7 PREDICTIONS

FOR 2017 FROM A CLOUDY

CRYSTAL BALL

DAVID SABLEGLOBAL CEO, Y&R

The luddites will be those who insist on conversion simply by following your data trail. I’d stay away from them and instead gravitate towards the folks who combine the two.

Algorithms and anything programmatic will lose their luster. There will be a movement towards adding human insight and appreciation for the serendipity of it all.

“In the zeal to follow consumers wherever they may roam on the internet, advertisers now risk bankrolling sites that are toxic to society” —NYT, DEC 2016

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The excuse that your brand content shows up in the center of racist incitement because you bought audience programmatically will no longer wash.

The dilemma, of course, is that those racists must be your audience, no? After all it was the algorithm that chose them.

Media will also return to its human roots. We will see a return to more accountability for placement of advertising.

“Not all human behavior and human reaction can be rendered into machine-readable form… Environment is something we feel, react, and can be irrational about. Editorial adjacency used to be a default setting on all advertising.” - JIM MESKAUSKAS, CO-FOUNDER OF MEDIA DARWIN, INC.

3.

I don’t believe the platforms can or should be held liable. It is not a new problem nor will it go away. Only publishers can be liable. They need to employ more fact checkers.

News media will grow in importance again. The world is craving authenticated and trusted sources, particularly in times of crisis and upheaval. I expect to see some interesting developments here.

A follow up to this is the fake news issue. The creators make money, the platforms and publishers make money, and the brands find audience.

“As long as it’s on Facebook…people start believing it...It creates this dust cloud of nonsense." —BARACK OBAMA, NOV 2016

4.

However, the issue will not be content or what platform or device you watch it on. I see the real issue being how do I pay for it all?

Watch for the next cable-like consolidation offer. I’m ready to bet that advertising will play a key role in reducing the price.

TV will continue to grow in importance. And by this I mean TV in all its glory across all its platforms and devices.

“68% of Google ad spending Oct 2015- Sept 2016 was in TV.” —KANTAR MEDIA

5.

New Year’s Eve around the world, The Super Bowl in the US, Cup games anywhere, concerts and plays. VR and AR will enhance their afterlife, but they’re an evolution of how we remember and not a proxy for being there.

There are no experiences like live events, where the crowd becomes a living, breathing entity, bringing more life to each participant. Through live broadcasting the longer tail of the tale itself lives on.

“Broadway’s trade association, revealed it bested its own astonishing records. In the last week of the year, it grossed $49.7m and played host to more than 359,000 people, more than the combined populations of Iceland and Greenland.” —THE GUARDIAN, JAN 2017

6.

Snapchat will continue to “pivot” as it opens itself up to more revenue opportunities and as its IPO looms, expect more changes like data sharing… after all, these were the folks who said they’d never sell advertising.

Twitter needs to find a place for itself. Donald Trump will keep it alive but it needs purpose.

There will be another shakeup in the social platform world. Facebook will continue its dominance, but if it continues in the path of Yahoo (that is thinking it can be everything) it will water itself down.

“Twitter’s problems have continued…The biggest is that it has largely stopped growing. Its tally of monthly users, at around 313m, is barely rising.” —THE ECONOMIST, SEPT 2016

7.

People will once again seek to take back some control of this planet’s destiny. Disruption is stale. We will see more dissidence…more coalescence of people in movements to solve problems

We will see a shift from public to private development. The political climate will give birth to highly innovative and ambitious private companies and causes that seek to change the world for the better. 

“The responsibility for business is enormous. Small companies need to adopt small, local problems. Big companies need to adopt national problems. Bigger companies to adopt international problems.”—RICHARD BRANSON

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