The changing media landscape - highlights from our Digital Breakfast

October's APA Digital Breakfast was held at Microsoft this week, where Kieron Matthews, from the IAB gave an insightful and entertaining overview of the current online market. Hopefully you were there to see his presentation, but if not here are the highlights to show you what you missed...

The changing media Landscape

Marketing budgets were down in Q1 2009, but the rate of decline has eased, and in Q2 advertisers were reporting improved financial prospects.

73% of the UK's population is now online and there is a big focus on getting those not online, online.  The frequency that people go online has increased, with 49% of the UK's population going online more that once a day, with social media being the biggest push.

There is a continuous growth of broadband users, 92% of web users access is above 2mb, with 56% of homes using wireless broadband.

Wireless has changed the way advertisers can reach us, 61% of people surf and watch TV at the same time. And with wireless, there can be more than one laptop being used at one time, so advertisers can reach multi people in households. Male and female users can now be individually targeted.

Online ad spend is now higher than TV, but this doesn't make it anymore effective, it just means that advertisers are putting more of their spending towards online. The market in 2008 was worth £3,349.7m, an increase of £537.1m year-on-year. So far in 2009 there has been a 4.6% increase on a like for like basis and online advertising is the only medium showing growth in H1 2009 and it's the largest media in the UK for H1 2009.

Trends

Historically TV and press advertising formats never really changed, but online advertising is constantly changing and you need to keep on top of it to understand it.

1. Participation
Kieron gave examples of good online media campaigns, where brands want their consumers to participate and engage with their brand.

Some examples of great brand engagement are:

-          Ben and Jerry's - Do the World a flavour. Very similar to a campaign by Walkers crisps, where Ben and Jerry's ask their consumers to create their own ice cream flavour, and the winning one will actually be produced.

-          Three Wolves T-shirt on Amazon.com- The story behind this infamous t-shirt, was where one customer review claimed that the t-shirt made him irresistible to women, which lead to more and more people buying the t-shirt, and leaving their reviews about their instant attraction to women. So far 1,529 people have reviewed the t-shirt!

-          Albion's oven tweet bake - this East end bakery lets its customers know when the bread has just come out of the oven. It now has 1,645 of its customers following them on twitter.

2. Entertainment
Brands can engage with their consumers by entertaining them.

- www.Comparethemeerkat.com - Who would have thought a puppet meerkat could become so successful. Not only does it make the consumer easily think of the brand ‘Compare the market.com', but it entertains too; the adverts,  a comical outtakes video and even a Facebook page for the main meerkat himself Aleksandr Orlov, he has over 600,000 followers!

3. Staying in
With the recession upon us, a big trend is to stay in, so some of those benefiting are media service providers such as Sky see their subscribers increase. TV on demand and even food delivery services all see a rise in demand during a recession.

People who stay in, will also be listening to music, and with this sees a change in the ways in which users consume their music. To go out and buy a CD is no longer the norm, as most now download music online. Thus the ways in which user's access music online is seeing the biggest change in recent history. Music on demand sites such as Last FM and Spotify have become massive, which in turn is changing the way in which we pay for music, with the trend moving towards monthly payment plans for instant music, but also the option of free music, with a trade off that there will be adverts.

Another trend is to create something in the digital world that is happening in the real world, for example Carling created a noise levels display board at football matches, so that the crowds for either team can see who is being the loudest.

5. Digital World
Nokia viNe is a breakthrough mobile application that records photos, videos, songs, text, voice and bookmarks onto a multimedia map of your life. You can share with your friends where you have been, photos and videos you have taken and the music you have been listening too, all from your phone. This is a great example of brand engagement in the digital world.

6. Eventful
Brand events have been an ever growing trend over the last few years. If you are a strong brand, you have a great opportunity to create events that encourage participation with the brand, examples such as:

- Innocent Fruitstock festival

- Flashmobs - Media has started to use the craze of flashmobs to promote the brand, such as T-mobile's organised flashmob dance performance at Liverpool street station .

Although not a brand, a great one to watch is the celebration of The Oprah Show's 24th season kickoff, where they created a massive dance routine to the Black eyed Peas. Not only do they work as great advertising, but they are entertaining, which is turn means people will share them with others. The You Tube video of the T-mobile flashmob has seen 15,154,650 view it.

6. Mobile                   
By 2012 more people will access the internet via their mobile than a PC. Because of this mobile is going to change very quickly, similar to how the web changed. Access to the web via mobile will become easier and easier.

The iPhone and the applications downloaded, has been a huge new trend. Downloads of phone applications are now in the billions, with brands creating useful, fun and engaging apps for users. A couple of good examples of this are:

-          Waterslide Extreme - a game based on Barclaycard's 'iconic' waterslide advert, was downloaded more than 2 million times within a week of its launch

-          Tube Exits - it's a simple program that works out where you should stand on an Underground platform to drop you by the stairs at your destination, so you can beat the rush every time. Such a shame London Underground didn't think of it first!

Finally Kieron made the insightful suggestion that brands need to look to put themselves where their consumers are, take your content to where they are. Don't let them have to find you, you find them. Maybe WHSmith's should look to put their online store within the Trainline.com website, that's where all there consumers are, why wait for them to find the WHsmith website?

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