Trends to look out for in 2019
It’s tough enough for brands to keep track of the big emerging tech and innovation trends but 2019 is likely to see an acceleration and expansion of this change. From Blockchain, through to voice, to Aidriven content and social commerce, evolution will be
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The consumer will continue to be king, they will simply rule over a new intent based kingdom.
Alex Saber, Chairman Publicis Media MENA
Over the past three years, many experts in our industry have talked about Transformation. It’s has become the industry buzzword. The only problem with buzzwords is that they tend to be overused and oftentimes lead to a broad murky lake, which is arduous to navigate. When we look forward, what we have facing us as marketers is not just a need for broad transformation, but more precisely the nexus it brings us to: a moment in time when all of the “transformation” expectations come into reality. This is the Time of Fusion. The fusion of technology and brands through a more connected, intelligent and integrated world.
To bring this into a tangible reality we only need to look at last month’s CES Conference.
At CES the world was presented with the potential of transformation momentum and how it will affect the ways in which brands and consumers interact. One bit of technology that has been long anticipated, particularly here in MENA is 5G. The anticipation is well warranted as the roll out of 5G has so many implications on the trends which we have been talking about as an industry including the realization of IOT, enabling well-being wearables, realizing sustainable supply chains, and re-imagining commerce. The implications are far reaching across multiple trends, that it ellipses the trends themselves. This ellipse is the biggest thing we will focus on; the fusion of Technology, Brands, and Consumer Experiences. The future of fusion will eventually re-set the agenda of the 4th Revolution for ourselves and our clients. Fusion will unlock consumer experiences. We’ll see a shift from talking about consumers from a demographic standpoint to one of intention. With this, we believe that the context and relevancy of experiences must be delivered to match the intent of the consumer. As an industry, this will change not only targeting but creative content as well. It will allow for consumers to have fluid journeys with brands and will force brands and agencies to match experiences with consumer mindsets. The consumer will continue to be king, they will simply rule over a new intent based kingdom. Fusion will be fueled by data. As with all trends affecting our future, it comes on the back of data. As our communications are actioned through better data, we see the converse reaction of consumers to demand transparency. This is creating a brand-trust dilemma, which we as agencies will be called on to safely and transparently navigate for our clients. It filters across everything we do from mining insights, architecting sound buying approaches, to enabling secure data practices. Together as an industry, we need to continue to work with industry regulatory and trade bodies, as well as our partners to uphold the highest standards of brand safety and data compliance. Fusion will inspire immediacy. Connectivity of the world will increase and with it, so will the demand for immediacy of product, solution and personalization. Agencies and clients alike will need to adjust to the demand for immediacy from consumers. As we embark on the future with our clients, the most critical trend is actually not a trend at all but rather a sustainable practice. Trust. To empower our clients to take advantage of everything that the future has to offer we must be trusted by our clients.
Nadim Khoury, Chief Executive Officer, Grey MENA
Video has been increasing in importance for a number of years, but 2019 will see it move to a whole new level. Cisco has projected that more than 80 per cent of all internet traffic will be video by 2021. In the US, adults are now spending almost six hours a day watching video, according to Nielsen’s. Meanwhile, Facebook, the world’s most important social media company, has set its sights on becoming a video-first company. In an age of content, video is king. This applies to our region as much as anywhere else. The Jeddah-based Arabic entertainment network Uturn has hired an all-saudi team to create videos just for Snapchat. MBC is including a vertical camera on set during the production of new dramas, enabling the company to have Snapchat-ready and Instagram-ready versions for when it broadcasts later this year. Our role in the coming 12 months is not just to be aware of all of this, but to create video content that works. We’ve got to learn to get it right. Because if we don’t, the opportunity to get closer to our audiences will have been lost. Take Instagram Stories for example. By and large what we see posted on the platform are adaptations of films that were originally built for TV or Youtube, not platform-specific campaigns that make the most of the language of Instagram itself. This is what we have to crack in 2019. If video is the future of the internet, and mobile is the future of personal connectivity, then cracking video on mobile will be a must.
Tarek Jaffar General Manager, OMD Egypt
Egypt is a volatile market, with hardcore purchasing habits, diverse media dynamics and one of the highest mobile penetrations in the world. Mobile has dramatically changed habits over the past decade, with lifestyles switching from calling or visiting a store to multitasking and looking to brands to provide solutions for their professional, personal and entertainment needs. These changing habits make automation and the use of technology the perfect solution for brands meeting demanding client needs. Clients’ main focus in 2019 is to meet the demands of fast paced global trends and also relieve some of the pressure on their bottom line costs. For example, Mcdonalds has been pushing towards a seamless digitally led delivery process over the past couple of years and is looking to innovate in marketing their apps and delivery process for a seamless omnichannel strategy. This has been done through a specific mobile app for delivery and self-serving kiosks in their brick and mortar stores. Many clients have also jumped on the chat bot wagon relieving some of the pressure off their customer service centers. The ease and efficiency of online ordering and the chaos of Egypt make ecommerce and epayments another fastgrowing trend in 2019. The global rise of ecommerce was 4% in 2018, with Egyptian marketeers pushing to make online ordering more suited to the Egyptian mindset. Brick and mortar will still remain to be the main channel of selling a product, yet e-commerce shows YOY growth in Egypt with many consumers taking their purchasing habits online for certain categories such as electronics. For other categories, they prefer to research online and purchase offline hence, the consumer purchase cycle is in constant evolvement and brands need to pay attention and adapt to the constant change.
