With ‘man-and-boy’ hindsight, I will wonder what on earth became of the media, entertainment and marketing industries I left behind.

How will brands communicate when I’m 80 (and no longer care)?  How will my children and grand-children be entertained?

In many ways, Brands and Sales Agents would love us to dream a future where there would be no need for advertising at all: companies would make such great products and have such happy and loyal clients/customers, that word of mouth alone would be enough to rid the ‘airwaves’ of adverts or placed products.  ‘Entertainers,’ or those in the media entertainment market, would also love this brave new world: a world where online and offline ‘bandwidth’ is ‘freed up for fun,’ without the need for any ‘messages from our sponsors.’

Is this likely?  I think it might be.  Why?  Because the following indicators (as of April 2012) suggest that the power of advertising might be significantly diminished by October 2057:

Customisation, Personalisation; the bespoke tailoring of services and products – DATA RULES OK!

Unquestionably, by the time I’m 80, those of my generation will have amassed vast quantities of data.  It will therefore be easy for me to make purchases that suit me – and only me.  Behavioural studies, neuro-marketing, and data-centric models – not advertising – will drive the new rules of brand engagement.  My Sushi restaurant will know that my grandson is allergic to mushrooms; my travel agent will know that my family can only holiday in the first two weeks of August (and that my son prefers Caribbean destinations) –  and, if I agree to be informed about new products, the message about the launch of a new set of golf-irons will be delivered to me (and only me) at a time and a place when I am open and ready to perceive it.

People – the power of the many:

The internet made us all equal.  It democratised the buying and selling of goods and services.  It made geography irrelevant (apart from when you wanted to tell people where you are).

So why buy someone else’s brand when you can not only BE your own brand, but also MAKE your own brand? Especially in a world where the costs of real production are so low.

Can’t find the right golf shoes to match your plus-fours?  No problem – design and customise your own, and have them produced.  Your golfing buddies like them?  Good – they can do the same, and in so doing will be only too pleased to tell the world of your skills as a golf-shoe designer. Herein, RIP the Brand Manager: hello to the ‘Brand/Services Advocator!’ Seeing this, companies and brand owners will be free to withdraw from the narrow restrictions of brand advertising and will be more at liberty to launch products or services into ‘test-markets;’ waiting for consumers to try it, discuss it, and create the ‘message’ by themselves.  The people will decide.

The ‘Non-owned’ is good for society, and good for our planet:

If we’ve still got a planet (and a society) left in 45 years time, we, as ‘consumers of stuff’ will have to move away from our obsession with ownership, and think about more sustainable ways of consumption.

‘Buying’ will have to be replaced by ‘subscribing,’ ‘leasing’ and/or ‘sharing.’  Payments for ongoing services and products will be the norm: product placement and advertising around the individual ‘good’ of ‘service’ will be irrelevant.   We will continue to subscribe to a better and better ‘home entertainment hubs,’ serviced by media distributors and creators (of which we will also be one ourselves)! The latest and greatest electronics and gadgets will be available to us – and ours can be refurbished for the next consumer with a cheaper subscription.  The market will dictate the price, and the demand will dictate the supply.

Of course, some of this isn’t new.  Customised golf shoes for the Summer of 2012?  Sure: http://www.footjoy.co.uk/myjoys/#1743367/ticker - A Home Entertainment Hub installed in time for the weekend? Absolutely: http://home.cisco.com/en-eu/explore - Borrow a car for a day out at the seaside? Of course: http://www.zipcar.com/

What is clear is that these trends can be taken as indicators of where our branding, entertainment and marketing minds should focus – and they may even give us some clues for what the next 20, 30 or even 40 years may hold.

Because one thing is for sure: come 2057, my mind will be on other things!

The new credit, which would come into effect from April 2013, is expected to apply similar principles to the tax regime governing the film industry. Current relief amounts to a 20-25% discount on corporation tax for UK film productions and is estimated to be worth about £100m to film production companies last year.

“Not only will this help stop premium British TV programmes such as Birdsong being made abroad, it will also attract top international investors such as Disney and HBO to make more of their premium shows in the UK. It will support our brilliant video games and animation industries, too,” the Chancellor said.

The UK was the world’s third-largest games maker in 2006, but fell to sixth place in 2011. Head-count among Britain’s games makers has declined by 10 per cent since 2008.  As a direct comparison to a tax-break nation, game developers in Canada have grown by a third over that period.

