THE 2013 DIGITAL TREND SETTERSIt’s a Brave New Digital World

AS 2013 PROGRESSESWE'RE ENTERING THE DAWN OF A BRAVE NEW DIGITAL WORLDMedia fragmentation is occurring at break-neck speed in the current multi-platform environment, which features not only TVs and computers, but smartphones, tablets, gaming platforms and a seemingly endless and ever-increasing number of emerging devices. This new paradigm offers consumers a seamless digital experience that can easily traverse platforms, locations and temporal constraints so that content can be experienced anytime and anyplace.and anyplace.

Over the recent past and all through 2013, we will witness the average customers screen time expand manifold to fill in all these modes and methods of communication, and this presents an exciting opportunity for marketers to reach out and engage with their customers. It's imperative for businesses to effectively navigate change and emerge not only unscathed but also better positioned for the future. How the heck is this done? Easy. By understandingunderstanding the plethora of opportunities, overcoming the challenges that stand in the way and embracing key trends affecting the consumer landscape.

In 2012, the digital world witnessed some historical stuff - we saw the rise of Pinterest, several IPOs and acquisitions, Facebook’s 1 billionth user, an aggressive political ad war in the United States, watched one relatively unknown Korean artist turn intointo a global phenomenon thanks to YouTube and witnesses the aggres-sive use of Social Media to generate wide spread public outrage and garner support for political upheaval that literally rattled the political structure of the country. So what’s on tap for next year?

For the first time in 2012, more people bought a smart phone than a PC. Clearly mobile devices and smart phones are where marketers need to be. According to an IBM study released in June 2012, almost 9 in 10 Global Mobile Marketers either have a mobile website or a mobile application, or at least plan to employ one shortly - the 10th one probably won't be around much longer! In 2013 marketers will list mobile as a major item on their marketing strategy.on their marketing strategy.

• 69 per cent of Internet users used a mobile phone to connect to the Internet

• Women spend 3 hours more on calls every month as compared to men, and 4 times the amount of time men spend on Instant Messaging (Chat) applications.

• Women prefer social sites more than men as 43 percent of web pages visited by women are social networking sites, compared to just 32 percent for men.

- A Recent Survey by Accenture

BE MOBILEOR BECOME EXTINCT

RWD IS THE FUTURENOT A FEATURE

61% users accessed the internet through a smartphone, 37% through a notebook and 22% through a tablet. It’s not possible to design a different version for each device, the only logical way out is RWD that adapts to the user device and maximizes the UX.

The future is strongly “people” focused. Gone are the days when separate versions of a website were designed for various platforms like desktops, laptops, tablets and smartphones. Those were the days when designers focused on the device and not on the person. Responsive web design is forcing us to design with a more human focused approach.

Responsive web design not only creates a better user experience, it’s also economical from the development point of view. Companies only need to maintain one code base, which costs much less.

The primary objective of RWD is about a superior WOW User Experience. Imagine being engrossed in the latest thriller flick and suddenly the theater lights come on. It simply ruins the whole user experience. Just the way a user needs to resize and zoom while navigating a traditional website.

RWD has been around for some time, so why now?• Mobile browsing is a part of today's consumer lifestyle and 46% of them are unlikely to return to a mobile site if it didn’t work properly during their last visit (Gomez, July 2011)

• RWD is crucial to the user’s experience of your site content and your chance to boost sales, delight customers, and improve SEO affordably, with an eye on the mobile future

• As of this very moment, RWD is “Google’s recommended configuration” for mobile website development

DIGITAL MARKETINGGETS MORE ACCOUNTABLE FOR REVENUE GENERATION

Digital Marketing will play a more significant role towards revenue generation, over the year this will change dramatically. In 2013 digital marketing activities will be tightly monitored and measured on traffic and lead generation and will powerfully impact sales growth. Key Performance Indicators (KPI's) under the marketing department will change over the year as well.

