Trend Spotting: How Analytics, AI, Voice will transform media landscape in 2019

Kantar has released its perspective of the major trends that will shape the media landscape for brand owners, agencies and media platforms in 2019. The predictions report outlines 12 key trends that will transform the next year in media. Exploring advances from augmented reality, through gender portrayal to vertical video the 12 predictions are: 

• Advanced Analytics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) will resolve the integrated online/offline return on marketing investment dilemma.
• Voice technology will breakthrough in creative planning and the marketing mix.
• Chinese leadership in social media and social media analytics will be ‘fast-followed’ by the west.
• The emergence of the ‘branded experience network’ will transform media management in to ‘internet of everything’ management.
• Brands will start to take the portrayal of women in advertising seriously.
• Amazon will emerge from the advertising world ‘shadows’ to make the duopoly a triopoly.
• Vertical video will lead the way in creativity.
• The big screen will make a comeback, bigger and better than before.
• Attitudinal insights combined with predictive modelling will make programmatic buying more agile and accurate.
• Influencer marketing strategies will pivot to prioritise credibility ahead of reach.
• GDPR compliance will drive more sophistication in brand data strategies.
• Augmented Reality (AR) will start to shape both the consumer journey and customer experience.

“Constant innovation and change in the media landscape continues, but I think the speed of adoption of technologies like artificial intelligence will be surprising. Connected intelligence in all its forms will start to dominate the narrative, as well as new opportunities like voice,” said Eric Salama, CEO, Kantar. “How we measure media and its effectiveness is evolving quickly, and the industry needs to work together so our clients can understand the impact of their investments. There has never been a more exciting time in marketing.” 

A transformational 12 months in media 

As per Kantar, 2018 has been another year of change in media, where continued fragmentation of audiences was seen, along with the ever-fierce battle for eyeballs with the growth of Netflix and Amazon. There has been a ‘connected intelligence’ approach, where syndicated data solutions of all types are being directly integrated with advertisers’ first party data. 

Away from the screen, there is a renaissance in audio through the rise of voice activation for consumer applications. As with all new technologies, voice is creating both challenges and opportunities for the research industry. This year, Kantar has started tracking and measuring voice activation and can already see the ways in which it is changing consumer behaviour. 

The year 2018 will also be remembered for the introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) across Europe. From the point of view of a market research organisation, GDPR is one of the best things that could have happened. It has not only put clear blue water in between market research and other data solutions, but also placed a greater emphasis on the provenance of data and transparency for consumers, both of which have always sat at the heart of market research.