In the animation industry, only about 23 per cent of UK-originated programmes are made in domestically, down from more than 80 per cent five years ago. Popular British children’s’ shows such as Thomas the Tank Engine and Octonauts are now being produced in countries such as Canada and Ireland.

Big budget television productions that are being filmed abroad include ITV’s Titanic, which was produced in Canada and Hungry. The BBC dramas Camelot and The Tudors were both filmed in the Republic of Ireland.

On the face of it, this is a huge boon for the UK creative industries – encouraging International Producers to commission services and creative facilities the UK, as well as providing a much needed boost to the budgets of UK Production companies.

But we’ll have to be patient.  The consultation period will mean that breaks won’t be available for at least a year, and the TV industry in particular will have to face up to the reality of long periods of pre-production (or total inactivity!) towards the end of 2012 while budgets are re-aligned with April 2013 in mind.

Equally, we are hopeful for a positive and considered period of consultation, and that this will result in tax break that are ‘fit for purpose.’ The reality is that drama projects of £1m+ per hour (the expected level at which the tax relief will apply) actually make up a very small percentage of all scripted commissions in the UK; projects of £900k plus are categorised by the BBC as the ‘top tier,’ reserved only for ‘premium drama.’  Will PACT and UK Screen push for a sliding scale of relief for lower budget work?  We hope they do.

And what about multi-platform?   Blurred lines between gaming, animation, online and broadcast media is now the norm for lots of creative projects.  We hope that the demand for 360-degree creative content will be met with 360-degree support from the Exchequer.

Today’s announcement is great news.  But time will tell exactly how great.

HD video ‘on-the-go’ is now the norm.  Thanks to super fast 4G networks and the huge advances in the screen-resolution of portable media devises, the opportunity to view hundreds of thousands of hours of HD content on the move is a reality.

The new iPad, with retina display and LTE connections, are bringing a new host of devotees not only to Apple, but also to the tablet computing world: a world that has exploded since the launch of the first iPad in April 2010 – and a world that sees portable HD as the standard way to view the moving image.

Of course, for content producers and owners, this is wonderful news.  We are now in a world where stunning HD imagery can be seen ‘straight out of the pocket;’ Apple or otherwise.

But how wonderful is this from a commercial stand-point?  And more importantly, how sustainable?

As Hi-def video – or rather, the data bandwidth used to deliver it – becomes an ‘expected commodity’ by the consumer,  the more that commodity will start to increase in price.  Not just for consumers, but for the companies that will increasingly need more wireless and wired infrastructures to handle the surge in data demand.  Ultimately, it’s a case of simple ‘supply and demand’ economics: and these principles should perhaps be seen as a warning shot for the industry to keep expectations in check.

The proliferation of online video services and portable devices to watch them on have added congestion to data networks even as wireless carriers impose fees on its biggest data users.  According to Bytemobile, video accounted for half of all mobile data traffic in February 2012, up from 40 percent only a year before.  And all this BEFORE the launch of the iPad 3, whose retina display has 4 times as many pixels as the iPad 2; requiring more wireless data to serve HD content.

The iPhone 5, expected later in the year, will probably also see a superior screen (‘retina for iPhone’ is surely on the cards for the next release), and if this is the case, the issue will only become bigger.

If global telecoms carriers are to meet the demand, more resources will be needed – and ultimately this cost will be passed to the consumer.

Is it time to re-consider when we actually need beautiful HD pictures?   If this answer is ‘always’ and/or ‘on-the-go as well as in our living rooms,’  we might have to be prepared to dig deeper into our pockets to make that a reality…..

We are about to enter a new www ‘dot’ world where business, brands and other organisations will be able to see their name on the right-hand side of the ‘dot’ in the domain-name URL: a brand name will soon be able to take the place of .com; .co.uk; .org etc, etc….

This represents a dramatic and historic development in the online world that will affect every user of the internet.

Despite the existence of millions of possible domain names on the ‘second level’ (www.TAGBOXMEDIA [etc]…..), there are currently fewer than two-dozen possibilities at the top-level (the .com, .net, .biz [etc], bit of the domain).

The introduction of bespoke generic top level domains (gTLD‘s) will see the online naming space expand dramatically, allowing the creation and management of top-level domains for those that want them (and can afford them – see below!).