AsAs the pressure builds up on marketers, CEO’s are beginning to focus on the contribution that marketing bring to the balance sheet and make marketing accountable for revenue growth. A recent Fournaise Marketing Group study found that over 73% of executives don't believe that marketing drives demand and revenue. It’s a wakeup call for marketers to realize that they will now be measured by quotas and SLA’s that are tightly aligned to sales goals.

OverOver the course of the year, just like events, sponsorships, branding and advertising, digital now takes its permanent place in the marketer’s toolbox - a defined skill with defined outcomes that eliminates mystery, and most importantly, eliminates marketing waste. It’s time for Marketing managers to pursue only Data Driven Digital Decisions (4D).

Web Site TrafficVisitors

Unique Click-ThroughReturns

Abandonments Time on Site

Conversion MetricsConversion Metrics

THE UNIFICATIONOF CONTENT-SEO-SOCIAL

For over a decade marketers have considered content, SEO and social media as separate channels, however, the last few months has seen these barriers crumbling. There's now a visible overlap between search, social and content spurred on by innovations from search engines, and reinforced by the correlations of social sharing and linking/ranking behavior. In 2013, we will see many of the most successful brands treat these practices not as disparate channels, but as more optimized elements of a whole.

20122012 saw the release of Google's Penguin algorithm that implemented tighter guidelines on website optimization and adjusted a number of web spam factors, including keyword stuffing, cloaking, unnatural links and content spinning. The search engine now incorporates a more human element that helps determine how a site or page is ranked in the SERPs. In the coming year, rankings will continue to be more humanized which means that quality content and social media data will become even more important to the SEO process.

It’s all in the Numbers

450 million internet users worldwide perform around 11 billion searches each month

Search engines account for 90% of new visitors to a website

Around 75% of those actively searching the internet use natural listings rather than paid or sponsored ones

42% of people who bought from an online retail site arrived via search engines

46% of internet users find new websites through search engines

CONTENT CROWD SOURCING

CROWDSOURCING

As the “social footprints” of users grows, marketers will find more ways to leverage crowd creativity by building interesting and even viral pieces of content within their network of fans and followers. Socially generated content (which is generated by fans/followers usually by means of something like a contest), will grow in meaning and frequency, and be an engaging way to interact, attract and retain consumers on a digital marketing platform.

CrowdCrowd Sourcing content digitally to create new ideas or improve existing products can be a powerful tool while giving businesses the opportunity to create a more positive image that they are "engaged" with their audience. Consumers have shown an affinity for being a part of the process and often just having their voice heard is enough of an incentive for them to participate.

Simply put, Crowd Sourcing helps in “humanizing” brands

Crowdsourcing seems to be the order of the day ever since the beginning of this year. Despite selling like hot cakes, the Hyundai i10 feels the strong competition coupled with the need to stay fresh in the consumers’ minds. Hyundai has launched a cool crowdsourcing campaign where we can send in our own scripts for the i10 television commercial in the ‘Write your i10 story‘ contest and get selected to star in the TVC alongside the brand ambassador king of Bollywood Shahrukh Khan himself!

How Hyundai Harnessed the Crowd

NOW THIS PREDICTION IS VERY PINTEREST-ING

We all know Pinterest, a two year old social bookmarking site allows users to collect and share things they like on the web, what many may not know is that it's driving insanely high amounts of traffic to business websites. It’sIt’s very evident that Pinterest has hit the big league. People are sharing and connecting with like-minded souls across the world and reaching out in a powerful way. Rather than a bombardment of information - Pinterest is refreshingly refreshing. And the best part is that users can pick and choose whatever suits their needs and interest.

RecentRecent data gathered by e-commerce analytics platform RJMetrics, points out that Pinterest keeps and engages members better than Twitter. Not to mention that Pinterest drives more traffic than Google+, YouTube and LinkedIn combined. Now that’s one sure shot way to drive visitors to your website by first catching their attention with simple yet powerful visuals.

The question is no more “To Pin or Not to Pin” but rather “When do I start Pinning”?

