We all love predictions, and we admire prognosticators who risk going out on a limb in the media to offer their firsthand, deep-in-the-industry perspectives. There can be great rewards or embarrassing falls from grace in connection with predicting the future.
Then again, with news cycles now in minutes rather than hours or days, predictions—like any other news item—can be forgotten in the wink of an eye.
We at eWEEK have some experience with this; we enjoy seeing end-of-year prediction tweets from our reader community each December in #eWEEKchat (which are held every second Wednesday, 11am PT / 2pm ET). [Couldn’t resist the plug opportunity!]
Six Trends You Need to Understand
Now on to our eWEEK Data Point trend article for today. While these aren’t exactly predictions, they are notes of information based on research that points to the future. So here we put forth some highly qualified market research from an expert, eMarketer, in a collection it calls “Six Trends You Need to Understand Now (Q3 2018).”
eMarketer, based in New York City and celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2018, specializes in research on ad spending, customer engagement, new-gen digital marketing, mobile app marketing and standard electronic media (TV, radio) facts and figures.
The researcher sees its mission as helping professionals understand trends by providing objective data, analysis and forecasts concerning how digital technologies are changing the ways people spend their time and their money.
Here are important IT marketing trends to note as we go into the second half of 2018. This is aimed to inform and instruct enterprise decision-makers as they look at the big picture of digital marketing.
Data Point Trend No. 1: Mobile IT is, in fact, eating the world.
Mobile IT, at $75.0 billion, will capture 33.9 percentof total U.S. media ad spending this year, surpassing television for the first time.By 2022, mobile’s share will climb to 47.9 percent. TV will capture 31.6 percentof total U.S. media ad spending in 2018. TV ad spending will drop 0.5 percent to $69.87 billion. By 2022, TV’s share will slip to 24.8 percent. Nearly 70 percent of digital advertising will go to mobile formats.
Data Point Trend No. 2: Alexa, are voice assistants the next big thing?
Stronger-than-expected adoption of smart speakers this year means the number of U.S. adult smart speaker users, 61.1 million, will surpass that of wearable users, 50.1 million, for the first time. Additionally, smart speakers are changing how consumers find and buy products. About 17.2 million consumers, which is 28.2 percent of smart-speaker users, will purchase a product through voice this year, nearly two times the 8.6 million in 2017.
Data Point Trend No. 3: Digital video’s ad share is accelerating.
The growth rate of U.S. digital video ad spending is faster than previously anticipated, reaching $29.61 billionin 2022. Traditional (linear) TV ad spending will follow a downward trend after 2020, dipping to $68.13 billion2022.
Data Point Trend No. 4: Augmented reality breaks out.
The global AR market is expected be worth more than $165 billionin 2024. An estimated 58.8 millionpeople in the U.S. will use AR by 2019. That’s 17.7 percent of the population.
Data Point Trend No. 5: The promise of personalization is great.
Marketers are striving for greater, more sophisticated personalization through consumer experiences and messaging. Why? Deeper connection, greater relevance and stronger loyalty are some of the reasons. But only a third of senior decision makers believe their companies are successful at personalizing customer experiences.
Data Point Trend No. 6: Trust in digital, brand safety is at a crossroad.
Consumers are quick to say they don’t trust the institutions that marketers depend on to get their messages out—such as media and entertainment companies and social media platforms—and they really don’t believe that marketing and advertising is trustworthy. This is not exclusive to product and services marketing; it’s a pervasive trend throughout the world across the board (politics, culture, business) in 2018.