Copyright 2013 by Deep Focus, Inc. All rights reserved.

The third-party content, trademarks and service marks contained herein are the property and responsibility of their respective owners.
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contents

Foreword: Advancing Digital Marketing in 2013 .....................................5 Foreword: The Year of Engaging Content ...............................................7 Outlook ....................................................................................................8 1. Building Digital Reach.....................................................................9 2. Content & Social Creative in a Newsfeed World .........................11 3. Native Advertising vs. Display .....................................................12 4. Engagement .................................................................................13 5. The Newsfeed War ......................................................................15 6. Mobile First Marketing .................................................................17 7. Competing with User-Data Dominance ........................................18 8. Return of Brand Websites ............................................................19 9. Rise of Experiential & Digital Marketing .......................................20 10. Gestural & Traditional Interfaces ................................................21 11. Facebook vs. YouTube in the Video War ....................................23 12. Mobile Social & TV Second Screen ............................................25 13. New Prominence of Social-Driven Email ....................................27 14. Crossover Technologies .............................................................28 15. Streaming Video & TV ................................................................29 About Deep Focus ................................................................................30 Contributors ..........................................................................................31

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Feel comFortable being uncomFortable

foreword

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foreword

advancing digital marketing in 2013

2012 was rather eventful, to say the least; and information about those events traveled faster than ever before. As a species, we have never been more connected to people, places, and things than we are now. And now, we have to continually rethink the ways and speeds at which we, as marketers, connect with consumers. As marketers, we need to feel comfortable being uncomfortable, as consumer behaviors change more frequently. But one truth does seem to be emergingdigital and social media has converged. Keeping digital and social in separate silos will prevent you from achieving your 2013 marketing goals. Thanks to the growth in usage frequency of social networks and a dependence on mobile devices, consumers are spending ian SchaFer more time with social media than any other form of digital media. The ceo & founder intelligence we gather from social interactions should inform the way we reach people with all forms of digital media, and we may very well experience the best results when all forms of digital media lead to meaningful social interactions. As 2013 arrives, weve identified what we believe are some of the most important (and actionable) developments for you to consider and factor into your marketing planning for the upcoming yearthe year that digital and social media become permanently enmeshed.

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exploit the conFluence oF mobile, Social and content marketing

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foreword

foreword

the year of engaging content

2012 saw an amazing inflection point in digital marketing. Marketers, agencies and the media recognized that doing the same old digital (and traditional) marketing the same old way wasn't going to work anymore. As peoples behavior in mobile and social matured to a point where the first thing many people do when they wake up in the morning is check Facebook on their phone, marketers realized that they needed to finally figure out a way to make content that can be effective on such platforms, not more ads. And not just any contentthe kind that can carry their brand message in today's most important media: the media between people. So, savvy marketers and their agencies retooled themselves to lead in this new context and became the first to make good on the promises of brands as publishers.

executive creative director But in 2013, smart content marketing wont be an option or a nice-tohave. It will be critical. Marketers that dont find ways for their brand's voices to be heard authentically in social and mobile will find them drowned out in traditional media channels, including digital display advertising. In fact, the confluence of mobile, social and content marketing may be the single most important thing to watch this year. There are ways to not only succeed among these trends, but to build your brand exploiting them. So to help, we've collected the most important things to watch out for in digital marketing this year. As you read this report, we hope you get as excited about the year ahead as we are.

ken kraemer

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$8.9billion
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expected global Social media ad Spending in 2013*

*eMarketer

The OuTlOOk

social platforms will become the primary digital reach mechanism for the savviest of brands

