.
The CxO shuffle! It’s the
latest craze! All the cool
kids are doing it!
So what will happen to the CMO role
itself by 2020?
BLINK #7 MEDIACOM
45
article
Organizing for Innovation
Marketers will have to incorporate the habits and advantages of
both big and small organizations if they want to reap the benefits
of true innovation leading up to the Year 2020.
By Cary Tilds, Chief Innovation Officer, GroupM
Leading up to 2020, companies will
have to decide how to handle the tidal
wave of innovation in the technology
space. Which ideas do they embrace
and which do they ignore? Having a
solid framework for testing various
tools and platforms will be critical
to identifying and rapidly deploying
those that can drive real revenue.
One thing is certain: the era of
companies lumbering along, relying on
the benefits of scale, is over. The influx
of new technological possibilities
will no longer allow for multi-year
development cycles (remember fiveyear plans?); brands are going to
have to adapt a “start-up approach”
to analyzing and then embracing or
discarding ideas that come their way.
Technology investments
According to the most recent edition
of the National Venture Capital
Yearbook, approximately 35 percent of
the total venture capital dollars in the
United States in 2012 was directed to
the technology (including software,
semiconductors and networking)
sector. This connotes the largest
venture capital investment in any
industry, by far.
46
MEDIACOM BLINK #7
Another interesting finding is that –
while 53 percent of these investment
dollars went to California-based
portfolio companies – start-ups and
other early-stage firms in 48 states
received financing, a record high.
With money pouring in, and open
source
code
and
cloud-based
network and stage options, founding
a technology-based business that
develops “killer apps” or on-the-fly
software is easier than ever. This
means that the next business-changing
innovation can come from anywhere or
anyone: including a high school whiz
kid in India or a factory worker on the
graveyard shift. How on earth can
major corporations adapt?
Innovation
must be purposeful
With the decentralization of global
technology development, brands must
establish new policies and procedures
that ensure new ideas are found, tested
and, when appropriate, implemented.
Developing the right method of
developing and judging new ideas is
a critical process in itself, and is often
the most complicated.
At GroupM, we have tried and tested
a number of different models, some of
which may be appropriate for brands.
Each has its own characteristics as to
relative time commitment required,
the type of project to be considered
and, sometimes, which individuals
would need to lead. These approaches
include:
• I ncubators: longer term, more
significant investment, leadership
team
• A
ccelerators: shorter, can be
brief-focused, small investment,
mentorship team
• S
peed Dating: short burst meet-andgreet sessions to generate ideas
• I dea-Sharing Sessions: often against a
specific brief, but not always
• Webinar Sharing: when dealing with
multiple locations, leverage webinars
to share widely
Innovation is about
“Scale and Scrappy”
Once a new idea is formulated, we
must learn what works and what does
not. This is where the concept of
“Scale and Scrappy” comes in.
Scale is about rolling out businesschanging ideas across an enterprise,
while scrappy creates an environment
where failure is acceptable. Tolerating
failure is difficult to accept in
today’s world, but acknowledging
the possibility of failure helps teams
innovate faster.
Scrappy represents what is new. Scale
represents what’s productive. Scrappy
uses some of the processes above (as
well as some more outlined below) to
that a “new” idea has to be “brand
new.” That’s invention. Innovation
embraces adapted ideas that provide
more productive solutions to current
and future problems.
Being scrappy isn’t a one-stop
process. Brands need to continue to
create and participate in speed dating
sessions, industry events and even
focused accelerators. Keeping up
with what’s new is what it will take
to survive. This includes initiatives
Tolerating failure is difficult to accept
in today’s world, but acknowledging
the possibility of failure helps teams
innovate faster.
generate ideas, while scale is more
structured and mindful of the realities
of how a company operates.
Brands must be scrappy, developing
novel ideas that can fill inevitable
opportunity gaps. It’s important to
get beyond the incorrect point of view
out and take advantage of its benefits
across the business. That’s how the
scale phase delivers.
Focusing on both scale and scrappy
is critical to the successful media
strategies for 2014, let alone 2020.
Fully understanding the technology
capabilities of scalable solutions is
absolutely essential to understanding
the innovation (vs. invention)
opportunities related to those
technologies.
To win in 2020, brands and their
agency partners will have to be more
rigorous than ever at testing existing
boundaries, and implementing ways
to find, test and roll-out ideas that
can produce positive change. Start-up
behavior isn’t just for start-ups
anymore.
such as structured reviews with
technology leaders, speaking and
planning at focused industry events
and monitoring media content and
technology players.
Once an opportunity has passed the
scrappy phase, brands can then roll it
BLINK #7 MEDIACOM
47
point-of-view
Janet Balis
Janet Balis has extensive experience in cross-platform
media. Prior to joining Betaworks, she was publisher of
The Huffington Post. Janet has also run ad sales and
marketing for AOL Advertising, Martha Stewart Living
Omnimedia and Time Inc. She began her career at
Newsweek.
