It’s normally around this time of year that the next year predictions start to tumble from the media trend spotters.
And some trends don’t require a crystal ball or an econometric model to forecast, for example:
• Yes, Google probably will make big waves in the smart phone market
• Most phone and computer manufacturers will try and replicate Apple’s super intuitive touch screen technology
• Online TV consumption will rival traditional box set consumption
• Social media tools such as Twitter will amplify – and potentially replace – some traditional PR and publicity vehicles
But let’s forget about 2010 predictions and look ahead to ten years time. How different will our media consumption habits really be by 2020?
Nigel Gwilliam, Head of Digital at the IPA has recently returned from a fact finding mission to Japan and China – two nations with a very different media landscape to here in the UK, and for many different and sometimes contrasting reasons. Here are some of the IPA’s observations in terms of digital media consumption:
• The Japanese have been using smart phones since the late 90s. Email on the move is “so 1999, darling” (I don’t know the Japanese for darling, sorry!)
• In China there are over 200 internet addition treatment centres and boot camps
• In 2007, half of the top ten best selling books in Japan were written on – and for – electronic handheld reading devices
• In Tokyo, teenage girls can attend a fashion show and buy the clothes they see on the catwalk there and then – via their mobile phones
Are these signs of future times for Western media consumption? Not necessarily. Media habits evolve as a result of external influencing factors in society such as economic growth (particularly the import/export market), government regulation, cultural attitudes and education (the teaching of English as a foreign language).
Let’s look to the East for some examples of factors that have influenced media consumption:
• In Tokyo, it is frowned upon to talk on the subway. So people don’t talk on their phones, they email on them (cultural)
• Chinese netizens prefer anonymity, so they don’t publish (blog) as much as UK netizens (government and the “censor culture”)
• There are no Japanese mobile phones outside of Japan (economic)
• Manufacturers and mobile phone networks work together – product doesn’t necessarily come before marketing (economic)
• The isolation of single-child families in China has led to an explosion in online socialising (cultural)
As avid, future-gazing media planners we need to look beyond 2010 and who will be the next Google killer, and think about the broader socio-economic backdrop and how this will impact digital Britain in the years ahead. What factors will influence the adoption of new media and new devices? What will be the barriers? And the enablers? It’s certainly a complex predictive model. Perhaps we need a crystal ball after all?
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