The beginning of the year is always a celebration for technology fans – this is the time when CES is always held. This year, of course, the entire event took place online. There were fewer exhibitors (about half compared to last year), but there was still a lot of new products, technologies and innovations. Wired has collected 79 of them to show where the future is headed. In addition to the always-present items such as new televisions, laptops, projectors, tablets, the list includes many different categories of products: from answers to covid challenges, i.e. masks, telemedicine, sensors monitoring the chances of the presence of a virus in the room, through home hives for bees, YSL’s Rouge Sur Mesure (a device that allows you to personalization of the lipstick color), perfumes whose fragrance can be changed via the app, gadgets for gamers, devices that will allow more accurate dosing of cannabis, sex toys, intelligent chess mats, to automotive news such as a car covered with solar panels, an autonomous party van from Cadillac or a Mercedes dashboard built entirely of screen.
More about CES from Publicis Groupe’s point of view here
Lots of new products, ideas and innovations, not all of which will appear on the market in the same form. But it is still worth seeing what new technologies have emerged recently, what is becoming possible and in what directions the imagination is going. My impression – we will enter a new level of war between hackers and cybersecurity specialists.
DIGITAL MEDIA
The 2020 summary and the 2021 predictions for media and journalism by Nic Newman from the Reuters Institute are now available. The report was prepared after interviews and gathering information from 43 countries. From the publication, we will learn not only what is the current condition of journalism or what opportunities / challenges it faces, but also how the media market is changing. This should be interesting for us because the media is our main business partner.
There is a visible change in the approach to main sources of income – no longer advertising (in standard or native form), but subscriptions are seen as the main source. Subscriptions can be implemented for the main content or special premium features. Publishers also see an opportunity in e-commerce, live events and close business cooperation with non-media brands. The year of the pandemic has definitely accelerated the digital transformation and income diversification thinking. There is also a willingness (and probably the need) to test the use of new technologies to improve the work of the editorial office and to find new ways to reach readers. High hopes are placed on artificial intelligence, which is supposed to help provide readers with more relevant content. In addition, the report also includes information on the development of audio content, the phenomenon of new newsletters written by journalists themselves and other areas of innovation that can be an opportunity for media development.
Analysts estimate that Amazon will be the fastest growing share of the digital advertising market in the coming years. The strength of the e-commerce platform is obviously different in different markets, not everywhere has such a strong position as in the US, but as a global player it can affect the position (or well-being) of other platforms such as Facebook, Google, Twitter or Pinterest. Amazon’s advantage over them, as it is nicely put in the article, is the fact that it is visited by consumers who are already determined to shop and not just scroll through the content.
Luxury brands feel quite comfortable in the digital world and bring a lot of innovations that go beyond standard advertising presence. They are looking for new ways to engage consumers in digital reality by, for example, collaborating with games. Gucci has previously moved its collection to the virtual world, giving you the opportunity to dress up game characters or avatars. This time they create a collection of sneakers that will only be available in a digital version, there will be no real-world counterparts.
Over the years Mattel, the producer of the Barbie doll, has faced criticism of the product, which was supposed to depict unrealistic body shapes and stereotypical gender roles. A few years ago, the world of Barbie began a big change in these areas – changes were made to her appearance for the first time since her birth in 1957, and new positioning, “Imagine the Possibilities”, was introduced in 2015. In addition to the transformation of Barbie itself, communication and the way the brand built experiences for its young fans also changed. Last year presented Mattel with challenges related to the production or distribution of products, but it was also a great opportunity to develop branded content in many digital channels.
The previous year will be remembered not only as a pandemic year, but also a time of considerable social unrest. We have watched (and maybe even participated in) many protests related to discrimination and inequality. There has been a lot of discussion about diversity and inclusiveness in our industry as well. The fight for our industry, our agencies and organizations to be more diverse and encouraging is very important, but do we pay attention to how accessible the content we create for our brands and customers is? Are they really prepared so that everyone, even people with disabilities, can use them comfortably? Below is a concise cheat sheet that shows a few things to pay attention to.
And finally, something that can be useful when creating plans for this year or looking for new career paths … In one of my previous newsletters, I mentioned a new feature from Snapchat, Spotlight, which works just like TikTok, and the fact that Snap spends over $ 1 million a day to promote it, paying the creators of the most popular content. And we already have several millionaires who made a lot of money by uploading tons of short video content to the platform…
