Neoco’s blog - keep up to date with the best digital marketing agency in the world!

On Tuesday I spent the day at the Being Digital Mashup conference. It was a really interesting and insightful day - although there were way too many pitches crammed into the programme.

For those of you that didn’t attend, I’ve put together a summary of the key predictions from the event, outlining what is going to happen within digital marketing over the next 5 years:

• Media fragmentation and the decline of mass audiences will continue as there will be constant shifts in the way consumers live their lives, but this should be seen as a positive instead of a negative. After all, ad spend can be reduced through advertising to smaller fragmented audiences, as there is less money wasted on irrelevant audiences. Advertisers will need to create innovative and targeted ‘marketing pieces’ for their consumers, reaching them via their niche channels.
• Although it is often thought that young people watch less TV than they used to, research shows that there has been a 10% increase in the time that 16-24 year olds spend watching TV each day (since 1997 their daily viewing has increased from 1.61 hours to 1.77) and this is likely to remain constant.
• The penetration of mobile internet is currently at 30%, but with continued promotion from the iPhone and other key players in the mobile industry, this is going to see huge growth.
• Most sites will have an element of social networking or online community in the near future, as consumers continue to want this functionality.
• Online shopping is not going to take over or replace offline retail. Research has proven that consumers like being able to use a combination of online, store and call centre when shopping, and when given this option to shop across multiple channels, consumers exhibit a higher degree of loyalty – their average relationship ‘lifetime’ with the brand is 2 ½ times greater which is very valuable. As a result, the future will see online and retail work hand-in-hand.

However, the two areas that I think are going to have the greatest significance over the next five years are branded content and location. Predictions for these topics are:

• Branded content is going to be huge over the next five years and brands are likely to benefit hugely from being associated with entertaining or relevant content, as indicated by Nigel Conway from Nestle. Their annual advertising budget currently stands at around £5bn, of which £3.5bn is spent on TV advertising. However, Nigel believes that in 7 years time, this £3.5bn will be spent on branded content. Research has shown that branded content is the most popular of all advertising formats, with 67% of all consumers finding it acceptable or valuable.
• Location is going to play a major part over the next few years, as GPS and mobile internet become more widespread. We all know how to find things on a map if we have the postcode, and with GPS we will all know where people are located - but the key question is how do marketers use this data to add real value to consumers? Many companies are trying to create 3D search interfaces and immersive environments for consumers but at the moment they are too expensive and very difficult to develop, and despite all efforts the interfaces are really hard to use.

My prediction is that whoever can create a user friendly, and ultimately useful and valuable location mashup for consumers will be much much richer in the next five years.

Just a reminder that the FUEL conference is next Friday (13th June) at RIBA.

It should be a really interesting and insightful day with presentations and case studies from Innocent, Virgin and successful start-up Moo.com. Sessions will look at how you can use new web tools to interact with existing customers and bring in new ones; build strong and loyal communities; use the latest in online marketing; and use innovative technology to push every boundary of business.

The organisers are also going to hold a drinks reception in the evening. Benn’s  going to be there, so let him know if you are too.

www.fuel-conference.com

Ahead of the upcoming Social Media Influence conference (to be held on 4th June in London) the following YouTube Corporate Top 10 list has been compiled - comprising of videos which appear within the first 10 results in a search of the company name. Each one has been viewed over 1 million times and generated hundreds of comments.

Over 80 million YouTube videos are watched every day, making YouTube one of the most influential forms of media today. We can’t understand why some brands don’t value YouTube’s power and recognise the potential threat that it could have to their reputation - take the Disney porn for example.

Visit Social Media Influence if you want to view the videos. They suggest that while you’re watching, “ask yourself this question - do you know how your company looks on YouTube?”

Here’s their top 10 (in descending order):

Just wanted to remind you all to come and catch up with us at Internet World this Thursday. Benn will be speaking at the event and will be on hand all morning at the WOM UK stand to answer any questions you may have on word of mouth marketing (stand W985, opposite the DMA Theatre).

It’s being held at Earls Court and is free to register. Just go to www.idmf.co.uk

seems like only yesterday I was on the super secret Beta squad at Joost but it was actually several months ago… time flies when your are on this crazy ride called ‘interweb’. Anyway, today is their first developer conference and it is being held right around the corner in Covent Garden. Will be heading down with a developer and let you know how it goes - part of the afternoon includes an ‘on the fly’ build of a web app! Now that’s TV!