futurechat

David Rogers and Hemant Sachdev talking about the Future of Branding in India

Over the course of the last few weeks, there have been many posts that have talked about 2010. Here are some thoughts that I found interesting. If you are aware of more, please do share some links too.

5 Non-Obvious Marketing Trends To Watch – Rohit Bhargava

• The Importance Of When.
• Rebirth Of Usability
• Marketing With Customer Service
• The Rise Of Voluntary Ambassadors
• More Businesses Find Their Personality

How Enterprise Applications Will Change – Esteban Kolsky

• Business Functions – You have to embrace a new model, and you need new business functions for that.
• Communities – You will no longer build communities to control, you will participate in ad-hoc and impromptu communities.
• Experience – Or are you trying to do the “online experience” or the “brick-and-mortar experience”? The disconnect is what’s causing you to fail.
• Convergence – You will need to converge your Enterprise 2.0 (internal) and Social CRM (external) strategies (first), initiatives (second), and implementations (third).

Three Enterprise 2.0 Themes You Should Be Watching – Hutch Carpenter

• Impact of SharePoint 2010
• Enterprise 2.0 Becomes “Like Air”
• Enterprise 2.0 Market Stratifies

10 News Media Content Trends to Watch - Vadim Lavrusik

• Living Stories
• Real-Time News Streams
• Blogozines
• Distributed Social News
• News Goes Mobile
• The Year of Geo-Location
• Story-Streaming
• Social TV Online
• Marketers as Producers
• Social News Gaming

Consumer Trends Influencers

A Resolution to Fix Morale – Kelli Schmith

• Simply pay attention to your people – Give your employees thoughtful attention.

The New Way to Work – Top 5 Trends to Watch – Contagious Ideas

• Organizations will embrace Design Thinking
• Women will play a more important role in re-defining traditional notions of work
• Small business owners will become the new stars of economic growth
• “Happiness” will become a way to measure economic prosperity
• Personal branding will become the buzzword of talented workers around the world

Four Ways Consumer Mobility Will Reshape Digital Advertising – Dave Courtney

• Audiences Will Replace Channels
• Mobile Evolves Beyond Devices
• Contextual Location Emerges
• Engagement as a Metric

Landor’s 2010 Trends Forecast: Market Trends and their impact on Brands

Media Predictions – Pat Kitano

• Community Engagement will become the Driver of Local Media
• Mobile + Local advertising = Penny Saver 2.0
• Mobile + Advertising + Pubsubhubbub = Alert systems
• Advertising as Content
• Everybody becomes a marketer, and some will become sales closers
• Virtual socializing and Webinar ubiquity
• The grass roots Web
• The stream is more important than website
• Curation is the new syndication
• A new era of open social media

5 Social Media Implications for Brands – Sienna Farris

• Social media marketing will finally transition from “nice to have” to “must have”
• Location-based social networking is here to stay  ( Also read The Future of Geo-Tagged Marketing )
• Experimental social media budgets are key
• The division between the virtual world and the physical world will continue to blur
• Crowd sourcing will turn social media into a direct sales channel

The Top Trends That Will Shape Social Entrepreneurship – Nathaniel Whittmore

• Online Action Moves Away From Just Donations
• Coworking and Startup Incubation
• Sector Blending
• Innovation Ecosystems
• Creativity in Seed Stage Funding

The Year Marketing Dies… – The role of the new marketer:

• Won’t be simply to focus on outbound messaging but to consult with sales, customer service, and human resources on how the brand must be communicated in every consumer interaction, every tweet, and every touchpoint,
• Won’t be merely to imagine creative messages but to fashion programs that are seamless with the actual product and service experience,
• Won’t be to plan bursts of communication on a yearlong calendar but to respond to and be part of the ever-changing dialog with consumers,
• Won’t be to count friends, page visits, eyeballs, readers, or viewers but to measure changes in consumer attitude and intent,
• Won’t be merely to talk at consumers but to listen and engage one to one,
• Won’t be to build campaigns but relationships,
• Won’t be to create impressions but experiences, and
• Won’t be buy media but to earn it.