• Pinterest has over 12 million users worldwide• 68.2% female users in comparison to 31.8% male users • A user spends an average of 77 minutes per day browsing Pinterest• 1.36 Million unique visitors each day• Top Interests on Pinterest are: Fashion, Entertainment, Gardening, Crafting and Home Decorating

DIGITAL MARKETINGGETS GAMIFIED

In the past gamification has proved to be great way to attract and engage users, and we can expect to see its positioning strengthened and reinforced over the coming year. Over 2013 we can expect to witness a convergence of marketing and gaming. Marketing is becoming more interactive in the way it's deployed and consumed and gamification provides that much needed interactivity and engagement.

“Gamification” will substantially help in the recall value of content through its entertainment value, reward, and learning abilities. It can be quite positively said that through gamification, marketing can actually be enjoyable instead of avoided.

MobileMobile is the future and most of the young consumer today owns at least one smart phones that are optimized for such games. The top Indian gaming portal serves over three million unique visitors each month. The potential is enormous. Whether through competition or earning rewards and increasing status, gamification enhances user experience and increases user participation.

GamificationGamification works best in specific cases, for instance acquiring new customers or encouraging more frequent engagement with your brand on social media channels like Facebook. Casual games – which do not require much skill or commitment from the user end and have simple rules - are an excellent strategy for recurring engagement opportunities, it's a great tool that keeps your brand top of mind and creates momentum to gradually build touch-points for increased frequency of use.

Carefully conceived and executed digital marketing plans can effectively use casual games to attract and engage users, reward them and in the process retain them effectively.

• The mobile gaming industry is predicted to reach $54 Billion by 2015• 84% of tablet owners play games• 70 – 80% of all mobile downloads are games• Android is soon to overtake Apple in number of total available apps• In-game purchases should overtake pay-per-downloads by 2013• Angry Birds has been downloaded 140 million times• Developers made $87 million in ad revenue in 2010 and will grow 10 fold by 2015• Developers made $87 million in ad revenue in 2010 and will grow 10 fold by 2015

DATA BECOMESA DIGESTIBLE MONSTER

In the recent past we've seen a gradual shift of businesses and specially marketers move from the wild "all over the place communication” across the web, to more structured digital marketing aimed at a particular Target Group whose profile and behavior is better known. This trend of "aimed" digital marketing can be achieved only through the collection and detailed analysis of consumer data.

ButBut "Big Data" means "Big Headaches". Gartner predicts that this huge scale data analysis will drive US $ 232 billion in IT spending through 2016. Till now data crunching has been the holy grail of engineers and not marketers. In 2013 we will witness a rise of startups that are dedicated towards making huge data more accessible to the guys in the line of fire, like, business development, sales professionals and marketing executives.

One such example is a lesser known, yet aggressively growing, company called Origami Logic. Their aim is to provide marketers access to huge databases in a way that is easily digestible and useful specifically to them. Still in the stealth phase, Origami Logic has recently roped in $9.3 M to help marketers make sense and effectively utilize "Big data". Over 2013 we are sure to witness the startup and rapid growth of such companies powering "Business Intelligence" through big data analytics, data science and data visualization technologies to deliver powerful and relevant insights to marketers as they become more data driven and intense in their marketing strategies

IT’S GETTINGCLOUDY IN HERE

Cloud computing has been around for some time, but over this year one would strongly witness the replacement of the good old PC with the "Personal Cloud". It will prove to be the preferred location where users store their personal content, access their services and preferences and center their digital lives. Users will recognize it as a portable, always available location where they go for all their digital needs. In a world where users are quickly moving to an array of devices to access their digital content the focus moves from the client device to a more cloud based service meeting the demand of accessibility and mobility.

SoftwareSoftware as a Service (SaaS) has gained significant momentum lately with the rising popularity of cloud computing and demand for mobility. The advantages of cloud-based SaaS offerings are many – cost-effective deployment as the investment in development and infrastructure is eliminated or reduced significantly, business agility with elastic application scalability, competitive leverage for SMBs and increased productivity for enterprise workers and the business which will lead us to see SaaS offerings emerge from the Big Boys as well as smaller players in the industry, in terms of developing customized SaaS solutions with support for integration with existing systems all through 2013.integration with existing systems all through 2013.

