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Archived in Whilst some might be wishing to get through this year as quickly as possible, we’re excited about the prospects for 2009 and the developments taking place in such an exciting industry (we like to think so anyway).
There can be little doubt that marketing is going to experience some substantial changes, and here are our predictions for the ones to watch out for in 2009:
- Tightening budgets mean brands will be demanding marketing that’s more measurable, and will be spending less on big TV and outdoor projects. The measurability of email and other digital campaigns, such as personalised URLs, will hasten the shift of budgets from traditional to online marketing.
- Email marketing will continue to be popular because of its familiarity, measurability and effectiveness in building customer relationships. More sophisticated data collection means email will become more targeted and can deliver personalised one-to-one marketing campaigns, rather than one size fits all mass mailings, which risk getting flagged as spam.
- The web will continue to grow as an entertainment and social medium where people spend more time watching skateboarding monkeys on YouTube and poking their friends on Facebook. In response, expect to see more marketing aimed at connecting with customers on a more personal level and to present a human face to a business’ identity.
- Print will continue to defy digital fan boys by maintaining its position as the medium in which most people prefer to receive offers. Campaigns integrating an initial print stage followed by digital activity will become more targeted, measurable and popular.
- The proliferation of the iPhone, and other true web enabled handsets, will continue pushing the growth of the mobile web at a healthy rate, and mobile marketing along with it. Advertisers will harness the popularity of social networking with the introduction of free aggregators that collect together content from different websites into one place in exchange for wedging ad messages between the Facebook updates and Twitter feeds. Brands also will rush to release iPhone apps & games, with most of them being awful.
- Yahoo’s share price will continue to plummet as it struggles to dislodge Google’s tyrannical grip of the online advertising market. Eventually it’s forced to crawl to Microsoft, with its cap in hand, and sell its search functionality at a knockdown price.
- Apple carries on calling Microsoft a nerd, infuriating Microsoft and making it try even harder to become cool, at which it continues to fail.
- Google buys Iceland (the country, not the supermarket) after the monopolies commission bans it from buying up more of the digital space.
- Disintegrating newspaper sales force the Sun and Daily Mirror to combine into a single daily. The low cost of office space in London means they’re spared from sharing the same offices, and can continue competing over who has got the best front page on their websites, which attract more views than their papers ever did.
- By June everyone owns a digibox and routinely fast forward through the ad breaks. The collapse of ad revenue means ITV and C4 can no longer afford to make their own programmes. Whilst they’ve been awarded part of the BBC’s license fee (following another campaign by ‘outraged’ Daily Mail readers), the BBC stubbornly refuses to let them onto the iPlayer. The cost of advertising becomes so low that brands start broadcasting their own TV shows. Highlights include ‘Celebrity Demolition Derby’ sponsored by Volvo and a soap opera based in a glamorous Stella Artois brewery.
- As 2009 draws to a close it’s the businesses who’ve continued marketing during the recession that’ll be best positioned to prosper as the climate improves. Along with maintaining their presence in the marketplace, they’ll also have developed their expertise in delivering targeted, cost effective marketing, whilst their rivals will struggle to regain the market share they’ve lost from remaining silent.
So those are a few of our serious predictions (and a couple less so) of what you can expect to see happening in 2009.
Perhaps the main message you’ll hear repeated everywhere is that now is not the time to panic, go into hibernation and cut back on your marketing altogether.
2009 will be the year in which marketing becomes smarter and more cost effective.
It needs to respond to the changes that were already taking place before the ‘r’ word was mentioned, and to use the tools at your disposal to deliver marketing that’s more targeted, more personalised and more effective in engaging with your customers.
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BDA (Buckingham Design Associates) blog – real people giving real opinions, and a complete lack of agency waffle. BDA deliver an exciting blend of design and creative marketing for the Oxford, Milton Keynes, Northampton and London region.
February 12th, 2009 at 2:49 am
Enoyed your post and bookmarked you for future reading.. Thinking of adding some of your content to my website ZestforMarketing