Narrowcast
connections
Connecting
to
your
content
Shaking up the status quo:
a guide to leveraging
disruption in the media
industry
By Janet Balis, Chief Revenue Officer, Betaworks
48
MEDIACOM BLINK #7
While Midtown Manhattan’s skyscrapers
continue to house powerful, universally
recognized media brands, the fate of traditional
media seems remarkably uncertain. Attention
appears firmly focused on shiny new start-ups,
while digital luminaries like Jeff Bezos and Pierre
Omidyar have begun staking claims on a future
of vigorous journalism and quality content.
ad dollars and the emergence of new businesses —
from The Huffington Post to Tumblr to Federated
— all built to capitalize on the new “independent
web.” Readers voted with their time and attention,
demonstrating a willingness to consume content
created by companies operating outside the
extensive (and expensive) production processes
of traditional media.
In effect, old media faces a world turned upside
down.
Instead of being threatened by consumer
openness to multiple content sources, media
brands — both new and old — will need to wholly
embrace and enable the full spectrum of content
models, connect with dynamic new talent and
reap the benefits of timeliness and relevancy.
There is no question that original and quality
writing, photography and video will always be
recognized. But media brands cannot ignore
the options that accelerate content availability
and variety, reduce cost per content asset and
improve overall agility. These models include:
What are the specific factors at work here, and
how can companies position themselves to not
only survive but become irreplaceable partners to
advertisers by 2020? The answer challenges most
current content, distribution and monetization
strategies.
Content
Traditional approaches to content creation have
historically prized exceptional talent (writers,
photographers, editors and producers) backed
by the awareness, integrity and marketing of
big, well-known media brands. Vast hierarchies
nurtured superb editorial and production talent
while creating highly specialized roles, multiple
layers, lengthy timelines and, ultimately,
stratospheric costs. With few alternatives,
consumers and advertisers paid, and the music
continued to play. When the music stopped,
traditional media players were left addicted to an
often linear, arduous and expensive process in a
highly competitive moment.
In stark contrast to the formal rigor of traditional
media companies, bloggers and smaller content
sites began to demonstrate the value of content
not originated by the major media brands. The
quality and importance of these new vehicles
were increasingly validated by consumer traffic,
• C
o-creation, where content is created in
partnership
• C
uration, where content is aggregated through
specific filters and pulled into the core branded
experience from sources across the Web; filters
can be human or technology-based (although
the latter is far more economically impactful)
• E
ndorsement, where content from across
the Web is selected and highlighted, but not
explicitly incorporated
These newer models lower costs and improve
margins. However, they also require superior content
management technology to handle disparate
content sourcing and complex, cross-platform
distribution. While these logistical challenges are
likely to have been fully resolved by 2020, they
force some heady decisions in the meantime.
BLINK #7 MEDIACOM
49
point-of-view
Distribution
To create audience, traditional and early digital
media companies focused on a top-down
approach centered largely on a single, branded
destination. Broadcast networks, magazines and
online portals all counted on the power of their
marketing machines and the recognition of their
brands to create habitual, almost assumptive
behavior among consumers. For the portals,
a powerful set of products — including instant
messaging (remember when?) and branded
email — also served as strong magnets. Once
in the funnel, consumers were swept through
to a variety of individual branded assets (like
vertical home pages or map functions), and
advertisers were encouraged to buy the resulting
“high interest” segments.
The new reality, of course, is that consumers no
longer look at branded distribution channels as
preferred or automatic destinations. Consumers
go wherever they can find content that appeals
to them, often without any real awareness of
• T
he ease of being found within an interface
(such as cable VOD or other over-the-top
technologies like Roku) or search setting
• T
he ability to cultivate attention within
personal networks via word-of-mouth or social
media (Facebook, Twitter, Digg, etc.)
• T
he unpredictable moment of breakthrough,
when the wisdom of crowds dictates a trend
and allows a specific content asset to bask in a
moment of glory and adulation
These new discovery mechanisms represent
a dramatic but exciting change for advertisers
that valued reaching the masses through highvalue placements like Yahoo’s home page or
massive promotional efforts, such as blow-in
cards falling out of your favorite magazines.
This new world begs for advertisers to create
their own organic followership and cultivate
audiences through social media and the
continued smart use of search; it requires brands
Content creators must be agnostic and opportunistic,
ready to harvest all available distribution channels,
regardless of platform.
the distribution channel itself. There may come
a day when consumers cannot even name the
broadcast or cable television networks that
produce the shows they love. Viewers already go
straight to the end-content asset when they watch
on-demand cable or use over-the-top tools like
Apple TV, Roku or Netflix. By 2020, magazine
devotees may ditch their subscriptions in favor
of following their favorite (already freelance)
writers on Twitter and consuming stories from
specific journalists. They will no longer be
yoked to larger media franchises that force them
to pay for content they don’t value.