The benefits to brands are pretty obvious.  dot-brand extensions will allow owners to strengthen their online identity, better engage with their users/customers/clients and will help them reinforce brand security (by limiting the scope for fraud and cyber-squatting).  .burberry for example, will only be able to be owned by the brand itself: better control for those charged with limiting counterfeiting in the world of retail, then.

Ultimately, we see these changes as key to creating new markets in the online space (therefore presenting new opportunity), but as yet, it is unclear how brands will be able to exploit these:

In search (SEO, VSEO) for example, newdrink.cocacola will allow search engines to return content with greater efficiency (better than www.cocacola.co.uk/newdrink), creating a more dynamic market is targeted search.  It will also make the search experience easier.  newdrink.pepsi is easier to add to a URL than trying to second-guess the .com-forward-slash extension.

A new commercial market is also inherent with top-level name conventions, as owners of gTLD’s will be able to sell second level domain registrations entirely at will (IE there is no reason why www.coffee.starbucks won’t be able to sell me www.paul.starbucks if they really want to – let alone the scope for multiple second level domains that allow closed or open domain-networks at the discretion of the owner).

At this very early stage, the value to the end user remain unclear.  But what is clear is the value to ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), the supposedly ‘non-profit’ body overseeing such matters.  An application costs $180,000 and requires applicants to take on onerous technical and commercial obligations to manage and maintain their TLDs; not to mention the 300-page guide book, 50+ questions and a requirement to convince ICANN of the legitimacy and viability of a  claim to a TDL. Not therefore for an individual.  Unless that individual is a brand. (dotBECKHAM?)

Applications opened on the 12th January 2012 – but don’t expect to see much change for a least a year; such is the pace of ICANN’s review and approvals system.

Do these changes democratise web-naming or hand too much power to the super-brands? Where does all this leave the end users? Ultimately these are the crucial questions that will need answering in the brave new dot-world we are all about to enter….

(Grateful thanks to those developers who consult with us and our contacts in preparing this blog – you know who you are – and we are happy to make the connection if you would like more information.  Just drop us a mail). 

Predicting the future is usually the preserve of mad men (and, in our game, analysts and bloggers with no sense of self-deprecation)!

But as 2011 draws to a close, and January welcomes a New Year, I find myself sat at my ipad and wireless keyboard; midway through a 23-hour flight from Sydney to London, and therefore willing to enter the realm of the insane and the self-contratulatory by offering up six key predictions for 2012!

So here we go:

one – online video: the time is now (because of the ubiquity of mobile app browsing and social networks as distiribution channels):

We’re evangelical about online video. We’ve blogged about the opportunities presented by VSEO online, and data-centric metrics for businesses before – plus, of course, the creative reach available to advertisers using video online.

A quick glance at ComScore’s data sheets proves this growth – but why do I think that 2012 will be a key year? Two words: mobile browsing.

The rise of mobile and tablets is having a profound impact on media consumption habits.

Mobile apps that have put video at the centre of their browsing platform have grown in popularity and will continue to do so. This will drive the popularity and proliferation of online video in 2012 way beyond 2011 levels. Just look at how your social network is sharing video (and static) content these days: apps like Flipboard and Pulse are becoming important new distribution channels, and this in turn will be a driver for the growth in video content online.

two – print media: the dramatic resurrection of the magazine and newspaper industries will attract more online advertising spend to these traditional ‘old media’ businesses.

i-tunes monetised the music industry – and in so doing, saved it. Apple’s Newsstand will do the same for the print media industry in 2012. Conde Nast, for example, recently reported a 268% increase in digital subscribers after launching on Newsstand.

Facebook and Google+ social news apps are also opening up opportunities for publishers. At the end of November 2011, The Guardian revealed that its app has been installed more than 4 million times and is driving more than 1 million additional daily page views for the publication. Big news, because more views equals more advertising bucks. More advertising bucks means more development in content and partnerships with third party news aggregation apps and e-viewers (let’s be optimistic about what large publishers do with profits shall we?! It is the New Year, after all!).

three – the rise and rise of ‘pre-found’ media: 2012 will be the year of bespoke, delivered content.

OK, so I’ve come up with a new phrase (this is what happens on long-haul flights after 3 rounds of plastic food in economy!): “pre-found” content is media served up to you by applications that have understood your social media preferences and browsing habits to aggregate and deliver something bespoke. 2012 will see the rise of apps that wade through the huge amounts of media online and deliver content in a beautiful and intuitive-to-view package. Taptu, Zite, News.Me and Flipboard. All worth a look to pick your favourite platform. RSS feeds are so 2011!

four – the impact of ‘second screen’ viewing will present huge opportunities for the Broadcast industries in 2012.

