Here are some predictions for media, ad, and content trends in 2010 put together by national multi-platform media firm Cross MediaWorks’ CEO Marc Krigsman (formerly EVP of Primedia Digital Video) and COO Larry Rubin (formerly SVP, Business Development, USA Networks and Vice President, Associate General Counsel – Transactions, Viacom) based on their industry experience. They foresee:
• An improvement in ad spending in 2010, especially by the automotive, financial, and healthcare industries. However, spending will not return to pre-downturn levels. Overall, they think it will be a conservative year with conservative growth as companies concentrate on fine tuning their messages.
• There will more emphasis on measurement of performance in 2010 with data being incorporated from other areas such as shopping carts, social media, and credit-card data.
• Advertising on both broadcast and cable television will remain the most cost-effective option for advertisers; viewership for both will continue to increase in 2010.
• Spending on online and mobile will not get ahead of television for at least eight to ten years.
• Smartphones like the iPhone will continue to pave the way for content platforms to emerge that will drive more users to mobile sites; however, what is considered a valuable mobile ad will remain undefined until that happens.
• In the coming year, there will be a greater emphasis on “active eyeballs” as opposed to passive eyeballs” with regards to online advertising and online ads will get more visual, include multimedia.
• Video content available online will have to move to a subscription model or one with more advertising as “media comes at a cost. In television’s early days, for example, entire programs were paid for by an advertiser like “Texaco Star Theater.”
• The Web can’t yet deliver a video product comparable to HD and the top-trafficked Web sites are informational; consumers continue to go to the Internet to look for information about their bank, their phones, etc.
