Drive for multi-screen marketing to dominate 2014, says Millward Brown's annual predictions

Millward Brown, one of the world's leading experts in helping clients grow strong brands, released its annual digital and media predictions for the year ahead. Authored by Millward Brown experts from around the world, the report identifies the need for marketers to better understand consumer behaviour across devices and adjust their investment accordingly as the primary challenge for 2014.

Marketers will need more in-depth audience planning insights into when, where and how different consumers are using different devices in a year when content will simply be viewed on the most convenient screen. They will also need research tools that assess communications effectiveness across screens and help them understand the roles of different screens in the path to purchase.

This information will allow marketers to maximise audience and deliver cost-effective reach across devices as part of a screen-agnostic planning process, while providing the confidence to adapt channel plans to new consumer behaviours.
Millward Brown anticipates significant changes in the media landscape around the world:

• Video budgets will continue to shift from TV to multi-screen
  
• Mobile media spend will rise dramatically, especially among youth-targeted brands
  
• Brands will create more mobile-friendly and readily shareable content and many will experiment with micro-video platforms such as Vine
  
• The rise of screens in all aspects of our lives will encourage many marketers to attempt genuine marketing firsts via creative uses of digital outdoor or via the new possibilities presented by wearable screens such as smart watches and Google Glass.

Clarity and consistency of messaging across all devices and new marketing opportunities will be critical to success. With Millward Brown eye-tracking data for digital display ads suggesting that just one appealing visual is enough to attract attention and consumers focusing on a range of stimuli in quick succession, brands that adopt a more minimalist and to-the-point approach will achieve greater engagement.

"In 2014 we'll see more marketers seeking to generate interaction between screens via interesting approaches such as TV ads with hashtags. However, the most successful marketers will build a cohesive, clear and consistent presence across screens and closely align advertising expenditure with the time their audience spends on each device," said Duncan Southgate, Global Brand Director for Digital at Millward Brown.

For a full list of Millward Brown's 2014 Digital and Media Predictions please visit www.millwardbrown.com/DigitalPredictions