The impact of mobile devises is being is being felt in the living room too. According to Yahoo/Nielsen, 86% of web users now use a mobile device while watching TV (of which 63% are either accessing mobile apps or browsing social networks) – a huge increase from only 2 years ago. This creates new opportunities for marketing companies to launch more interactive campaigns and for advertisers to really take advantage of multi-platform. Start-ups like Into Now (in the US) have created platforms for engaging with the second screen audience: brands such as Pepsi, Gap and Starbucks have been jumping on board.

I predict that 2012 will also see the big TV networks starting to leverage the second screen factor. Most networks are now offering up streaming content on mobile devices, and some are building more creative and interactive experiences as part of their editorial thinking on landmark series – multi-platform content that will also result in more ‘stickability’ when it comes to audience retention, and increased ROI for advertisers. Even on smaller-scale projects, multi-platform will mean more than simply building a website to go alongside the TV show: 2012 will see smarter, more creative strategies for reaching target audiences and taking advantage of the increase in the second screen. Local boutique content creators (including animators, game developers and film-makers) will have just as many opportunities in this landscape as bigger, more established players. A good thing for all.

five – IPTV and connected TV’s will finally break through….

The promise of internet connected TV’s has been around for several years, and products such as Apple TV and networked gaming platforms (such as XBOX and PlayStation) have delivered little more than clunky platforms and average online browser experiences. Not an accusation that one can usually be levelled at Apple. This will change in the New Year.

Google and AppleTV are both working on hardware; LG have annouced a partnership with online specailist, YuMe to launch an ad network on thier connected sets. Just over 64% of TVs sold in 2012 will be connected TVs – with in excess of 35 million people connecting online via their big screen…

All this will mean one thing: more quality content will be needed, alongside a shift in the way in which professional media content is commissioned and distributed.

YouTube, for example, is investing $100 million in original web-only programming that will also be available on connected televisions, and this will drive the demand for better TV browser expereinces; tipping technology and commercial partnerships over the edge as viewers demand the same functionality for web-on-TV as they do on thier desktops and tablets.

six – mobile commerce will monitise content more than ever before in 2012:

Sat alongside increased advertising revenue as a result of the growth in online video platforms are the opportunities presented by e-commerce and mobile micro-payments – all of which we predict will explode in 2012.

Why? Because the big boys are taking e-commerce more seriously than ever before; drawing together all the other growth elements I’ve identified as being key, above.

Amazon and eBay tell tales of a large percentage of overall sales revenue now coming from mobile – a trend we think will continue – with Jupiter Research estimating mobile transactions to have grown to a staggering $670 billion globally by 2015.

Google Wallet, PayPal Wallet, and Square (in the US); not to mention rumours at the end of 2011 that Apple might be moving into the mobile payments space will provide location, deal-brokerage (such as ‘The Special’s Board,’ launched in Australia in 2011 by our very own James Harrison as a good example) and mobile payments all in one handy package.

When combined with integrated advertising, seamlessly syndicated across multi-media platforms, it becomes easier to make the case for 2012 being the new-dawn in mobile purchasing – and opportunities a-plenty.

So there we have it: 6 predictions – and a good hour and half killed on this long flight home!

Time will tell if 2012 will be the pivotal year we think it might be. However one thing is clear: concerns over global austerity and commercial melt-down can certainly be mitigated by the opportunities presented in our fast-moving and exciting market. So go forth and prosper. And have a very happy and healthy New Year.

This dissenting voice is a rarity indeed: most commentators point to the rise and rise of Twitter, Linkedin, FourSquare, Facebook and other social platforms which provide a greater deal of collaboration and empowerment; not just between social groups, but also between consumers and businesses. Schumpeter further argues that: “most commentary on the social media ignores an obvious truth – that the value of things is largely determined by their rarity.” 

This maybe true; but to see large amounts of content as a “huge problem” for those with an interest in sorting the ‘wheat from the chaff’ is to ignore the huge growth of aggregation technologies that have grown in parallel with the explosion of online content – not just for the end user, but increasingly for businesses hoping to exploit social media platforms.

Take a few consumer-focused platforms that we like: Flipboard, Taptu and Pulse; three news and entertainment apps that intelligently aggregate content for the end user.  Not to mention Google and Facebook whose updates and launches in the middle of 2011 have been all about content targeting: either by location or by interest (both for the consumer and the advertiser).

