Top five trends to let go in 2014

Hi Bernardine, not sure if i agree with your argument about Big Data. Yes companies and most brands are not equipped and not correctly advised about usage but doesn’t make redundant. The absence of disease doesn’t make you healthy, ignoring because supportive corporate environment hasn’t been set doesn’t mean you couldn’t benefit..
I’m not being the big data advocate here, indeed the name tag its terrible however there are many companies in Au utilising very basic data sets to predict buying cycles and to take decisions in moments of brand crisis.
As per your question, what to add to the list? How about “Viral”? I could punch the next person who tells me “Can you make this campaign viral?”

Great post Bernardine. It’s totally time to retire the term ‘digital’.

If “digital” is not a thing…then what is the role of a digital strategist????

Using the phrase ‘(Do you see what I did there?)’

Can we please add that to the list of trends that should die in 2014.

apart from that great list.

You know everything on a website/campaign/app etc is content, right?

Also, had to chuckle at:
” Please stop saying “digital” like it’s a thing
As a digital strategist – “

Glad you liked that one, Graham. It’s never too early in the morning for irony!

And Lucio, let’s definitely get “viral” on the list.

Points 1, 2 and 4 are spot on.

Great read.

yes, then to have a by-line saying ‘digital strategy specialist’….derp

Can I add to Bernadine’s excellent article “heritage media”. Yes that’s all the pre digital media where content providers actually get paid for their work. It is to be contrasted with “new media” where content providers are asked to work for next to nothing because it is all new and experimental. An emerging market particularly for wannabe companies to exploit hungry graduates on extended unpaid internships.

“Saying stuff is dead is dead” – I love it!

‘One look at Twitter when #Redwedding took over proved that yes, people are still loyal to their [torrents]’

FTFY

RIP Telly.

The industry thrives on buzzwords and cliches in an effort to convince itself it is actually doing something of importance and consequence.

It is nigh on impossible to talk to an agency without it beating its chest and awkwardly trying to demonstrate how much (usually how little!) they understand about big data as they don’t want to appear to be uninformed.

TV is well and truly alive and kicking as are the many other screens that compete for our attention. The fact is that it now includes a multitude of failed programs presented under the cliched banner of content marketing (translation: blatant product or brand plug). It’s just a window-dressed ad! These often cringe-worthy and laughable attempts at shoving a brand down consumers throats have consumers switching off in droves.

Try and view anything online and a bloody ad interrupts you creating an enormous piss-off factor that was probably sold to the client as an innovative interruption strategy

Wholeheartedly agree that digital is channels and devices where the average consumer often retreats to selectively gather info but usually finds their space invaded by lame attempts to stick a brand in their face.

Have we forgotten that what we do isn’t rocket science? We just sell stuff. It appears that the more opportunities we are given to communicate to consumers, the worse we have become at doing it. Fragmented feeble communication presented with columns of smoke and mirrors laced with cliches is not necessarily better communication.

Outside the advertising bubble very few people take our industry as anything more than a slapstick business routine of creative indulgences and gimmicks. Isn’t it about time we got back to the business of selling.

Do you really think those people hashtagging Redwedding were watching it live on their TV sets??? Australians are the highest illegal downloader of GOT

Love it. And you’re right.

great article Bernadine you are wise beyond your apparent years

Couldn’t agree more on the word “digital”. As of next Tuesday Australian television will be 100% digital so I look forward to “television budgets being moved to digital”. Surely you mean ‘Interactive’ or something similar?

Re “Big Data” I’m from the same school. It’s not the volume of the data you have access to, it is the quality and meaning behind that small sub-set of Big Data – and what you do with it – that counts. Virtually every marketing model I’ve worked with shows five or six key metrics drive demand and sales – the rest is either small fry or insignificant. Focus on the few and reap the rewards.

Busy todayTony..?

Great article, I’d love to include the excessive use of # but sadly I think they are here to stay.
Also, working for a data company I hear bigdata all the time, the funny thing is I don’t think people really even know what it means…. It’s not just having lots of unless data…

If content is not king then what is?

big data is a beautiful catchcry and the implication is there are big profits – but why is it any different now — we have always had stats men and women crunching the averages for emerging trends for sales opportunities ?

Big Data is only going to get a lot ‘bigger’ in 2014. That said, the fact that most people (in my experience) think its just heaps of data and being able to put it into pie charts and graphs is sad. Your article indicates you need data in order to engage with ‘Big Data technologies’. You don’t. Big data will be real time processing of data and automated decision making, from multiple sources (most especially mobile). You just need to make the links.

What Big Data will actually do in 2014 is enable AI-adaptive, contextual marketing. Look out for all the geo-fencing campaigns and site-specific competitions, games and offers next year. Campaigns like the Oreos Twitter campaign will be run on an IFTTT level of automation. I know of several campaigns in the pipeline that will make Big Data a huge topic next year – with greater comprehension I hope….

At last a non-boring list. However,would like to add Branded Content disguised as lists, e.g. the ones that go: (Insert no. here) of things that (add verb of choice here) (insert phrase here).
Every writer seems to have read the astounding fact that people read lists, and Google and Buzzfeed will love their work.

Content is still king, the point of that statement is that the content has to be good.

Can people stop saying “reach out” ffs we are in Australia. people do not say “reach out” here!

The Four Tops are the only way I want to hear “Reach Out”.

You lost me at ‘one lens isn’t enough’. Because it really is. One lens is more than enough. I am wholly sick of the word.

Do you see what i did there?

Spot on Bernadine, particularly points 4 and 5. All of these are on my list – alongside the overuse of “engagement”, “holistic” and “insight” by those who clearly have no idea what they truly mean.

I’m currently struggling with an appropriate title to print on my 2014 business card, that replaces the currently minimalist ‘Rainmaker’. I’ve narrowed it down to one of the following, for which I’ll crowdsource feedback via my proprietary 360-degree social interface dashboard:
1) ‘Strategic Media-Neutral Curator’
2) ‘Grand Poo-bah of Innovation Engagement & Storytelling’

Once an appropriate nom-de-guerre has been selected, my winning title will be utilised to spearhead a fresh approach to picking low hanging fruit whilst thinking outside the nine dots, benchmarking holistic digimobile (or is it mobital?) solutions against open source legacy protocols and futureproofing brandcentric web 3.0 customer engagement.

Alternatively, I’ll dish up more of the same.

I really enjoyed reading that…. well done. A fun but insightful piece…