Trends to Watch in 2009
2009 will be an interesting year to say the least. The challenges of the economy will add pressures to the advertising industry, and interactive could suffer somewhat as a victim to overall budget cuts or it could come through with flying colors as the cost-effective vehicle to still conduct marketing efforts. I tend to believe it will be the latter. Last year my predictions were accurate (see January 2008 issue of The Source) except some could definitely argue with my statement that “2008 is going to be great.” It was great for interactive but as we all know, extremely challenging for most. Even the overall technology sector was hit despite the current growth stage of the Internet. So here are the predictions for the interactive industry in 2009. If only I had a crystal ball… ;).
Mobile marketing will get hot in the U.S. finally through innovation led by the iPhone. A recent report from the Pew Internet and American Life Project predicts that most Internet access will be conducted through mobile devices in the near future.
Real-Time communication and reporting will be in high demand. People are adopting the tools of Facebook, Twitter and others that allow for instantaneous reporting of status updates and events. People will grow to expect this from other sources they interact with, especially with news and media related companies.
Mergers and acquisitions in the tech sector will heat up in 2009. The economy will present many challenges for startups that do not have an immediate profitable business model. Stronger companies will go on a feeding frenzy and gobble up the smaller fish. Large traditional agencies will accelerate their acquisition of smaller, nimbler interactive agencies to protect their business of raping clients. These are the times when the rich get richer.
Interactive staples will dominate budgets earmarked for new media. Search and email are the two big staples as they are cost-effective (email is the most cost-effective medium, period), and they just work.
Big Brother will continue to rise. Look for more sophisticated tracking mechanisms for monitoring user behavior. These systems will allow marketers to build profiles, segment their audiences and deliver more personalized and relevant marketing messages to their targets. These systems will also allow for communications to be delivered across multiple channels. In other words, Big Brother will not only rise, but he’ll be following you around.
Video games are hot, and they will continue to experience positive gains. Innovation in this segment was huge with the Wii, Rockband and other games. Gaming has become mainstream, and it’s an inexpensive way to pass time during a rough economy. Advergaming opportunities will continue to increase with this trend.
Online video will continue to explode. This is driving the much-talked-about “convergence” of T.V. and the Internet. It’s still early but with all the advances of the past year, it finally looks like a possibility in the near future.
Seven predictions for 2009. Let’s see how it all plays out. 2009 will not be easy, but I strongly recommend that interactive marketing be considered prior to slashing your budgets for marketing and advertising. The knock-out combo punch of search and email will deliver, and it will perform better than your traditional methods. Let’s make the best of 2009 and come out ahead.