ShareAt this time of year, we all look back on the year just gone and more importantly, try and predict what will happen in in the year to come. I’m sure you’ll read plenty of such ‘previews’ over the next few weeks, so I thought I’d try and present it in a slightly different way. In a series of blog posts, I’ll be speaking to marketers, designers, developers and project managers from the Coast Digital team and getting their opinions on what they consider to be important developments to keep an eye on in 2013.
The Digital Landscape in 2012
In my humble opinion, I think 2012 has been one of the most challenging and exciting years in digital that I can remember.
The EU Cookie Directive finally came (and went!), Google continued its relentless march to make its search results more ‘relevant’, Facebook reached 1 billion active users and the tablet market quite literally burst into life with Ofcom reporting that tablet ownership has increased from 2% to 11% in the UK over the last 12 months and The Guardian reporting that PC World and Currys sold a tablet every second on ‘Cyber Monday’.
There are of course many, many more things to look back on, but now is the time to look forward and try to predict where our attention should be focused in 2013.
Social Marketing in 2013
I would imagine that everyone has a very strong opinion on what will happen socially in 2013, so for the first in my series of posts, I spoke to Coast’s social media consultant, Liam ‘Lewy’ Shepherd, who thinks targeted TV advertising will be one to keep an eye on:
“Targeted TV advertising has been mentioned before (Google TV), but yet to be widely implemented as far as I’m aware. TV advertising has always been somewhat fuzzy in comparison to the rest of the digital marketing landscape. You can achieve a vague indication of whom your target audience will be, but never accurate data, meaning you can’t target specific demographics.
With Smart TV being all the rage this Christmas however and increasing numbers of users logging into Facebook and Twitter through their television sets, it’s highly likely that precise demographics will become available, making accurate targeting of TV adverts more viable.”
I have to admit, that Lewy’s prediction wasn’t exactly what I was expecting and shows another angle on how social media affects our lives on a daily basis.
While not exactly seeing ‘targeted’ TV advertising at the moment it is slowly working its way into the marketing mix. The gambling industry is a good example, as it moves towards more dynamic TV advertising with live betting odds advertisements during football matches. Whilst a small step currently, I’m with Lewy and think that TV advertising through smart TV may well be something to keep a very close eye on in 2013.
Do you agree with Lewy’s prediction about Smart TV and targeted advertising? Or is there something you think will be more prominent in social media marketing during 2013? Share your predictions with us and over the next few weeks I’ll be looking at web development trends, mobile marketing predictions and digital project management into 2013.