[Trends 2015] Explosive disruption for marketing

2015 will be the year that disruption becomes explosive on the marketing and advertising landscape. Organisations that fail to adequately understand and embrace the coming trends will be surpassed in the market.

Three elements have conjoined, which deeply impact on the way organisations will need to communicate with consumers:

1. Video consumption is on the rise - significantly. The Ericsson Mobility Report predicts that globally, 55% of mobile data traffic will come from video by 2020. Already, video accounts for 45% of the global mobile data traffic. Locally, World Wide Worx's South African Social Media Landscape 2015 report states that YouTube has an active South African user base of 7.2 million.

2. The surge in mobile phone subscriptions in sub-Saharan Africa is touted to top 635 million by the end of 2014 (Ericsson Mobility Report). Consuming content on mobile devices is the medium of choice. And while locally we have a lower smartphone penetration and are far more conscious of the cost of data than those in wealthier economies, the growth remains rapid. Incidentally, the number of subscriptions is set to increase to 930 million by the end of 2019, which leads into the next highly influential trend - that of multi-screening.

3. Multi-screening. 99% of media is consumed in front of a screen, whether these are phones, TVs, computers, or tablets. Via multi-screening, users use multiple devices sequentially and simultaneously - predominantly via hand-held devices. If marketers and advertisers adequately understand their target audience, this consumer behaviour can be extraordinarily effective in their endeavours to engage.

   Multi-screening, for the first time, allows us to create incremental reach to users with targeted content (for example, a woman aged 32, with children, who watches a TV ad for a car, and while on her mobile at the same time sees an ad for the same car - but this time saying there is space for a baby seat - due to the targeting available).

Consumer preferences dictate effective marketing and advertising strategies. Social media platforms are already on board with these peaking trends, with Facebook and Twitter already tackling tech problems that don't yet exist - these platforms are investing in upgrades to cater for the heavier demand on their infrastructure. Facebook is directly taking advantage of the increased demand for video by creating products justified by organisations' investments in brand lift and direct response through video.

And organisations are seeing strong returns on both their direct response and brand lift video campaigns. Simply, if you adequately understand your audience, and thus produce video ads that offer value to them, they become a highly effective medium. If we run a video on Facebook, we see on average that 75% of people watch that video to the end. As an outreach tool, it is extremely cost effective. And, through a medium such as Facebook, combined with sophisticated algorithm tools available, the spend can be finely targeted, ensuring that you appear only to those who are genuinely interested in what you are marketing.

We must accept the consumer's growing preference for video, the behaviour of multi-screening, and the explosive growth of mobile devices. By combining these with a content strategy that adds value, while effectively targeting the right audience at the right time via algorithmic tools, 2015's trends can be manipulated to your advantage.

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