Canvas8, one of the industry-leaders on cultural insights, recently held its annual webinar, which takes a deep-dive into its 2020 trends forecasting report. Here’s a few that we’ve also had our eye on and believe will shape the next year and beyond.
THERE’S A (TV) APP FOR THAT
Take a glance at your computer’s bookmark tab, or your Roku/Connected TV homepage. How many streaming services are there?
Just two years ago your response probably would’ve only included a couple — maybe a few streaming services (Hulu, HBO, or Netflix). However, as more companies launch their own services, consumers are becoming flooded with options, forcing them to make some difficult choices.
Think about it; E-sports, live sports, news, movies, live-TV, and documentaries… basically all genres of entertainment now have their own dedicated streaming services or platforms. The landscape has gotten to a point where it’s overwhelmingly fragmented…again.
It’s almost as if streaming is beginning to have its own cable moment. Back in the early days of cable, the industry experienced fragmentation as new networks began to emerge beyond the big three (NBC, CBS, and ABC). Networks like ESPN and MTV began to emerge for specialty niche content, causing fragmentation around the channels viewers would tune into to watch the content they wanted. Similarly in present-day, people are having to jump between streaming apps to access the types of content they want to consume. We’ve had similar conversations in our office several times, which usually goes along the lines of:
“Well Netflix has the best documentaries, but Hulu and ESPN+ have the most live-sports… I wish one platform would just have both! It’d make everything so much easier. This is starting to get stressful!”
Decisions. Decisions. It almost makes you wonder, is streaming fragmentation really helping anyone?
Think about it: the original argument for ‘cord-cutting’ may actually be becoming an issue with streaming services. People originally ditched their cable providers to save money, but now to access all the content they want, they’re finding themselves paying for several different streaming services. And in some cases, those costs are equal (if not more) than cable. If cost was the issue, will that affect the future of streaming services?
Will new middle-man players enter the market and begin to offer bundled streaming services packages for customers? Will all services and content collapse into one single player like a Netflix or Hulu? Was the Disney+/ESPN/Hulu bundle a sign of things to come? How will this affect consumers’ decision-making around their entertainment experiences?
Brands will need to sort through the fray and manage how their experience comes to life in the right places, in the right ways — across services. The last thing everyone needs is another streaming app.
SOCIAL MEDIA GATEKEEPING
Choosing what social platforms to use won’t be the only thing on consumers’ minds in 2020. Deciding exactly what they post and how they engage on each platform will also be top-of-mind.
In 2020, the evolution of social platforms and the communities on them will continue to give people even more control over how they engage online. More interestingly as a result of this, we’re starting to see people think about their communications in an additive way, similar to what planners typically ask themselves when launching an ad campaign. They’ve started asking themselves things like; “Who do I want to get this message to?” “What platform serves this purpose best? “What is the size of the audience I want to reach” “If it’s small-scale, I’ll use this channel, if it’s a large-scale, I’ll use this one” etc. Though for people, these decisions are usually spontaneous and made within seconds.
In fact, this cultural trend made it to the “meta-verse” with one of the first memes to go viral in 2020. Here’s a textbook demonstration of ‘social media gatekeeping’ at work by Seattle Seahawk QB, Russell Wilson:
The point is, clearly there is not a one-size-fits-all approach on social. As people become more thoughtful of how they’re using their desired platforms, brands will have to follow suit to maintain relevancy and speak the same social language as its audience. After all, there’s nothing worse than that one person who posts about their vacation on LinkedIn….
We’re constantly challenging ourselves and the brands we work with to deeply consider the purpose each channel serves them. We’re always asking where should we be active and have a presence, where shouldn’t we, and why?
New channels like TikTok are interesting and have massive audiences and engagement, but that doesn’t mean all clients belong there. The same goes for Snapchat, Instagram and even LinkedIn. Not all have consumer applications for every brand — and just because competitors are there doesn’t mean you need to be.
PODCASTING GOES BEYOND THE EARS
Back in 2015/16, one of the more popular cultural forecasts was the boom around audio content. Well — that forecast became a reality. Let’s admit it; everyone either has or listens to a podcast in 2020.
But that’s beside the point. The one thing the trend report didn’t account for was the level of success podcasting has had these last couple of years. Podcasts are everywhere, and we mean it when we say everywhere. The long-form content is no-longer exclusive to people’s earbuds on a commute. Last year, and especially throughout 2020, we’ll start to see podcasts expand their presence across various platforms.
The variety of duration, subject matter, and guests per each show has begun to influence where and how podcasts are promoted. Short-form shows might be engaged with on smart-speakers whereas longer-form shows might be best listened to with headphones on. But what is really interesting is the listener’s growing appetite around ancillary content from their favorite shows.
In fact, our series “Uncharted: Seattle” with Visit Seattle was a podcast AND video series — adding legs to the program and resulting in higher engagement from our audience. Similarly we saw engagement grow as around “The Think Tank” podcast done in conjunction with The Atlantic and the Digital Innovation Group at Providence Health by creating social videos that highlighted key stories from those podcast episodes.
We’re now seeing hosts book out public spaces to have live shows in front of their audiences.
We’re beginning to see shows being recorded with mics and video cameras, then get posted to YouTube, Instagram and Twitter in addition to Spotify.
As more podcasts emerge, and the need to differentiate intensifies, expect the most successful shows to stand out from the gamut by taking content beyond the earbuds. We’re hoping we can help lead the charge.