The Briefing. As brands have built up the size of their social media channels over the last few years, many have neglected to make the same investment in content. In 2012 those that did saw it pay off. In 2013, others will catch up. In 2012, we saw that the right social media acquisition strategy, in conjunction with the right content strategy yielded even more than engagementit yielded reach. As more people turn to their social feeds first, especially on mobile devices, the opportunity exists to actually reach more of the right people with social media programming than with display advertising. In fact, 2013 will likely be the year that more people access social platforms through their mobile devices than any other device, so reach and mobile will no longer be mutually

exclusive. The best content will become the best social ads, and a preferred place for marketers to spend their advertising dollars. The success of a brand in its social media channels will be how much meaningful engagement can be generated organicallythrough an audiencerather than at them through mostly meaningless (and ignored) display ad impressions. To ascertain success, measurement must continue to improve at both the primary (platform), secondary (technology), and tertiary (service) levels. Social media channels are in various stages of maturity with their ad products, but they are generally all heading in this

direction, as advertisers favor reach with their advertising plans, and engagement with their marketing strategies. Platforms that can find the right intersection of the two will be the most appealing to advertisers, and advertisers that can spot those opportunities first will be ahead of the game. The PiTfall. Dont treat the buying of social media advertising in the same way you would treat the buying of display advertising. The creative unit within the best social media advertising is your content. Keep the creation, publishing, and promotion of content as close to each other as possible. This will allow you to learnand actquickly, getting the most out of your content and advertising.

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335%
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average lift in virality oF viSual branded content on facebook over other content*

*Deep Focus Moment Studio data

The OuTlOOk

the era of the newsfeed will bring further creative innovation to branded content

The Briefing. 2012 saw a fast and furious adoption of a new kind of branded contentsocially-optimized microcontent. Sitting somewhere in the overlap between product shots, print ads, memes and your sister's wedding photos, this new form of creative trickled (and then flooded) into newsfeeds as brands posted them in hopes to compete with the highly visual personal content most people flock to social networks for. Pioneers like Oreo, Pepsi (a Deep Focus client) and Skittles found ways to integrate their brand messages into bite-sized chunks with hopes they could earn many more impressions than they buy. Sometimes, the content was successful. Some of it no one saw. But it changed how marketers have to think about social creative, permanently. And it was brought about by a single goal: get into the newsfeeds of as many target consumers as possible, winning the edgerank and platform game wherever possible. Furthermore, last year saw a
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greater number of news feeds and greater time spent with them. These feeds need to be, well, fed. As brands and agencies get better and better at developing socially-optimized creative, we will see a renaissance of beautiful visual work in 2013 reminiscent of the heyday of print advertising. From design to original phtography to typography, crafts seldom celebrated in digital will resurge as brands tell their stories, one image at a time, in ultimately sharable ways. But it won't be easy. To succeed, marketers will need to find and establish operations models that allow them to rapidly generate this content in near-real time, or partner with agencies that have creative newsroom models that create an always-on flow of such content. Social content has a shelf life of minutes, as compared to months and quarters of traditional digital creative. Further, brands will need to find a way to

walk the line between production value and social authenticity by focusing on producing work based on social insights to help ensure affinity (and sharing) of each creative. Lastly, the at-times cute microcontent produced to date will be forced to mature as such content fatigues and consumers demand (and share) fresher and more interesting content. Brands that optimize their content for engagement will win here. The PiTfall. Dont simply create miniads for your products that pedantically follow a calendar of obscure holidays. Find your brands social voice and tone and social point of view (its reason for existing in social). Regularly mine solid insights about what will be most interesting and thus most shared by your followers and fans and create your content accordingly around an editorial calendar.

The OuTlOOk

native advertising will soar as a percentage of digital ad spend while display will become completely commoditized & automated

