Oracle, in partnership with U.K.-based trends consulting group The Future Laboratory, launched the results of the “Capitalizing on the Digital Age” study. The study explores how the digital world changes consumer behavior and the challenges that it will present for communications and media companies in the future.
Drawing from a panel of global experts, the study explores how current and emerging social, cultural, economic and technological forces would impact the future business models of communications and media companies.
The panel assessed influences such as the rise of “freemium” services, the increasing professionalism of the creative consumer, and technological advances such as semantic search to build a picture of consumers’ media consumption in the next five to 10 years.
Among the phenomena predicted in the study are:
- Contextual branding – Predictive and geospatial software will enable brands to target consumers through contextual branding. Current advertising formats and models will become increasingly redundant.
- “Supertising” – As multi-screens allow different members of a household to watch diverse content at the same time, ad profiling will be tailored to the individual.
- Emotional profiling – Emotional engagement and depth of connection will replace eyeballs as the dominant media trading currency.
- Privacy for sale – Consumers will realize how important their personal data is to companies wishing to provide them with tailored, immersive entertainment.
In addition, “Capitalizing on the Digital Age” offers suggestions for communications and media companies to take advantage of these future opportunities. A few examples include:
- Build and maintain customer trust – Trust will be the most important aspect of a brand, the key to gaining access to more profitable relationships with customers and competitive differentiation.
- Become the recommender – The company that consumers turn to when navigating a bewildering sea of choice will be well-positioned to profit.
- Establish smarter billing systems – Communications and media companies will need to adapt to changing revenue models and cater to micropayments and revenue-sharing models for third-party partnerships.
To read the entire report, click here.
