The Marketing LandscapeWhat to Look for in 2013

OverviewMirroring the accelerated pace of technological advancement, marketing trends are emerging and taking hold at an increasingly rapid rate. As consumer behavior evolves, smart marketers can use those trends to capitalize on shifting behaviors and expectations. Sullivan Branding’s Account Planning team developed this report to highlight key trends we expect to see across the marketing landscape in 2013.

ContentsConsumer Trends

Design Trends

Media Trends

consumer trends

As humans, we continually respond and adapt to the changing world around us. These are some of the potential ways consumers will be adapting their behaviors as a result of shifting mindsets in 2013:

• Adult play will gradually become more adopted, due to a growing realization that blocking out unstructured time for imagination and creative thinking is a competitive advantage.

• There will be a heightened awareness of the significant increase in stressors around us. As a result, there will be a growing conversation on how to help prevent and reduce stress, and on the resulting health benefits that can come from doing so.

• Everyday objects are evolving into tech-infused smart devices. As more ordinary items become interactive, the consumer interaction with these objects will get more interesting, enjoyable and expected.

• With consumers’ lives increasingly taking place online, there will be a premium placed on sensory stimulation. Marketers should look for ways to engage the senses to take advantage of this behavior.

• Happiness is coming to be seen as a core component of health and wellness and, thus, will increasingly be a goal for consumers. Happier is healthier, and vice versa.

• Privacy will become even more important. As living publicly is now almost the default, people are finding ways to carve out private time and spaces within their digital lives, all while managing a new notion of privacy.

(JWT Intelligence)

shifting consumer mindsets

Moore’s Law still holds true—personal computing power continues to advance while, at the same time, falling in price. This, in conjunction with increasing Internet speeds, is pushing consumer behavior online to evolve.

• Access is beginning to trump ownership. The ability to access virtually unlimited content through the cloud, from varying devices and from anywhere with a data connection, will continue to dissolve the value in owning physical copies of music, literature, video, etc.

consumer behavior online

design trends

The rise of photo sharing through social media sites and apps has transformed the way consumers prefer to receive information. Marketers will increasingly use photos, videos, infographics and animated GIFs to capitalize on this shift.

• August 2012 marked the first time that smartphone users spent more time on Instagram than on Twitter since the photo-sharing app launched in 2010, according to All Things D, demonstrating the power of a picture to tell the story.

• Travelers expect hotels to use high-resolution photos and videos to share their stories.

• According to Google, 57% of people who watch videos online do so for accommodations when doing travel research.

• Snapchat, an app that allows users to send self-destructing photo messages, sends more than 60 million of these messages each day and added 3.4 million users in December 2012.

the picture is the story

(Source: iMedia Connection)

Retro type and vintage textures will continue to be in favor, reflecting designer preference, moods surrounding the current economic times and a consumer-driven Instagram effect.

nostalgic

(Source: Shutterstock)

ANTIQUE

VINTAGE

HERITAGE RETRO

CLASSIC

Designers love to mine the past for inspiration,

but styles change. Watch for old-fashioned

vintage elements giving way to simplicity and

modernism.

Brands will use luxury printing techniques to try to break through the clutter of a digital world.

(Source: Creative Bloq)

A combination of minimalism, simplification, and experimentation with basic shape and color have been dominating editorial work lately, which will only get stronger in 2013 with the popularity of infographics.

(Source: Shutterstock)

geometric

luxury printing techniques

8-BIT

PIXEL ART

DIGITAL

GRAPHICAL

PATTERNS

Most often associated with brilliant, precious gemstones, the perception of Emerald is sophisticated and luxurious. Since antiquity, this luminous, magnificent hue has been the color of beauty and new life in many cultures and religions. Also the color of growth, renewal and prosperity, no other color conveys regeneration more than green. For centuries, many countries have chosen green to represent healing and unity.

Pantone color of the year:

EmeraldPANTONE17–5641

A strong focus on typography will continue to influence design across all mediums but will particularly impact Web design.

• Combining brilliant typography designs and utilizing Web fonts allows for a lot more creativity and flexibility.