The Briefing. In a race to squeeze the most out of the performance of display advertising, more and more inventory will be bought programmaticallyor through the use of technology to automate the buying process and improve the results. In a world where clicks are the goal, this makes sense. But were also in a world where advocacy should be every bit the measure of success; meaning that impressions created should be just as important of a metric. If people are spending most of their digital time on sites without traditional display ads (Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, etc.), than we need to re-think our buying approach to those platforms. That means placing more of a focus on the native ad formats (advertising that takes advantage of a platform in the context of how consumers are actually using itnot merely advertorial content) that work best on those platforms. Usually, this means using media dollars to increase the reach of a brands most engaging content. In other words, once a brand sees that people are responding well to its published content by sharing it, the brand can spend its dollars mak*eMarketer
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ing sure that happens more often. As more platforms ad products (eg. Promoted Tweets and Promoted Posts) mature, the opportunities will be more plentiful. This will be one of the dynamics that further eliminate the silos between digital and social media. And as social media feeds contine to dominate mobile screen time, ads that are native to feeds will be seen the most on mobile devices. You may not be able to buy the same amount of native ads as display ads, but the end result will be more earned impressions vs. clicks that dont even lead to a purchase. The PiTfall. Dont use intuition to identify the best performing content, and dont wait too long to identify it, either. Use real-time intelligence and data to stay close to the content, and avoid putting too much space and time between the people publishing the content, and those promoting it.

3x

expected growth of 2013 native ad spending over display*

The OuTlOOk

engagement will get its due as a critical marketing metric

The Briefing. This one is a little obvious, but we had to say it. Engagement, as a concept and a KPI, has been much maligned as a fuzzy idea that has at best indirect impact on marketing results and is used only to justify social marketing trends. 2013 is the year that engagement gets its due and marketers can substantiate what weve known for a while (we did used to call ourselves The Engagement Agency, after all). A few developments have made both building and measuring engagement clearly more important. For one, Facebook provided more tools in 2012 for understanding the impact and reach of posts, providing such metrics as virality and reach on a post and aggregate basis. Reach, in particular, gives marketers language and understanding common with traditional marketing tactics (e.g., TV and Print) that can help them gain broader buy-in across their organizations. Further, studies by Facebook, Neilsen and others have begun to prove the impact of engagement on such traditional metrics as brand affinity.

Coming into 2013, marketers have the data they need that prove what engagement can dofrom building brand affinity to unlocking meaningful reach. And, remember, great engagement gets you more engagement as algorithms like Facebooks EdgeRank reward publishing content users like. This year, successful marketers will push agendas that drive engagement, including continually evolving publishing, sponsoring digital strategies and tactics that passively or actively earn engagement, and creating amazing creative that begs to be shared and engaged with. The PiTfall. Avoid creating content solely for engagements sake. Instead, create content that is engagementoptimized, meaning it is authentic and matches your follower bases expectations and tastes and is true to the brand. Stunty one-offs that may get you great response in the short term can hurt you in the long term, as algorithms like EdgeRank punish you for lack of consistency.

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1300%
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growth of instagram as of year end 2012 Since Facebook acquiSition*

*Appdata & Deep Focus

The OuTlOOk

the newsfeed war will wage on as platforms adopt pay for feed placement models

The Briefing. December saw Instagram the focus of public attention for the first time since its acquisition by Facebook. A change to the platforms terms of service, designed to give brands greater access to users images, saw celebrities and amateur snappers threatening to shut their accounts. Consumer reaction aside, the change was interesting for two reasons: Firstly, it was indicative of a platform preparing to rapidly improve its offering for advertisers. In the light of the recent launch of Tumblrs A-list program (of which Deep Focus is a partner), and rumors of new ad products from Pinterest in 2013, we can see a fresh group of platforms preparing to quickly move from being consumer favorites, to being advertiser

staples. Where previously these channels were places for marketers to pilot new approaches and test capabilities, in 2013 we see them building out the sales, support and analytics capabilities to allow them to become a core part of brands channel planning. Secondly, Instagrams TOS change shows theyre following their parent companys lead in targeting users feeds as the home of new ad products. The focus on getting access to consumers images only makes sense if theyre to be used in the context for which they were originally intended. Theres no intention to turn Instagram into a UGC Getty Images. Paying to boost the reach of your own posts, and the posts of other users that are relevant to your brand has been the

core of Facebooks evolving approach to media, and the same will be true of Instagram and other content-focused sites. So for 2013 we see the feed as the focus: an increasing number of platforms will build their scale and capabilities around the content streams they deliver to their users. And, consequently, we could see a proliferation of a revenue model that requires brands to pay for their content to appear in those feeds. The PiTfall. Dont mistake a large number of fans, followers or subscribers for a large audience. Yes, theyre a prerequisite. But to reach them reliably, you may have to pay. How much? Well that depends on the quality of your content, communications and campaigns.