In other words, it’s not that consumers don’t
have a desired destination — it’s just that the
destination will no longer be the distribution
channel itself. Consumers will navigate straight
to content, bypassing the former arbiters
of what was good or bad. And as consumer
navigation evolves, marketers and agencies
will increasingly surface new mechanisms for
content discovery and advertising alignment:
50
MEDIACOM BLINK #7
to thoughtfully present valuable experiences to
end users that will thrive in the navigational
structure of new platforms.
From marketing to remarketing
Such a new world also demands a shift from a
marketing approach to a remarketing mindset.
If a brand can build a base of followers in
social media and through not-to-be-overlooked
email newsletter strategies, two distinct new
advantages emerge:
1. T
he audience is now “qualified,” i.e., they
chose to be there or connected to your content
voluntarily
2. M
arketing becomes a replicable phenomenon:
because we are connected to the fans, we can
find them again. As a result, the audience is
more valuable
In the quest to aggregate followership, brands
should not only look for the opportunity to
aggregate the largest potential channels, but also
the chance to build more organic, narrowcast
connections with subsets of target consumers.
Smart distribution also requires marketers
and agencies to exploit the full range of
venues in which content is consumed — from
iTunes to mobile experiences to on-demand
channels. Content creators must be agnostic
and opportunistic, ready to harvest all available
distribution channels, regardless of platform.
Although consumption may be fragmented,
tracking technologies enable such strategies to
remain whole and cohesive.
Monetization and attractiveness
to advertisers
In the past, destination-based media enabled a
sweet, straightforward business model: attract
viewers to the thing you create, and sell that
audience to advertisers (and occasionally make
some serious consumer revenue along the way, as
did magazines and premium cable).
But there were cracks in the system: advertisers
never fully absorbed the supply of premium
digital space and — as ad technologies developed
— media companies quietly offloaded unsold
online inventory in remnant marketplaces,
largely without compromising their core
business.
As audiences began to disperse, however, the
power of consumer media brands and contextual
adjacency began to wane, and advertisers and
media agencies found precise audiences by
marrying the scale of the new aggregated models
with the power of data and targeting.
As we head toward 2020, the evolving state of play
requires a dramatically different approach. The full
and rich spectrum of monetization opportunities
has narrowed to a dramatically bifurcated
world between premium and automated, with
the extremes continuing to get more extreme.
Premium is still bolstered by rich sponsorships,
idea-driven selling and the concept of expertly
created content that audiences value, while
automation earns a rapidly growing share of media
budgets in what are now called programmatic
channels. The middle no longer exists.
While advertisers are living in this real world,
most of today’s media organizations are still filling
their sales pitches with new layers of content and
capability. These bloated organizations — and
the idea that agencies will still buy the premium
middle through the power of persuasion and
relationships — are relics of a full spectrum of
monetization.
To continue to appeal to marketers, 2020
dictates dramatic organizational change at most
publishing companies:
• S
maller sales teams consisting of true strategists
able to drive powerful premium offers
• A
low-cost, high-volume support organization
to manage the automated channels and deliver
valuable insights to agencies and their clients
The other key monetization strategy is to look
beyond advertising. Consumer-supported revenue is returning in new ways, validated in
no small part by Netflix’s success, and data
itself has great value. Most organizations will
require far more expertise and investment in
direct marketing efforts to unleash significant
consumer revenue opportunities.
Takeaways
There is no precise formula for the model we’ll
see in 2020, but there are a few takeaways that
can help media entities produce greater value for
themselves and for advertisers:
• C
ontent models should radically shift to a spirit
of glasnost. Move faster and lower costs. Create
mechanisms are now bolstered by co-create,
curate and endorse
• D
istribution models should embrace directto-consumer search and social mechanisms in
order to facilitate organic audience connectivity
that will be highly prized by marketers
• M
onetization is now bifurcated, replacing
the former full advertising spectrum. Media
organizations must take steps now to retain
their top talent for strategic, premium selling
while investing in data and technology,
and consumer revenue streams should be
aggressively cultivated by bolstering direct
marketing capabilities
The media companies that will thrive in 2020
will do so not because they’ve had their names
on those New York skyscrapers for years, but
because they have the irrefutable connectedness
to and resulting currency among audiences that
advertisers (and their own bosses) will value most.
BLINK #7 MEDIACOM
51
BLINK #7
#7
Media
Trends
Consumers
Published by
winning in 2020
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winning in 2020
FOUR KEY PILLARS
OF SUCCESS
Data, complexity and
technology, content and
talent will determine the
future’s true winners
NEW BRAND
ARCHETYPES OF 2020
Whether a sleeper brand,
shiny upstart or lean &
local, brands will serve new
purposes in the future
#MYLIFEIN2020
#Life360
Will all aspects of our lives
be fully integrated with
technology? Be careful –
YOLO (you only live once)
THE CONTENT
CONNECTIONS AGENCY
MediaCom’s 20|20 planning
process: how connected are
your content and communications strategies?