Remie Abdo, Head of Strategic Planning, TBWA \ RAAD From Third-party Data to Zero-party data
No piece of prediction goes without talking about data, so let’s start with it, and get done with it. Marketers realized using inferred data is not optimal and contains a real chance of missing the point, and the target. On the other hand, consumers understood their data will anyway be shared with brands and marketers, no matter how much they try, in vain, to protect it. An ugly reality that both parties will get around with the rise of zeroparty data. We will see consumers voluntarily and proactively sharing their data directly with brands and marketers in return for values and benefits. A win-win for all.
From Attracting Top Talents to the Brain Drain
Tech giants are evolving into the ad industry. Growth in the changing advertising landscape is not clear. The lavish advertising lifestyle that used to charm employees is easily accessible to everyone (and less prominent in the agency industry anyway with all the economic changes). The personal fame that advertising agencies promise is easily self-created on social media. New bling is attracting top talents today: tech environment, start-up mindset, consultancy image, more interesting problems to solve, fuller picture on projects, an outcomebased approach to fee… As such, we will need to prevent top talents from leaving the world of advertising, because even though it’s true that things are changing, change is the driver for excitement.
From Strategy as Input to Strategy as Output
While strategists can be great at almost anything, they can do better at marketing themselves and their value. However, more than ever before, agencies and clients are realizing the value of strategists’ input and making more of their powerful thinking. As such, the role of strategists will broaden from being an input – to creative output, to becoming an output in its own right. I take this trend to heart and in 2019 I will be excited – and making efforts, to see strategy becoming intrinsic to clients’ decisions, and offering business ideas beyond creative ideas only. Many agencies already launched their consultancy arm, like TBWA and Grey amongst others. And we will see more of that.
From Agility to Speed
Agility is too soft (or romanticized about) for the actual need for speed advertising agencies will be witnessing. In our ‘always-on’ world, and in the face of tighter clients’ budgets and increased competition, speed is of the essence. We will see tighter deadlines from clients (yes, even tighter), shorter processes in the agencies, and more brands tapping into live cultural stories and triggers to be part of social conversations in real time.
There is no doubt that technology has or will very soon UHFRQÀJXUH WKH dynamics and the way relationships are transformed among customers, brands DQG ÀUPV
Carole Hayek, General Manager, Magna
All the technology used in movies and in our imagination to interact or communicate is either currently under development or already in use. There is no doubt that technology has or will very soon reconfigure the dynamics and the way relationships are transformed among customers, brands and firms. Thus, reshaping and creating new business models in the market and certainly in the advertising and media industry.
Therefore, the digital evolution is getting the highest attention and focus of the entire ad industry. Both clients and agencies should invest into understanding this continuous changing environment and create accordingly the solutions for future brand-customer successful communication relationship. The digital transformation has serious consequences on the quality of perceiving and receiving the ads. Kids raised in the midst of this tech environment, unlike adults, have no idea about how life is without. This igeneration will most probably show modifications in their psychological and physical development, creating new needs and new behaviors. Considering, the change might affect the emotional part of the brain, we will need to understand how to create successful bonds in different ways than advertising used to operate, hence a new school of advertising needs to be established.
Older generations getting affected by this trend are also showing a shift in habits, behavior and experiences related to their personal, social or business life.
With the presence of powerful data analytics and machine learning (programmatic), the challenge today is not about investigating which channel reaches the target audience, but rather about the quality of the message that will create attention, engage, convince, and maybe convert. The new path to purchase is changing, and there should be new patterns for consumer acquisition, satisfaction and retention. Data is available and we can use it to create finely targeted marketing, but often the messages are blunted by consumer’s cognitive limitations and attention on digital channels. Many other trends are to watch, like the new big thing of today, AI. Tech giants like Google, Amazon, and others have launched already their AI platforms for digital assistance. Hence, we are moving more and more towards a single platform or channel that will facilitate the consumer online experience.
Among this overall global change, and while the market is lacking maturity and nothing is certain yet, advertisers are still relying on traditional media to convey their messages. The bulk of media budgets this year will continue to be invested on the less risky channels, which enjoy also a remarkable penetration in Lebanon and the region and are considered as trustful sources for measurements and brand safety image.