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31%
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portion of smartphone users who report mobile aS preFerred Shopping method*

*Mashable & Hightable.com

The OuTlOOk

'mobile first' approach will not only apply to design, but marketing strategy as well

The Briefing. Mobile First has been a web design rallying cry for some time now, referring to the idea that user experience, graphic design and technical architecture development processes should focus on mobile browsers first and then elaborate those designs to desktop browsers. In 2013, Mobile First will need to be the rallying cry for not only web design, but for all digital marketing and strategy. Trends overwhelmingly suggest that mobile is not only the fastest growing marketing opportunity, but the least properly utilized. When looking at how the average mobile ad dollar is distributed, the current norm is 49% to search, 33% to display, 12% to SMS/MMS (or, as we think of it, spam)

and 6% to video.* So marketers to date have put 82% of their mobile budgets into low quality formats that do little or no brand building on the platform that is expected to become the leading digital platform in three years. Further, newsfeed consumption represents a significant portion of mobile activities. For instance, recent estimates show that more than 60% of both Facebook and Twitter content is now consumed on mobile devices. The prevalence of newsfeedbased content consumption like these explodes the importance of mobile far beyond apps, display and search ads. This year, savvy brands will double down

on their newsfeed-based, owned content publishing efforts as an effective and efficient way to reach consumers in highly targeted ways through both paid and earned tactics. Further, successful marketers will integrate mobile experiences into their briefs on day one, ensuring that how consumers experience their brand in their hand is a driving consideration, not an afterthought. The PiTfall. Avoid relying solely on search and displaythe most commonly sold mobile products as you form your mobile strategy. Boosting relevantand even location-awarecontent through established social platforms can be far more effective.

*Mashable & Hightable.com

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30%
7
The OuTlOOk
The Briefing. If your mom ever told you nothings free, she knows more about social media than you thought she did. The pressure to monetize social media platforms is being applied most publicly to Facebook, but Zuck isnt the only one getting the squeeze. Since platforms cant get revenue directly from their users, many are essentially selling their users. Facebook is way ahead of the game in terms of prompting user behavior and compiling user data that can drive ad revenue. Twitter, and more recently Tumblr, have ad products designed to help brands surface content that data indicates is effective on an engagement and impressions basis. Where these platforms fall behind Facebook
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decrease in cost per lead resulting from facebook's custom audience ads that rely on rich facebook data*
*TechCrunch and Facebook

social platforms will vie to compete with facebooks user-data dominance

is in providing data about exactly who is seeing and engaging with brand content. Facebook went through some fundamental structural changes that allowed it to start sourcing user dataTwitter and Tumblr are facing the same challenges, so in 2013 we expect to see them grapple with new ways to solicit more complete information from their users. While they may not literally force their users to enter information like age, location, and education, perhaps the platforms will explore ways to incentivize their communities to voluntarily report basic details about themselves. We dont anticipate all social platforms to begin massive community data mining operations, though. Reddit was a surprise standout platform in 2012, with the Obama AMA demonstrating the untapped potential of what remains of socials wild west. The unmasking of infamous Reddit troll Violentacrez, on the other hand, demonstrated that the platform is at best unenthusiastic about stockpiling, much less soliciting, personal information from its community. The PiTfall. As social platforms dive deeper into the personal details of their community members, brands need to balance new abilities to leverage this data with a rising public sense of unease with these perceived intrusions.