The 10 TENsions That Will Define 2010 – Ross Dawson

• Optimism – Fear
• Institutional work – Independent work
• Hyperconnected – Disconnected
• Openness – Privacy
• Youth – Experience
• Death of Media – Birth of Media
• Immigration – Borders
• Climate Activists – Climate Doubters
• Innovation – Copying
• Me – Everyone

Digital Trends

• Social media fatigue
• Real-time search and social search
• The end of the Intranet … as we know it
• Content leaves home
• Augmented Reality (AR)
• Service on demand
• User-friendly collaboration tools
• The new interface
• iPhone-killers

Some Next Big Things – Faris Yakob

• Gestures – Gestural interfaces are the future of human computer interaction, at least until we find a way to connect something straight into your brain
• Banners – Thinking about banner networks as ways to distribute samples of interesting content to your audience might lead them to earning their own attention
• The socialization of mainstream media – new media do not displace old media. They simply change what it is for.
• Content – To get in on the spread requires content strategy, and the lack of media scarcity online means we need to “think like a dandelion” – produce as much content as possible and see what catches the breeze.
• Hyper-connectivity and transmedia

Penny for Your Thoughts – Don Tapscott

Four Big Ideas Influencing Marketing – John Moore

• Word of Mouth isn’t always Spoken, Sometimes its Visual
• Clear is the New Clever
• Social Media is about Solving more than Selling
• Word of Mouth Marketing Begins First by Listening

Consolidating Strategies – Wim Rampen

• For 2010 I wish all the Customer Centric strategies to consolidate, on a company level

12 Digital Marketing Predictions - Lee Odden

• Hybrid Plans that Combine Subscription Fees with Advertising
• More Transparency on Websites Could Undermine Online Ad Efforts
• Social Plus Search Will Equal Better Results, More Ad Opportunities
• Mobile Commerce’s Time Has Arrived
• Retailers Grapple with Measuring Social Commerce
• Mobile Is Moving Into the Mainstream
• Earned Media Takes Center Stage
• Social Ad Networks Will Expand
• Twitter
• Online News Content
• Digital Video Convergence
• Look to the 55+ Age Demographic for Internet Usage Increases

Technology Forecast & Predictions – Jack Uldrich

Future of Advertising

BtoB Marketers Predictions – Paul Dunay

• Facebook Advertising will take off – Should try it out for recruiting or even brand advertising
• Mobile Marketing – Experiment with Location Based Services especially at live events
• Social will leave Marketing – It starts to transform the rest of your BtoB organization from Product Development and R&D, to Billing and Finance, to HR and Recruiting, to Customer Service and the Contact Center
• Corporate Websites will become less important – More consumption of content off of the corporate website in places like Facebook, YouTube, and relevant Communities and Forums
• Lead Generation tools must combine with Social Media tools
• Listening tools will also get much stronger
• How to handle Advocates will become more important
• MicroVideo shops will start popping up
• Businesses will demand Intelligence not Social Media

Ten Trends

Also explore the Insights and Ingenuity List

Consumer Trend Report from TREND HUNTER

Further Updates : Jan 6, 2010

Top Digital Trends : The drive for content at scale ranks among the developments set to make waves by Brian Morrissey

• Content at Scale
• The End of the Digital Agency
• Social Gaming
• Demand-Side Platforms
• Engagement Pricing
• Augmented Reality Grows Up
• Social Media Morphs into Digital

Top Ten Digital Trends – Simon Mainwaring

• Where You Are Is Who You Are
• THE Customer As Advertiser
• Real-Time Search
• Selling The “Why”, Not The “What”
• Overcoming Overload
• Content Is King
• Augmented Reality
• Measuring Engagement
• Crowdsourcing For Everyone
• Your Brand in Their Hands

Predictions: Conscious Capitalism, Vertical Learning – Raff Viton

• The integration of Conscious Capitalism will spur long-term growth
• Vertical learning will be of increasingly high value

Five Predictions on Collaborative Computing – Rob Howard

• 2010 will be another year of growth for the industry
• Engagement analytics will replace Web analytics
• Platform, not application
• Collaboration will replace social
• Enterprise search technology will grow

Customer Experience Resolutions – Bruce Temkin

• We shall put in place a robust voice of the customer program
• We shall stop playing with social media and put it to good use
• We shall treat customer service as a loyalty-driver, not a cost center
• We shall go beyond just fixing problems and inspire brand promoters
• We shall establish clarity in our brand, internally and externally
• We shall identify a senior executive to lead the transformation effort
• We shall help new customers get value from us faster and easier
• We shall improve the usability of all self-service interactions
• We shall communicate more clearly with customers across all channels
• We shall make our culture more customer-centric