• Brilliant typography can serve as eye-catching images on a Web page, but the balance of the page’s content design should not be forgotten. After all, content is really what your audience (and search engines) are after. (Source:

SmashingHub.com)

designed typography

There will be a rise in design solutions and content delivery systems created exclusively for screens.

(Source: Creative Bloq)

design with functionality in mind

responsive designDesigners will leverage responsive Web design to create a single page design that automatically modifies to fit every screen size.

• Responsive Web design will eliminate the problems associated with changing specifications on browsers and devices because of its ability to respond to the size of the device being used.

• Thanks to responsive Web designs, designers will not have to make a new layout for different mobile and desktop devices. A single design will work perfectly on all devices.

(Source: SmashingHub.com)

Vertical scrolling will emerge as the preferred navigation choice because of its ease of use and users’ familiarity with it via mobile.

• Vertical scrolling is user friendly and efficient, and it allows for easy navigation.

• Another trend that is expected to hit in 2013 is vertical scrolling of menus and buttons. When a user is scrolling down a page, the header menu should scroll down with it so that the user does not have to go upwards to view the menu again—same goes for shopping carts and social buttons on a website.

(Source: SmashingHub.com)

vertical scrolling

parallax scrollingParallax scrolling will continue to break out of video games into more mainstream Web uses.

• The parallax effect has been around for years in classic video games, but it became a trend in the Web design world relatively recently. This cool effect is now commonly seen as part of the scrolling feature of a Web page.

• Parallax scrolling uses multiple backgrounds that seem to move at different speeds to create a sensation of depth (creating a faux-3D effect) and an interesting browsing experience.

(Source: SmashingHub.com)

media trends

Mobile devices will become more computer, wallet and manifesto than phone or tablet.

• There are now more than one billion mobile Web users worldwide, and mobile shopping revenue worldwide doubled in 2012. Those numbers are sure to continue growing; in fact, the adoption rate of iOS and Android devices has accelerated faster than any technology in history.

• Online research and shopping will be done on multiple devices—but we’ll continue to see decreases in traditional desktop and laptop computers, and increases in tablet and smartphone browsing. Research firm IDC predicts that more U.S. Internet users will access the Internet through mobile devices than through PCs by 2015.

• iPad use will continue to grow—to more than 70 million U.S. users in 2013, with more than 25% of the U.S. population using an iPad at least once a month by 2015.

• 43% of consumers use more than one device when planning their travel purchases—and 90% of those use those screens sequentially (for example, starting their research on a smartphone, then continuing later on a tablet).

• 70% of business travelers use a mobile device to research travel information.

• “Mobile” doesn’t mean “on-the-go.” According to a recent study from the Harvard Business Review, 68% of mobile use happens at home.

• Location-based services will grow up. As people become bored with simply checking in, location-specific experiences will adapt or die. Shopkick is now the fourth-most-used shopping app (behind Amazon, eBay and Groupon) and the most-used shopping app at physical locations.

(Source: VFM Leonardo)

Mobile

1 billion mobile web users worldwide

18%17%

12%7%

facebook

google

pandora

twitter

2012 U.S. mobile display marketing

In an age where the consumer has complete control, finding a way to wrangle an individual in becomes more complex than ever before. Creating engaging, attention-catching ads will be an important job for every agency in 2013.

• Mobile ad spending was projected to hit $4 billion by the end of 2012, up 180% from 2011.

• eMarketer predicts that U.S. mobile ad spending, including search, display and messaging-based ads, will reach $7.19 billion in 2013.

• eMarketer reports that Facebook (18%), Google (17%), Pandora (12%) and Twitter (7%) made up a massive portion of U.S. mobile display marketing in 2012, with Facebook expected to jump to 25% and Google to 20% in 2013.

• By 2016, mobile advertising will account for 11% of all ad sales.

• A report from AdSafe Media found that fewer than half of all online ads passed a basic viewability test.

• User enablement will evolve. The act of interrupting users will be largely disliked and/or ignored. As content consumption becomes more time-shifted and non-linear, traditional advertising interruptions will become more easily bypassed (see: DVR, The Hopper). Brands will look to enable user experiences and provide content they seek out instead of forcing them to sit through ads.

advertising

More brands will move to providing services that integrate with their products and add user value in attempts to future-proof and open up additional sources of revenue.