The Deep focus DigiTal & social MarkeTing ouTlook

The OuTlOOk

brand websites will make a comeback as facebook tabs continue to lose luster

The Briefing. For the past few years, many brands have turned their resources and attention to building out tactics on Facebook that would have been traditionally been placed on a brand website. Much of this was in order to drive social activity. We would be lying if we didnt admit that bureaucratic and technical issues also played a role. The Facebook tab allowed brands to sidestep the politics and legacy CMS issues that came along with updating a website. It provided a level of agility and responsiveness when it came to developing interactive tactics that their .com sites couldnt offer. We see this trend reversing as we move forward into 2013. Whatever advantages building out tactics on Facebook brought with it have rendered decreased in significance in the last year. Facebooks redesign last year moved away from the tab structure and reduced the visibility of tactics into which brands had invested so

heavily. Additionally, more people than ever are accessing Facebook through their mobile device (on which tabs are not automatically supported). The inherently social interactive tactics will still have a home on Facebook but we see brand websites returning to prominence as marketing teams are more selective about what gets executed in a Facebook tab. We believe this is a positive trend. Facebook is a great tool but its not a panacea for every marketing challenge. The PiTfall. Just because something lives on your brand website or a microsite doesnt mean it cant or shouldn't be social. Social plumbing via generally available APIs, implemented properly and cleverly, can take a quiet, unvisited site and give it valuable life.

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8,000,000
9
The OuTlOOk

peak concurrent viewers of the red bull StratoS jump

*Forbes

the changing demands of demographics and devices will make experiential a key part of digital marketing
they mature and gain purchasing power, campaigns are increasingly reflecting their attitudes and behaviors. This means brands focusing on exclusive access, incredible gatherings, or campaigns that involve real-world activation. In the context of sponsorship, this renewed focus on the value of experience combines with another shift in behavior weve highlightedmobile devices becoming the key point of contact between brands and consumers. It means ever increasing opportunities to activate on the ground and then reach a much larger online audience. Its an approach thats been growing in popularity over the past couple of years, but with mobile now the primary focus of many social channels, 2013 will be the year it gains critical mass. Taken together we see these trends reinforcing the role of experiential and sponsorship as an integral part of digital marketing. Social channels need valuable, share-worthy content, and events provide ample opportunity to create it at low incremental cost. So, in 2013, brands that have pioneered the sponsorship-centered approach online, such as Red Bull, will cease to be outliers. The PiTfall. Dont miss the opportunity to create content from what may seem to simply be offline activities. Even if theres no way to use digital on the ground, there are pictures, videos and stories to be captured, which can feed online channels hungry for content.

The Briefing. With the opportunities presented by a summer Olympics, 2012 was always going to be a banner year for experiential and sponsorship marketing. Its an area we see growing in value for digital channels through 2013 as demographics, devices and content combine to make events and experiences even more important. In terms of demographics, the growing importance of Millennials is key for understanding this trend. Theyre a group thats commonly portrayed as valuing experiences over possessions, and as
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10

The OuTlOOk

gestural interfaces will become as commonly used as point and click schemas
The Briefing. Anyone who has seen a child instinctively take to a touch screen device recognizes that theres something primal about the tactile experience that gestural interfaces offer. Anyone who has seen that same child get frustrated when a computer monitor doesnt work the same way knew it was only a matter of time before touch screens were integrated into laptops and desktops. The release of Windows 8 late last year with its touchscreen integration brought gestural interfaces to the mainstream personal computer. Combined with the proliferation of mobile devices and tablet devices like the iPad, Kindle Fire, and Google Nexus, this means that the number of people using touch-screen devices is skyrocketing This doesnt mean point-and-click is going away. Not by a long shot. A Pew Research Report from October of last year found that nearly 25% of Americans had a tablet device of some kind. But 77% of those tablet owners indicated that they also use a laptop/desktop computer to do similar activities. This makes sense. Gestural interfaces are great for fullscreen experiences where the user is focused on a single activity, such as reading. Point-and-click remains ideal for productivity applications, particularly ones that involve switching between multiple windows. The choice of which type of interface to optimize for comes down to knowing the target audience and what task needs to be accomplished. In that sense, not much in experience design has changed. The PiTfall. Dont ignore the proliferation of touchscreen devices but dont forget about traditional pointand-click. Both need to be accommodated.