Lucky old consumer; but what about the ‘B’ bit of B2C transaction, Schumpeter may ask?

He need look no further than online metrics (see my post on online video metrics for an example) and other tools that can help businesses and advertisers make sense of the vast amounts of user-generated media and the data that this inherently produces.

“Social technologies” therefore need to be seen in the context of the wider social media landscape; including new and developing technologies that measure, aggregate and find – not just those that create and generate.

In that context, the opportunities far out-strip the potential problems or threats.

ARRI have announced a major new recording feature for its ALEXA camera range, offering in-camera support for Avid®’s open standard and widely adopted Avid DNxHD® codec.

The Avid DNxHD recording function for ALEXA will be distributed as a downloadable software upgrade during January 2012, and is now entering beta phase testing with selected broadcast productions.

Avid DNxHD codec data rates of up to 145Mbit/s (bit depth 8 bit) and 220MBit/s (bit depth 10 bit) will be supported in the initial release.

Avid’s highest quality version of the codec, Avid DNxHD 444, will record at 440Mbit/s at 10 bit depth and will be provided as an upgrade for all adopting customers later on during the first quarter of 2012.

In addition, Alexa’s new firmware upgrade (SUP 5) offers an optional high-speed function for shooting up to 120fps – excellent news for Production’s wishing to shoot slow-mo and removing the need to swap camera systems for high-speed shooting on set.

On Thursday 1^st December, they announced a radical re-design that not only changes the ‘look and feel’ of the site, but also marks a shift in focus:

Last month Google announced an intention to source more professional content, in a move that many suggest sees the platform gearing up to steal views from traditional media broadcasters.

Not that this signals the end of brilliant ‘animal-based user generated content (a dog chasing deer through Richmond Park: 310,168 views; a sneezing panda 3,559,796 views etc, etc – traditional broadcasters would give their right hand for these viewing figures!)’ – but it does mark the beginning of YouTube’s placing greater emphasis on “channels” and curated categories; ranked and accessed via powerful search tools.

Sign in, and you can arrange your own listings and channels, alongside Google’s own curated ones (and the clips it’s recommended for you); including the predictable syndication and sharing via their own social network, Google+   A ‘cross-value’ proposition, if ever we saw one!

Connected TV’s?  We think so.  Are Google gearing up?  You bet.

Ultimately, it’s all about the advertising dollars.  By aligning the online interface with the sort of GUI that you would expect on your TV, Google hopes to generate more views, and further hopes to target a more diverse audience.  A greater diversity of  viewers = a greater diversity of advertisers.

Brands will have to re-align their strategy accordingly.  The connected TV market will present massive opportunities – but also massive challenges.

More so than ever, a one-size-fits-all video strategy for brands and advertisers will not be sufficient…..

The BBC aired a profile of Facebook tonight (if you are UK-based, you can watch it here): a well put together piece of journalism which benefitted from some decent access (there are advantages to being the BBC after all!).

Blogs, tweets and online commentators immediately jumped on the issue of privacy; especially with regards the placement of ads for products and pages that end-users have ‘liked.’

However, The Next Web (in Zee’s blog post) claimed that the ‘big(gest) question’ put to Facebook’s co-creator, Mark Zuckerberg, related to the ‘threat of Google+;’ a newly released social network from the Masters of Search.

Predictably, Zuckerberg’s answer revealed little – but what was more revealing were his numerous thoughts on the ‘open source nature’ of social media networks; both in respect of shared  information provided by end-users and in relation to app add-ons (decribed in the film in the context of Facebook gaming apps).  Open is best.  Open and shared is better.  Apparently.

One man seemed to disagree: Sir Martin Sorrell – and as CEO of the worlds largest adverting Group, his contrary view is worth considering.

More on this from us later – but for the time being, ponder this: the big question regarding the future of the social media will not be about the tensions between Facebook and Google (or anyone else for that matter) but between the end-user (as content creators, largely) and tech companies who publish and utilise the inherent value of this media (and the data it generates).

Sorrrell’s point needs further exploration, and poses a bigger question altogether: has the ‘open’ and the ‘sharing’ model had it’s day?

All we know is that TV/Video Apps will be top of our hit list.  As will finding the bar probably.  Find James and Paul on LinkedIn.  Especially if your hit list is the same as ours….