I'm an eMarketer fan. They produce so many charts that give authority to my presentations. Last week they put out their predictions for OLA in 2010. Some are on point, others not so much. Let's take a look.
eM: "More marketers will increasingly embrace online video advertising, supported by the twin boom of video streams and video ad networks."
Jay: No doubt video will grow. What remains to be seen is whether or not new verticals will embrace video. CPG uses video heavily but auto and retail seem to lag behind.
eM: Regarding ad-targeting and privacy: "From consumers, that will mean greater use of ad-blocking software or browser add-ons and more deletion of cookies."
Jay: Really? Have we seen even any meaningful uptick in ad-blocking software? Have we seen statistical data showing that consumers are deleting their cookies more often? Additionally, even users who delete their cookies (well under 10% still) populate their cookie set very quickly again and quickly become part of a usable pool. Privacy is becoming a big deal because certain publishers know and keep more info than they should. I don't believe consumers care much about your average day to day BT campaign.
eM: "The development of search engines, and related advertising, will increasingly include data gathered through the social Internet, including the real-time data from communication sites—mainly Twitter."
Jay: Definitely, but eM goes on to suggest this will continue to cause privacy concerns, and I don't agree with that. People know full well that if they publish something online it will become searchable and public. I do agree, though, with the notion that search will continue to be important, and increase its importance with the inclusion of real-time user-generated postings.
Good stuff eMarketer, but what about the questions no one is asking? Will the disciplines of search and social begin to overlap to the point of not telling them apart? Will search agencies then start to take a stake in social? Or vice versa? Will all this talk of social search overshadow the need for a solid display (potentially including video) campaign to drive search and site visitation behavior?
Lots to think about, huh?