A Look Forward – David Polinchock

• Authenticity continues to be a critical
• As SM grows, people will demand much more from brands
• Brands must learn that they start the conversation, people amplify it
• If you don’t give me information, I’ll go to someone who will
• We need to expand the Experience Continuum
• To expand the Experience Continuum, we need to start creating Oneline experiences
• We’ll start to understand the importance of Location Based Branding
• AR & QR codes will become mainstream
• Physical retail needs to adapt or face the consequences

5 Marketing Principles Brands Should Embrace – Frank Striefler

• Create better realities
• Don’t be design blind
• Be “brand led”
• Think 365 — not 360
• Be interesting

The Words You are Going to Hear a Lot

• Spurned Media
• Mobilenecking
• Jack Ripper
• Wiki Wart
• Oedipost Complex
• Deciprocity
• Faux Post
• Appfusion
• Brand Tease
• Shelf Storm
• Apptosterone
• Buck Sucked
• Trust Lapse
• Runway Rebel
• Blog Dodger
• Tweet-Shifting
• Curbcasting
• Twitstop
• Digital Detox

The Future of Social Media

The Mobile Internet Report – Summary

10 Things – Bring Work to Life – Krishnan Chatterjee

• Impact Not Transaction
• A piece of You. Not You as a piece
• Run the race against yourself
• Knowledge and Skills are irrelevant without Insight
• Earn a Seat at the Table
• Think Outside In
• Leadership is the art of self-redundancy
• You HAVE to push the envelope
• Detail, Detail and Detail
• There is no trust without being yourself

It was interesting to read Future trends 2010 for UK but the talking points in India are likely to be substantially different, from this list, in 2010. A list that is likely to be collated soon.

In our context, some points that seemed interesting to deliberate on are listed here.

1. Food and Eating out – The writer talks about a trend towards genetically modified food, eating at home being considered by more people. The affluent Indian customer though is increasingly exploring more options for entertainment and eating out. Meanwhile the debate on genetically modified foods here rages on. Most people , likely are not sure about the pros and cons. The food challenge that must be addressed is about food purity and to a much larger sense food security to a large part of our country.

2. Music consumption moving from download to streaming – Streaming music may be something that is being talked about there but there is much more potential in a digital delivery model that allows a user to play music irrespective of internet connectivity. In our case, broadband speeds and pricing are not exactly conducive to streaming music for the near term. Today there was an article that talks about music delivery in India on pen drives and sd cards . While interesting, it seems another wasted opportunity by the music industry while at the same time increasing digital waste that have still no clear recycle processes. The music shopping experience needs to improve dramatically and consider innovative options to deliver legal music to the customer. It is interesting that digital delivery of music has only recently launched in India with Nokia Music’s offer on selected phones. I will write a more detailed view on music delivery in another post.

What , in your view, are some of the topics and trends that India will be talking about in 2010.

“There is no practical obstacle whatever now to the creation of an efficient index to all human knowledge, ideas and achievements, to the creation, that is, of a complete planetary memory for all mankind…the whole human memory can be, and probably in a short time will be, made accessible to every individual. And what is also of very great importance in this uncertain world where destruction becomes continually more frequent and unpredictable, is this, that…it need not be concentrated in any single one place.” – HG Wells talking about the Microfilm

It could be said today as well after so many years since this quote. It is always interesting to revisit Future gazing statements of the past and contemplate.

In the current context, there is always the issue of standards, competing formats, devices and in the case of DVD even regions and languages to grapple with. In a sense, information access is still a story of have and have nots. I wonder what would Mr Wells think now if he were to revisit his statement..

Some quick questions that come to mind with regard to Facebook acquiring Friendfeed

1. Friendfeed is used more as a “real time” aggregation service . Facebook also has some form of aggregation. But searching this aggregated content and in recent time file sharing etc allowed people to find topics of interest. How would Facebook policies evolve to allow such search of aggregated content?

2. Will this acquisition mean that seemingly more content will be gated or does it mean that facebook will open up more ?

The Evolving Concept of Time for Work and Leisure more...

We can’t predict the future, but we can think more about the sort of future we want, and how it could be achieved.

This message by Mr. R.K. Pachauri says it all. 

He speaks about the link between green inclusive growth, poverty eradication and climate change. 

Experience is all about the expectations and reality. This message strikes a chord about what Planet Earth expects of the human race and the current reality. The work we do starting now may well define the nature of life for the children of today and future generations. 

A very humbling thought !