Ralph Raad, Managing Director, Memac Ogilvy, Beirut
The evidence and industry expertise tells us that digital transformation will take a firmer grip on companies in the coming years, and it’s a trend we’re seeing among our own client base. Many organizations believe that by 2020, half of their revenue will be influenced by digital in some way. Meanwhile, studies suggest that digital transformation - across industry and society combined - has the potential to create up to $100 trillion by 2025. A failure to achieve digital change has also been marked as the number one reason why half of Fortune 500 companies have disappeared since the year 2000. The message for brands is clear: evolve or face extinction. As agencies, we can’t take a backseat during this evolution.
DIGITAL TRENDS
Three technologies will grab a larger share of influence during 2019 - those of Artificial Intelligence, The Internet of Things, and Blockchain.
Artificial Intelligence: Consumers have already embraced AI through the likes of Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa and other variants, but in the coming year we will see AI being adopted for much more than finding a song and predicting the weather. Instead, we’ll see a greater focus on ‘transactional’ AI driven applications (like chatbots) being put to everyday commercial use, such as travel booking (like Mezi) or the screening of job applicants (such as Mya). The overlap of Big Data, Data Science and Analytics with AI is a major trend for us to follow in 2019.
Blockchain: Blockchain will also move forward beyond digital currency creation, which merely scratches the surface of its capability. More and more, we’ll see the technology bring greater operational efficiency by automating business processes or digitizing records. The applications that will soon be infused with blockchain technology have the potential to dramatically improve the security of shared information among known entities, while also improving opportunities for the tracking of physical and digital assets.
The Internet of Things: Meanwhile, IOT is influencing our lives in more ways than we likely realize. The number of connected devices, wearables, vehicles, and other applications is skyrocketing, and will only continue to rise. With the launch of 5G, these devices will become much more connected and influential in our lives, shaping more of our daily decisions, predictions, and behaviors. Brands will be forced to shape experiences accordingly. In that capacity, intelligent homes will go mainstream as more smart home products become available to customers. Smart cities will evolve from delivering solely cost reduction benefits, such as LED lights or better waste management, to better citizen engagement and revenue stream opportunities. For example, violation detection, information broadcasting, crime detection and analysis, and other opportunities from technologies like image recognition and machine learning. Further change will come from advances to IOT sensors, which will optimize the use of data collected via key equipment and processes, especially in sectors such as aerospace, defense, and others.
AGENCY FOCUS
Our main focus will be on digital communication that drives demonstrable impact to brands’ bottom-line. With over a third of the world active on social media, global Internet penetration of over 50%, and mobile penetration of around 70%, there’s no question that the digital world has forever changed how brands communicate. The real question is: are brands using digital channels to the best of their potential? To drive real impact that influences the bottom line of their business. The last few years saw growth in the number of digital communication capabilities, which when adopted correctly by brands, have had a massive impact. I see a number of capabilities continuing to have a significant influence in 2019. For example, social activities that move away from fan and follower growth and driving brand engagement (which have low to no value) towards social programs that drive business impact and are built around effective KPIS. We’ll also see a sharper focus on wellcrafted social content that’s built for
The message for brands is clear: evolve or face extinction. As agencies, we can’t take a backseat during this evolution.
purpose and fueled with a constantly optimized and evolving paid media strategy. This content will need to push a compelling call-to-action and have the creativity to break through the clutter, driving users through the sales funnel from awareness all the way to loyalty. The re-targeting of customers across the stages of this funnel ensures that brand messages are communicated to those who show the highest interest in the product or service. Integrating such a highly targeted social approach with owned channels such as web and mobile ensures that the most engaged audiences are reached, guaranteeing higher conversion. What’s more, 2019 will be a year where social drives more interactions based on key triggers such as birthdays, anniversaries, and specific audience actions (for example, content consumption or online purchases). These moments will trigger personalized messages for individual consumers, increasing interactions with the brand on the other end. Social is also one channel that enables effective performance-based marketing. When combined with other channels such as paid search, programmatic, content syndication, and email - and everything is underpinned by a smart strategy that enables crossover between multiple channels – the results are significant. Real impact can be seen across B2B and B2C where content generates leads and drives greater conversion. With exposure to over 5,000 brand messages per day, relevance and personalization have shifted from nice-to-haves to must-haves as personalization has proved effective. Businesses that use personalization technologies are reporting average sales uplift of 19%, and improved marketing ROI of 15 to 20%. 61% percent of consumers also feel more positive about a brand when marketing messages are personalized, while 53% are more likely to purchase when digital communications are personalized. With the advancement of web platforms, brands are now expected to provide a personalized experience that delivers the right message to the right user on the right device at the right time. The experience has to reflect the users’ device-hopping behavior throughout the day, and underpin an omnichannel approach to marketing and communications.