‘The future’ is on repeat

Opinion: Strategy Leaders

When it comes to emerging technologies and how they will impact marketing, how do we heed the cynic’s glass half empty caution, while also embracing the optimist’s glass half full guidance? The realist’s answer is to experiment, scale and repeat.

Media is having its annual Groundhog Day moment.

The launch of Apple’s Vision Pro this month has kickstarted a deluge of zealous debate about whether the arrival of this latest bit of $3000+ technology will impact the future of media.

I have worked in this industry long enough to remember the rise and fall of many of the industry’s great hopes (in no particular order): Google Glass, Amazon’s Fire Phone, Snapchat Spectacles, Nokia phones and their reboot, The Facebook Phone, ‘The Year of Mobile’, Facebook Pokes, Google+, MSN Messenger, MySpace, Flappy Bird, Ask Jeeves, Lycos, Twitter’s Vine, All the London freemiums (e.g. London Lite), Windows 8, Microsoft Kinect, PlayStation Vita, Blackberry, Flash Mobs, Hoverboards, Crypto currency (too soon?) …

Failure is one of media life’s great guarantees.

As a result, this poses us with a conundrum. On one hand, we don’t want to evangelise the latest snake oil, fail fast and invest unwisely, but on the other we don’t want to miss the opportunity to steal a competitive advantage by experimenting with emerging technologies before they go mainstream.

To help settle this debate I have looked at some of the latest future predictions and tried to offer perspectives from both the cynic and optimist’s sides of the crystal ball.

Virtual, augmented and mixed reality headsets

Cynic: Apple Vision Pro (or any headset for that matter) has as much chance of 3D cinema, TV’s ‘smell vison’ or Meta’s metaverse of becoming the new normal for media consumption. It’s an extraordinary product, which ordinary people won’t buy — especially in a cost-of-living crisis.

Optimist: Smartphones took the best part of a decade to breakthrough and connected headsets (as we know them today) are being developed by every major technology company — including Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Sony, Samsung etc. so its only a matter of time before they have their day. Plus, Apple product launches rarely fail.

Generative AI

Cynic: All content, creative and media won’t be generated by AI, because human creativity, intuition, and imagination are difficult to replicate in algorithms. AI needs the human touch. And us humans will get bored of prompting. Plus ethical, ownership rights and legal issues are all on the horizon.

Optimist: All content, creative and media will be generated by AI, because it can rapidly generate and evaluate a vast number of ideas, designs, and solutions, helping to accelerate innovation and discovery. AI will become the personal assistant, creative partner and media planner — basically a low cost, 24/7 FTE (full time equivalent).

All inventory media campaigns

Cynic: One stop media buys and solutions are nothing new. The recent(ish) pivot by both Google and Meta to Performance Max and Advantage+ respectively go one step further and ask advertisers to put faith in them to deliver, target and create assets with limited approval, apart from signing off a single budget and goal. Marketers are staunch brand guardians, and the loss of control is unfathomable.

Optimistic: Omni-channel campaigns enable brands to reach their target audience across multiple platforms, devices, and inventory sources increasing the overall visibility and conversion of their marketing efforts. As media continues to expand and fragment, simpler solutions where reach, frequency and outcomes can be coordinated as one become increasingly more attractive.

Attention

Cynic: No one denies attention (passive and active) is a much-desired key performance indicator (KPI), but this has always been achieved through quality media placement and creative work. Indeed, relevant, impactful and timely ads delivered in low clutter, high dwell time, and high pixel environments are simply the hallmarks of great advertising.

Optimist: Attention is the greatest leap forward we have had had in measuring media since the arrival of marketing mix modelling (MMM). It is proven to impact both short and long-term outcomes. In time it will replace viewability, econometrics and brand measures as the north star of effectiveness.

So, how do we simultaneously heed the cynic’s glass half empty caution, while also embracing the optimist’s glass half full guidance?

The realist’s answer is to experiment, scale and repeat.

The latter is probably the most important part of the equation, because if any of the above innovations make an impact then they should be able to be replicated at larger spend levels, for more moments and audiences, and across a wider portfolio of briefs.

At EssenceMediacom, we have a mantra that “this year’s breakthrough will be next year’s business as usual”.

This is because the ability to replicate impact is a true test for any brand, and ultimately, our escape, from the future of media Groundhog Day.

James Parnum is head of media planning at EssenceMediacom UK.