In this guest post, Programmatic Media GM Rohan Mehrotra (pictured below), tips the digital trends you need to know about for 2019…

Everyday there’s something changing? New consumers, new technology however what never seems to change, is the ability to deliver the best consumer experience. It’s always been a focus for brands but with the world getting smaller and smaller (internet-based platforms making it so), and consumers becoming more varied, it has become the focus of many brands and companies to be able to utilise advancements in technology and science in order to be able to deliver a personal and customised experience in a scalable manner.

The core technology in 2019 that will underpin this, will be the rise of 5G technology which is poised to be 200 timesfaster than the NBN and other advancements in the speed and capability of the internet and its connected devices. This allows for better resolution videos, AI, Voice and other technologies to be able to communicate and deliver a customer experience on any device in a much faster manner and with greater ease.

So, what will we see…

Welcome to a new form of TV!

Addressable TV is an advertising channel that uses a unique ID to deliver targeted advertising messages to specific households or individuals via IP connected devices such as Connected TVs.

The most important thing to understand is that TV in its traditional sense has lost a lot of ground but Video continues to be on the rise. People are consuming more and more video content but not necessarily on a traditional TV. In an updated research in 2018 by Cisco it is mentioned that internet video to TV will increase threefold globally and will be 27 per cent of fixed consumer internet video traffic by 2022 and consumer Video-on-Demand (VoD) traffic will be equivalent to 10 Billion DVDs per month.

So, what are connected TVs?

They are devices connected to the internet that have the ability to use apps to access catch-up TV and other video content. Based on this, networks such as Channel 7, MCN and technology platforms such as SpotX and DataXu are allowing for addressable TV targeting to flourish and grow.

Dynamic/personalised video ads

Video ads which are specifically targeted to consumers and are constructed in real time based on the users declared attributes. Today, we commonly see dynamic display ads used very well by airlines and travel sites such as Expedia and Hotels.com and by online retailers such as The Iconic and Kogan. For example, if you had searched for an airline ticket to a particular destination on a travel website you would later receive display ads around the destination you had searched for by that brand for maybe hotels. So, what’s next?  The rise of personalised video ads! In 2016 personalised video ads were used by Campbells Soup in conjunction with Google’s director mix product, in which for example “those who were searching for Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” were asked if they needed “dinner for one.” The campaign didn’t give users one reason to buy Campbell’s soup; it gave them thousands of reasons.” And then recently, the “Carsales ad that broke facebook” in which within five days there were almost 550,000 unique ads created (what was the video content that made it so personalised). “The campaign paired pre–recorded footage of comedian Kai Smythe with the seller’s own photographs of their car via a purpose–built algorithm that automatically pulled in the seller’s name, car type, price and odometer reading, to create a unique car ad for each Carsales customer.” Hence being able to use technology to deliver a personalised experience at scale. It is expected that this trend will continue in 2019 and beyond.

DYNAMIC/PERSONALISED VIDEO ADS Voice, AI, automation and machine learning changing the landscape

We have seen an explosion in Voice related activities and devices. You have Amazon and Google as the biggest players in the market with their home voice devices which allows you to do things from searching the internet to turning the lights off. Google recent study showed that 20 per cent of all search was already voice by 2016 and is expected to be 50 per cent by 2020 globally. Some 52 per cent of people who own a voice-activated speaker would like to receive info about deals, sales and promos from brands.

Voice personalisation coupled with the likes of Google’s AI assistant which can make a haircut appointment for you without you having to speak to anyone is again going to change a user’s consumer journey in the not too distant future (i.e a few years).

Machine learning, further automation of menial tasks and true AI is already changing the landscape of a consumer’s journey. This is important to any brand and advertiser to note because the manner in which you are going to have to communicate with your consumer is changing so rapidly that even the consumer hasn’t realised their change or shift in behaviour.

An example of this change, is the adoption of smart watches e.g. Apple Watch, Samsung Watch and mobile wallets such as Apple Pay and Google Pay, being the most dominant. So what does this mean? Consumers are able to leave home without an actual wallet or phone with everything they need on their smartwatches, where they can make payments, calls, read emails, search the internet via voice, and it won’t be long before people will be able to have their digital driver’s licenses stored on their watches. It won’t be too long before almost everyone has a GSM-connected smartwatch). Brands need to realise they will have to add in another important touch point into the consumer journey where people will at many times not be looking at mobile or desktop screens but will be still connected.

AR (augmented reality)

While we believe that augmented reality has a fair way to go, the important thing to note is that it has left VR (virtual reality) behind in adoption. Brands are developing apps which can be used by consumers in which they visualise their products in a real-life environment. IKEA is a great example of implementing augmented reality. With the development of their app “IKEA place”, which allows you to virtually ‘place’ furnishings in your space at home or office. From sofas and lamps, to rugs and tables. We believe that as this technology becomes easier and cheaper in the coming years there will be a greater upward trend in adoption by brands.

While there are so many trends big and small which are rising and falling at the same time as technology is advancing at even greater speeds, we have above listed the ones which should get you thinking about how you, as a marketer and brand, are communicating with your consumers at present and how you should be communicating with them in a rapidly changing environment.

With infrastructure rapidly becoming better, internet speeds getting faster and faster and with more and more data being generated by consumers and sorted by the likes of Google and Facebook, and other major corporations it is allowing for the capability to be able to form a robust single DNA of a consumers preference or journey and be able to start delivering a more personalised consumer experience at scale.