• Nike is shifting from a shoe company to a personal improvement company that sells shoes. With Nike+ and Nike FuelBand, the brand has changed a shoe purchase from the end of the relationship to the beginning of one.

• Ford’s in-car connectivity system now allows for pushed software updates, meaning their entertainment and navigation systems never become obsolete. Proximity functionality has also been added, sending special offers to drivers when they’re close to locations that might interest them. Ford showed record earnings last year, and over half of buyers cited the system as a big reason for purchase.

• Apple was a leader in evolving core competencies; iTunes brought the company $1.9 billion in second-quarter revenue in 2012.

• Knowing that their core business model was ultimately in the hands of film and TV studios, Netflix is now creating and distributing its own original content; 86% of Netflix subscribers said having the access to watch House of Cards makes them less likely to cancel their subscriptions (slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/02/21/house_of_cards_netflix_subscribers_say_the_series_will_make_them_less_likely.html).

brands as digital-service providers

Musicians and comedians continue to make noise by offering content directly to their fans at a higher speed and lower cost by cutting record labels and media companies out of the process. The creators are also seeing higher profits, which should lead to more direct access to content.

direct-to-consumer

• Products and services like the Nike FuelBand, Fitbit and Google Glass will continue to bring digital to everyday life, and vice versa.

• Personal metrics will become more widespread for fitness, diet, travel, productivity and more.

the digital/reality line further blurs, & the rise of personal metrics

second screen usage & proliferationSocial media will continue to transform TV watching into a more immediate and shared experience, creating a global living room effect.

• Having a mobile device on hand while watching TV has become an integral part of consumer routines — 41% of tablet owners and 38% of smartphone owners use their devices daily while in front of their TV screens.

• Not surprisingly, social networking is a top activity on both devices, but people aren’t just chatting with their social connections; they’re also shopping and looking up relevant program and product info. Now, when someone is watching a basketball game, they are not simply watching the game — they are Tweeting, Pinteresting, Facebooking, Shazaming, and every other kind of “ing” you can think of.

• This behavior is likely to expand in 2013 and move away from cable boxes and onto connected devices such as Xboxes and smart TVs (see: Microsoft’s SmartGlass, Nintendo’s new Wii U console).

• As time-shifted content consumption rises, live events are becoming more buzz-worthy than ever. People are tuning in simply to keep up with the social (especially Twitter) conversation.

• Social media activity related to the 2013 Super Bowl was three times higher than the 2012 Super Bowl.

shopping

social networking

looked up an advertised product

looked up discounts for an advertised product

looked up programming information

Simultaneous TV/Mobile Device Usage

22% phone

38% phone

15% phone

12% phone

23% phone

26% tablet

24% tablet

35% tablet

45% tablet

44% tablet

socialPeople continue to spend more time on social networks than any other category of sites — 20% of their time spent on PCs and 30% of their mobile time.

• Whether through a computer or mobile phone, consumers continue to spend increasing amounts of time on the Internet. Time spent on PCs and smartphones was up 21% from July 2011 to July 2012. App time more than doubled during this period as more smartphone owners entered the market, and the number of available apps multiplied.

• According to Nielsen, when it comes to accessing social content, it’s all about mobile—particularly apps. App usage now accounts for more than a third of social networking time across PCs and mobile devices.

• Compared to last year, consumers increased their social app time by 76%, spending more than seven times the minutes on apps than on the mobile Web.

• While the social media audience via PC declined a slight 5% from a year ago, time spent increased 24% over the same period, suggesting that users are more deeply engaged.

• The list of most-visited social networking sites is pretty much the same whether people are going online through a PC browser, through their mobile Web browser or via an app. Mobile usage once again proves to be a key component of social media; each of the top networks, via mobile Web, saw significantly greater growth compared to its PC audience over the last year.

• In 2012, Pinterest boasted the largest year-over-year increase in both unique audience and time spent of any social network across PC, mobile Web, and apps.

152,22658,51837,03330,94528,11327,22326,20125,63419,68012,594

facebook

blogger

twitter

wordpress

linkedin

pinterest

google+

tumblr

myspace

wikia

unique pc visitors, U.S. (000s)

-4% YOY

-3% YOY

+13% YOY

+10% YOY

0% YOY

+1,047% YOY

+80% YOY

+55% YOY

-13% YOY

+20% YOY

Smart marketers will continue to play off memes as an effective way to insert themselves in online conversations.

