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Stuart Greenfield's 2009 predictions
30th December 2008
What is your value proposition? 2009 will uncover those still searching
It is my first day back at my desk. I am slowly recovering from the worst flu I have ever had, it must be my age, as postulated by my family! So 2009 is just a few days away and now is the time to put into the cloud my thoughts on 2009. During the Summer of 2008 I wrote ‘Digital Revolution’ part of my series of books which are designed for CEOs and Managing Directors. In the book I touched on a number of digital marketing key issues facing business leaders and managers due to the World economic downturn. At this date many of my thoughts are playing out across boardrooms around the world. The worsening of the World economy is beginning to create an avalanche effect in many peoples thinking and as 2009 begins the rate of change needed in business across the globe will be incredible to enable a new economic order to be established. The recent news once again establishing Japan and the fastest shrinking economy in the World is very disheartening. How much grief can they take, it seems to have been going on for ever! From a marketing communications aspect those business that act quickly and grasp the new tools available to them will survive. Those business who believe that a ‘do nothing wait and see’ approach will see them through will not. Many businesses will see the recession as a legitimate reason to make major cuts and changes that they have been in denial about since 911…
So here are my thoughts for 2009 :
1.Reduce your IT resources by investigating ‘cloud computing’ solutions. Reduce your investment in servers by using outsourced server farms. Search for generic solutions online and reduce all development on new applications. Focus on providing information and content to your customers which is more relevant and fresher. (Key developments will be SAAS - Software as a service).
2.Corporate Social Networking will become the tool that will allow you to get closer and more relevant to your customers. This step does not require a high level of technical ability but does require a change in mindset and information flexibility based on trust internally.
3.Mobile devices and platforms will improve and the number of applications available from Google and Apple will grow exponentially. Consumer growth will, however, slow due to the downturn and the availability of networks and bandwidths will also affect the user experience. Viruses and scams created on mobile networks will increase and it will take until 2010 for many of these ‘consumer’ fears to be averted
4.The advertising industry will be decimated with hundreds of small traditional advertising agencies unable to continue trading. Many of these agencies will fail having left it too late to develop the much needed in-house digital skills. It is essential that all business using external PR, advertising and design agencies have a root and branch review of the solutions and services provided and the ROI.
5.Blogging, twitter and ‘life streaming’ will continue a-pace. With more people un-employed and looking for opportunities the immediacy and practicality of personal promotion will be addictive. This will peak, however, as most bloggers realize they have an average of 1 reader! Consolidation of this material into a more structured solution where verified ‘career’ and professional information will exist will be a strong growth area. Linkedin will develop but many new solutions linking ‘work life’ will appear.
6.50+ markets will continue to demand more focused online solutions and ‘Silver Social Networking’ will become grow exponentially. These services will be niched not just by interest but also by Geography and new ‘social gatherings’ will be created driven by these new web portals.
7.Banner advertising will become an outmoded online promotional tool. Sponsorship, online product placement and the creation of unique, bespoke and interactive articles will continue to grow.
8.The hundreds of bookmarking and linking tools will outlive their usefulness and there will be some failures in this sector. New synchronization and consolidation tools will grow with Google and Apple and Microsoft competing to become the dominant new ‘walled garden’ (Yes we appear to be back at that again)
9.Video will become the dominant online advertising medium and with ‘in video’ ads being the only acceptable branding to consumers. This growth will reflect a drop in other traditional and online ad systems. SEO spend will increase with huge growth in businesses offering optimization and training.
10.Sky and satellite TV broadcasting will become hugely unfashionable and way to expensive for the average family. Those who are not hooked on the sports channels will cancel or reduce their subscriptions with Freeview solutions growing. The BBC will continue to dominate the sector with iplayer gaining in usage until a bandwidth crisis is reached. New reality shows will be few and far between as the huge budgets will not find the advertisers. Online ‘virtual reality’ gaming will continue to grow with users happier to ‘pay as they go’ rather than wait for the big launch of a format game. Format games will be reduced to creation of ‘branded’ worlds for the pre-teen market.
11.Distance learning and training linked to mentoring and coaching will boom with video, podcasts and video podcasts become the defacto way to learn. These will all be downloaded to mobile devices allowing learning ‘anywhere’. Kindle based readers will be incorporated into mobile devices and although ‘single use’ device will be sold as packages with a range of titles this will not become the dominant solution. Itunes and Amazon will attempt to control the market but most ‘out of copyright’ books will become free to read in many new formats.
12.Online retailing will continue to grow but at the slowest rate yet seen. Many failures will occur due to the knock on effect from the downturn on the high street. Discount web retailers will create a new sector where end of line and unsold stock will be found especially in the fashion sector. Traditionally this market was hidden from consumers and much stock sold off in other countries in the current market this will not be possible so consumers will potentially benefit.
13.The Governments new web ranking system will be introduced and for Schools and other organizations who already have sophisticated censorship control of web usage within their environments this will be helpful. Unfortunately the increase of mobile 3G services means that for anyone not willing to be controlled it will make no difference. A number of ‘walled garden’ solutions will become available and for some this will create an easier environment to get the best from the web. So although difficult it is important that some sort of standards and controls are put in place, or maybe the web will end up looking like the banking World!
14.If you own a shed then fill it with servers but make sure you have cheap energy. One of the biggest boom areas will be in the provision of data centres as businesses outsources their server needs. The cost of management, staff and training will mean these data centres become the only viable way to manage IT cost effectively and contribute to a more sustainable energy usage program.
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