number of americans with internet access via tablet or Smartphone*

*Pew Internet Research
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50%

50x
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number of videos youtube hosts over Facebook*

*ComScore

11

The OuTlOOk

2013 will see a new focus on video as facebook and youtube fight for viewer attention
The Briefing. 2012 began with Google putting into action its $100m commitment to content development launching partnerships where homegrown sensations, celebrities or studios would be given $1-5m to produce videos for YouTubes Original Content channels.1 By November the results were mixedthe program will continue for 2013, but most of the participants (60-70%) will be cut.2 At the same time Google was re-assessing its approach to content, Facebook was releasing details of forthcoming video products to a select group of advertisers. It seems that early next year well see 15sec auto-play ads in newsfeeds, along with the possibility of new video tools for ordinary users.3 So, is 2013 the year Facebook really takes on YouTube in video? In terms of the raw numbers, there shouldnt be any competition; Google sites (mainly consisting of YouTube) see nearly 100x as much time spent watching videos as Facebook.4 However, theres reason to believe that Facebook can mount a credible challenge to Google, at least in terms of UGC, even if it doesnt come out on top. Firstly, the simple fact that Facebook is launching video ad units means a renewed focus on driving viewership. The media opportunity makes less sense if the behavior isnt ingrained with users (and video viewership on Facebook has actually declined recently,5 so something needs to change). Secondly, Facebooks success with photos shows just how weak the platform is for video, and makes this area a logical next step for development. It really is an important growth area for next year. As smartphones video capabilities improve, the volume of user-generated video will increase. And with YouTube having launched a dedicated smartphone camera app in December,6 Facebook cant afford to cede this ground completely. The PiTfall. Dont treat Facebooks new video units like other display media. Videos need to drive interaction and form part of your ongoing content plan for the channel. This isnt an easy thing to do, as video requires much greater time and investment than image or text posts.

SourceS
1

http://www.reuters.

com/article/2011/10/29/ idUS381630960920111029
2

http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/11101-

is-google-s-youtube-original-contentpush-failing
3

http://adage.com/article/digital/

facebook-preps-bring-video-ads-newsfeed/238825/
4 5

Comscore data, Deep Focus analysis http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/29/

comscore-u-s-internet-users-watched39-billion-online-videos-in-septembernumber-of-viewers-down-slightly-fromaugust/
6

http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/17/

google-launches-dedicated-youtube-video-camera-app-for-iphone-and-ipad-touch/

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45% 22%
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portion of tablet owners who Shop on their tablet While Watching tv*

portion of smartphone owners who Shop on their Smartphone While Watching tv*
*Nielsen Social Media Report 2012

12

The OuTlOOk

mobile social & tv will continue their romance, providing some brand opportunity

The Briefing. It is hard to deny: TV is better with social media, and particularly Twitter. Ask any Twitter user who watched the Olympics, the Presidential Debates or the Republican National Convention (you can even ask our CEO, the man behind @InvisibleObama) and youll hear how following and posting with particular hashtags during those telecasts made them funnier, more exciting, more interesting, more galvanizing. And Nielsen confirms it in their Social Media Report 2012 wherein they report that 38% of smartphone owners and 44% tablet owners visited a social networking site via their device while watching TV. Its fair to say that the second screen is a critical one, especially for marketers paying millions of dollars for prominent placement on the first screen.
*Nielsen Social Media Report 2012
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We expect these trends to continue to advance in 2013. But we also expect it to continue to be tough going for brands to be part of these trends. Most of what is being discussed in social during broadcasts is entertainment or news content, and not necessarily the advertisements that appear during breaks (despite the desperate inclusions of watermarked hashtags in TV ads). However, Nielsen does offer some encouragement: 15% of smartphone users and 24% of tablet users report having looked up product information for an ad seen on TV, with 12% and 22%, respectively, reporting having sought coupons or deals for products advertised on TV on their device. Further, a full 33% of active Twitter users report having tweeted about

TV-related content. So there is both user desire and meaningful scale. Theres opportunity for marketers to increase the ROI of their marketing by creating integrated campaigns that use TV to inspire and drive to digital and social, where consumers can connect more deeply with the brand and products, for a potentially longer duration. There is also opportunity here for markets that create branded broadcast entertainment to engage more deeply via social media. The PiTfall. There is no harm in tagging your TV ads with hashtags or Find us on Facebook calls to action, but it is unlikely that those tactics will perform. A specific and realistic call to action that someone might actually want to do will perform better.