When the "MyXperia" trademark was filed by Sony, it clearly indicated that the world’s largest entertainment company moving towards a new cloud service for its Xperia mobile devices. Sony is just the latest mobile device manufacturer with a desire to capitalize on cloud storage.

Apple iCloud, Dell Data Safe and Google Drive are already helping users sync files between their devices and computers.

THE NEW KID ON THE BLOCK“GRAPH SEARCH”

In January 2013 Facebook introduced "Graph Search" indicating the social networks move into Google's traditional search territory. Each day millions of people use Facebook and discover things about their friends, business and brands. With Graph Search people can use Facebook to search for things like: "Indian restaurants that my friends have visited in London".

ItIt can clearly be seen that this could turn out to be a huge phenomenon. Graph Search not only enhances Facebook's functionality but also makes the entire platform much more useful. Over time we will see marketers optimizing their Facebook pages for SEO. The company is in possession of a huge amount of user data in terms of profiles, pictures, interests, likes, affinities and other lifestyle data which makes for a huge opportunity for marketers.

TheThe new Facebook tool also gives recruiters and professionals the opportunity to search a candidate out of millions in a pool by interest, by education, by location and other factors. This could turn into a revolution in HR & Recruitment and a direct move by Facebook against networks like Linkedin. According to a recent survey by SHRM, 56 percent of HR professionals said they use social networking sites to recruit candidates, up from 34 percent in 2008. Some 95 percent of HR professionals in this poll said they use LinkedIn; 58 percent use Facebook; and about 42 percent use Twitter.

The potential is huge, however, feature is very new at the moment, and it will take time for businesses to realize its potential, however 2013 will see the rise of a titan called "Graph Search"

1 billion people

240 billion photos

1 trillion connections

FACTS & FIGURESWe all love the numbers and it’s time to deliver our payload of stunners, movers and shakers for India . . .

And guess what; only 2% of the total Indian population has access to the internet, so the potential is huge. With access to the internet becoming easier through mobile phones in the sub Rs 5,000 category proliferation of the internet is only going to explode and digital is only going one way – Skyward.

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of ndian ocial edia users are under 30 years of age

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IT'S TIME TORE:THINKRE:ASSESSRE:PLAN

As we navigate through 2013 towards a brave new digital world, businesses must embrace the changes that come with the paradigm shift if they are not just to survive but to thrive. Perhaps the growing ubiquity of digital media platforms represents the greatest moment of value expansion the Digital Media industry has ever seen; however, at the same time the realization of this value may not be easy and as is always the case there are bound to be winners and losers along the road.

EvenEven at this very moment we are already witnessing future leaders emerging, simply because they are confronting the new reality and not holding onto the comforts of the past. It's an exciting year to be in. Through 2013 and beyond we can expect that businesses will experience growing complexity while managing and measuring a plethora of emerging channels and technologies. Marketers need to quickly and effectively adapt to these changes and for this marketing will become more integrated, inbound and real-time.

When executed well, marketing will grow from a "cost center" to a "profit center" for business leaders. 2013 and beyond look like exciting times.

We're Two55am a digital agency based in Gurgaon, India and we work with brands across the globe to help strategize ideas and bring them to reality.

Our team works with the really smart people at Fortune 500 brands like PwC, Coca Cola, Aircel, HCL, etc. We think we're celebrities in our own right, considering that businesses across India, US, UK, APAC & the Middle East realize their digital marketing, research and information technology needs through our expertise. We were also nominated among the Top 100 finalists at the prestigious Red Herring Top 100 Asia Awards 2012, renowned for honoring the most innovative & promising private technology ventures in the Asia business region.technology ventures in the Asia business region.

We are a bunch of passionate people who spend far too much of our time serving companies of all sizes ranging from startups to large enterprises allowing them to achieve their business objective in a timely and cost-effective manner.

And that's not all. We also deliver some real kickass creative and innovative, technology based marketing concepts and strategies to enhance the digital presence of our clients, and help them achieve Digital Fitness by creating a Digital Marketing Strategy that binds traditional Marketing with Technological possibilities and gets them where they want to be. At the top.

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