eMarketer 2015 Predictions – Five Things to Know and Five Things Not to Worry About
Photo via Adriana @ Great Food 360°
eMarketer has released “Key Digital Trends for 2015, What’s in Store—and Not in Store—for the Coming Year” divided into three sections:
– Five Key Things You Need to Know About 2015
– Five Things that Might Get Big (But Might Not)
– Five Things You Won’t Need to Worry About
Five key things you need to know about 2015:
1. Marketers that respond quickly will succeed with real time marketing enabling those to be fast, flexible, and fluid.
2. Mobile search takes over desktop
Smartphone and tablet usage continues to surpass traditional desktop and laptop searches especially with price savvy smartphone users comparing brick and mortar pricing as they shop with online merchants.
3. Programmatic moves beyond digital display
eMarketer predicts programmatic will make up more than 50 percent of all digital display advertising.
4. The Internet of things becomes a thing
Marketers will have the ability to connect products and services for consumers and enterprises, and the data from these connected things will provide insight to how users interact with them.
5. Cross-Device Targeting
As more consumers not only the desktop/laptop but smartphones and tablets, publishers will have to create other solutions for advertisers to buy audiences, not channels. Advances in user identification, retargeting and the use of location data should boost marketer confidence and spending.
Five Things that Might Get Big (But Might Not)
1. Wearables: Not Quite Ready to Wear
Some have predicted wearable device shipments to hit triple-digit growth but eMarketer believes that without a single transformative product creating a must-have item (remember how Apple did it with the iPhone and the iPad?) US consumer penetration will continue to be low.
2. Mobile Payments? Wait until next year
Digital wallets and mobile payments have not been used by enough consumers since most still pay with cash and/or credit cards. Other than those using the Starbucks app and Apple Pay, consumer behavior may not take hold for years. The other issue are those merchants waiting on the sidelines to see which technology gains the confidence of consumers so those merchants will not have to invest and install an obsolete system.
3. New Life for Social Commerce
Getting consumers to shop via social is another new trend as Twitter created an in-tweet “buy” button but eMarketer cites a 2014 Harris Poll for DigitasLBi where only 5% of US adult internet users made a purchase through Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest.
4. Will Content Marketing Sputter?
eMarketer cites a 2014 Social@Ogilvy/SurveyMonkey survey where 6,500 social network users were asked if they were seeing too much branded or advertising content on their social networks. 60% said they were seeing too much so brands need to listen more and speak less and focus on relevance over quantity.
5. Cord-Cutting: Still More Hype Than Reality
Cord shaving is the more apt term as consumers are reducing what they spend. Most viewers of all ages still watch television the traditional way but mobile continues to grow.
Five Things You Won’t Need to Worry About
1. The Desktop
eMarketer feels with consumers increased use of smartphones and tablets less time is being spent on desktops and laptop computers. “Consuming digital content in a nonlinear manner, using whatever screen is most convenient at any given time, is now commonplace. For marketers, that requires a shift in thinking and focus—away from channels to audiences, and reaching them on whatever device or screen they’re using.”
2. QR Codes: Not the Next Big Thing
QR codes won’t disappear but it appears they will not become a mass technology either.
3. Social TV: The Conversation is Pretty Quiet
eMarketer cited the 2014 Academy Awards moment when Ellen DeGeneres posted to Twitter the Samsung sponsored “selfie” shot as an exception since some consumers use mobile devices while watching television with a small number actually talking and engaging about what they are watching through social media.
4. Baby Boomers: Going Bust
Other than healthcare no need for marketers to be bending over backwards getting boomers to buy new cars or any other luxuries as those same boomers don’t have the money to spend in their golden years.
5. Pivacy? Security? Yawn.
Even with the massive data breaches in 2014 there is nothing stopping those from wanting to use and live by social networks. “The general population has proven beyond a doubt that it does not care about privacy or even security if protective measures inconvenience their digital habits. Users may claim to be worried about security, but their actions speak louder than words.”
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