4 in10
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number of email messages read on a mobile device*

*Return Path: Bi-Annual Mobile Email Report, Dec 2012

13

The OuTlOOk

email will gain new prominence as the development of social channels depends on access to customer data

The Briefing. For a few years now Social CRM has been seen as a major opportunity for companies looking to revitalize their approach to relationship management. So far brands have yet to make real progress in this area, but 2012 did at least see heavyweight CRM developers investing in social tools (Vitrue going to Oracle in May and Buddy Media going to Salesforce in June). If nothing else, this sort of investment should mean that more capabilities are likely to be available to clients in 2013. Alongside these new alliances, two thoughts remind us of the power of email as we look at 2013: Firstly, many marketers neglect of email

as a mobile channel is likely to change next year. At the end of 2012, we saw mobile clients become the most popular means of consuming email, with four in ten messages now being opened on smartphones and tablets. Indeed, with an increasing focus on developing mobile capabilities, its surprising that email, the medium with the longest role within mobile marketing, hasnt been seen as a more important part of the mix. Thats going to change this year. Along with using email for developing a strong mobile presence, we see 2013 as the year that customer data increasingly unlocks the value of social. Email & CRM data are vital both for building the

efficiency with which we can profile and reach our audiences and for demonstrating the value of that work by tying interactions back to sales and customer acquisition. An increasing number of social channels, including Facebook, are now including the use of email data as part of their platform capabilities. With rapid advances in this area in 2013, the proper integration of email and social has never been closer. The PiTfall. Avoid siloing email away from your other digital activity. In 2013 well see increasing opportunities to integrate CRM data, display retargeting and social channels to build effective online campaigns, all of which will require good integration between social and email.

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53.3%
14
OuTlOOk:
The Briefing. Being able to connect the virtual world with the physical world through crossover technologies has been a dream of marketers since the beginning of the internet. Technologies like QR codes, NFC and augmented reality have been dangled in front of brands as ideal ways to track and convert users into customers through direct action. So far they have been frustratingly disappointing. There have been surprisingly few QR success stories despite the fact that theyve been around for almost a decade and a half. There are many reasons for this, including lack of standardization. No version of the iPhone OS has ever integrated native QR code reading capabilities, meaning that everyone with an iPhone has to download a third-party app to read a QR code. The lack of NFC capabilities in the iPhone 5 is hampering the adoption of these emerging technologies as well.
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iphone u.s. smartphone market share*

*for 12 week period ending 12/25/12. Kantar Worldpanel Comtech

crossover technologies wont gain mainstream acceptance until apple designs for them

Unlike QR codes, a simple app download wont solve this issue. Googles adventures with augmented reality have exciting potential too. We have been impressed with the demo videos of Googles Glass project and we look forward to the future combining the virtual and real worlds. The technology is there but unless Apple gets on board we dont predict wide scale acceptance. Further-

more, Apple has become the arbiter of what is cool in technology. In conjunction with its significant market share, Apple will need to bring this brand of cool to the market to make these technologies both desirable and widely adopted. The PiTfall. Dont invest too heavily in crossover tactics that are inaccessible to iPhone users.