• One example is the Obama campaign’s response to Clint Eastwood’s “Invisible Obama” routine, which took place at the 2012 Republican National Convention in August. The next day, staffers tweeted a picture of Obama in a chair marked “the President” with the caption, “This seat’s taken.”

• In another instance, PBS purchased the keyword “Big Bird” on Twitter after Mitt Romney said in the first presidential debate that he wanted to withdraw government funding from PBS, despite his affection for the Sesame Street character.

• Wonderful Pistachios has played off a number of others, including Honey Badger and Keyboard Cat.

marketers get memetastic

2012Pinterest Mobile Web

2013Pinterest Mobile Web

Brands will find new ways to leverage the power of Pinterest to drive consumer engagement.

• Pinterest took brands by storm in 2012 when it became the third-most-popular social networking site.

• Marketers developed a number of ways to engage fans on the platform, from contests and puzzles to visual hacks.

• Pinterest users reported a surprisingly high correlation between pinning and subsequent purchasing: More than 1 in 5 Pinterest users have pinned an item that they later purchased.

• 47% of U.S. online consumers have made a purchase based on recommendations from Pinterest.

• 81% of U.S. online consumers trust information and advice from Pinterest.

• Pinterest generates over 4x as much revenue per click (attributable to first touch) as Twitter and 27% more revenue per click than Facebook.

brands get pinterested

fan pages get more image-heavyBrands are investing heavily in image and video creation for the platform, as well as other visually

oriented platforms like Tumblr and Pinterest.

• Data has shown that photos attract twice the number of “Likes” on Facebook that text-based status updates do.

reddit’s “ask me anything” becomes a promotional toolFollowing the lead of the president and others, more personalities and brand ambassadors will leverage Reddit’s “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) section as a promotional tool.

• Reddit is a social news and entertainment website where registered users submit content in the form of either a link or a text (“self”) post. Other users then vote the submission “up” or “down,” which is used to rank the post and determine its position on the site’s pages and front page.

• Reddit provides the public with unfiltered access to the famous personalities brave enough to take it on.

social careSocial care—i.e., customer service via social media—has become an immediate imperative for global brands.

• Customers choose when and where they voice their questions, issues and complaints, blurring the line between marketing and customer service.

• One in three social media users prefers social care to contacting a company by phone.

29% 28% 15% 14% 13% 12% 11% 11%

Facebook - company page

Facebook - user’s page

official company blog

Twitter - personal handle

Twitter - company’s handle

YouTube - company

YouTube - personal

non-company blog

Brands will use social media to position themselves less like generic spokespeople and more like people you’d want to hang out with.

• Marketers will capitalize on current events and spontaneous interactions with their followers to breathe personality and life into their brands and create emotional connections with consumers.

brands get a sense of humor online

(Source: Nielson)

CHANNELS USED TO ACCESS SOCIAL CARE:

social word of mouth Social media enables consumers to generate and tap into the opinions of an exponentially larger universe. While word-of-mouth has always been important, its scope was previously limited to the people you knew and interacted with on a daily basis. Social media has removed that limitation and given new power to consumers.

social media advertisingConsumer attitudes toward advertising on social media are still evolving. Though roughly one-third of social media users find ads on social networking sites more annoying than other types of Internet advertisements, research suggests that there are opportunities for marketers to engage with consumers via social media.

• More than a quarter of social media users say they are more likely to pay attention to an ad shared by one of their social connections.

• Additionally, more than a quarter of consumers are ok with seeing ads on social networking sites tailored to them based on their profile information.

• 17% of consumers feel more connected to brands seen on social networking sites.

• Social media “Likes” are the most common action taken after seeing a social ad and can be a great way to raise a brand’s visibility.

Please give us a call to discuss this or whatever is on your mind.

Brian Sullivan

bsullivan@sullivanbranding.com

Kate Cooke

kcooke@sullivanbranding.com

175ToyotaPlaza,Suite600•Memphis,TN38103•901.526.6220

www.sullivanbranding.com