15

The OuTlOOk

we will not see broadcast scale video consumption until apple or xbox releases a better tv product

The Briefing. Even as YouTube has continued to invest in its Partner Program, many of those partners are learning that while they may be getting funded, they may not be getting marketed. YouTube has proven to be a great distribution and hosting platform, but a challenging promotional platform. Some have been failing, while a handful of them have proven to be quite successful. But successful in online video terms has yet to be comparable to successful by TV standardsbroadcast or cable. A lot of that has to do with the majority of the streaming of this content happening asynchronously, on multiple devices. While this may be the future of all video content, advertisers love the synchronous reach that TV offers. YouTubes Partners (like Machinima, Revision 3, Bedrocket, and many others) have not delivered the TV kind of numbers, even though individual episodes may have Cable-type viewership. They also havent become pop-cultural stalwarts like TV program-

ming has. Without the big hit, YouTubes Partners will be delivering reach, rather than truly premium adjacency and that reach will pale in comparison to TV.

The tipping point may be reached, however, by better integration into the living room. Thanks to the proliferation of Smart TVs, Xboxes, and Apple TVs, more online content is being watched on a big screen. This will become a normal way of viewing content. It may not be in 2013, but it will likely take a new productlike an actual Apple TVto make it truly normal and achieve the reach of more traditional TV programming. Advertisers will then have to adjust to asynchronous consumption, as live TV programming becomes more scarce, and therefore, more expensive. The PiTfall. Dont simply shop from a current list of top YouTube channels to

30%
advertise within. Also, if youre brandbuilding, dont just ask currently successful YouTube content creators to create custom content for youits a quick way to reach their audience, but the same creators are creating content for lots of other brands tooits getting cluttered. Instead, seek to develop partnerships with the channels and YouTube Partners that best align with your brand, and the ones you believe best hold the most promise for the next few years. Go long. It will be worth it if you choose well.

growth of the use of tv to stream video in 2012*

*YuMe | Emerging Growth Opportunities for Connected TV and Advertisers, December 2012
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about deep focus

Deep Focus is the digital agency for the social agean age where connections are the new impressions and stories shared between friends are the most powerful marketing tactics. Our passionate experts work together to devise digital programs that allow us to integrate our clients brands into peoples lives at the perfect moment for greatness to happen. So weve built an agency that crafts digital, social, mobile and content marketing around authentic social insights insights that come from real conversations with real human beings had through our community management work. These insights drive everything we do. Were proud to be stewards of some of the worlds favorite brands. And that pride shows in our workwe perfect every pixel, every post, every plan. We cant help it, because everything we create is made with love. Sound over the top? Maybe. But its the best word we could find to describe our dedication to marketing done great.

contact us
Web: www.deepfocus.net Twitter: @DeepFocus @DFMomentStudio www.facebook.com/WeAreDeepFocus Email: info@deepfocus.net

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contributors

IAN SCHAFER
FOUNDER & CEO Ian Schafer is CEO and Founder of Deep Focus and is one of advertisings most influential voices in interactive marketing and social media. An avid technologist, Ian blogs at www.ianschafer.com and can be followed on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ ischafer.

ED MCLARNON
STRATEGIST Ed leads digital strategy for a number of the agency's clients. Prior to joining Deep Focus he was based in London where he held account handling and planning roles within Engine, Deep Focus's parent company.

DAVID IRONS
LEAD USER EXPERIENCE STRATEGIST David Irons has more than a decade of experience applying the principles of usability, information architecture, experience strategy and interaction design to solving marketing and communication challenges.

KEN KRAEMER
EXECUTIVE CREATIVE DIRECTOR Ken Kraemer is ECD at Deep Focus, leading creative, technology and social communications. A leader in creating smart, effective digital marketing, Ken has worked on some of the worlds foremost companies in pioneering what it means to be a digital brand. Ken can be followed at www.twitter.com/kk4i.

TOPHER BURNS
SENIOR COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER Topher Burns is a Senior Manager of Social Media Communications at Deep Focus. He is fascinated by social as an opportunity to balance the warm intricacies of human communication with cruel hard numbers. Prior to Deep Focus Topher worked in PR, helping to launch major organizations like Zurich Financial Services and NASAs SETI Institute on social media.

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The Deep focus DigiTal & social MarkeTing ouTlook www.deepfocus.net

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