Mediaboss Marketing

Jonathan Gardner is director of communications at ad company Vibrant Media. He has spent his career as an innovator at the nexus of media and technology, having worked in communications leadership roles and as a journalist around the world.

Digital marketing is a discipline in flux. We face an onslaught of shiny new technologies and platforms that promise to change everything. Marketers are creating similarly breathless headlines, proclaiming the next revolutionary devices/apps/social networks.

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Yet, even smart marketers dont know what changes the future will bring; but they do need to be aware that their industry is changing every day. For instance, to reach consumers marketers need to be increasingly mobile, engaging, relevant and aware of the contexts in which we currently operate.

I dont pretend to know the future. But the decisions and products of Apple, Amazon and other innovators will affect how we live in the years to come. As we anticipate our connected, Minority Report-style future, here are five big marketing ideas to embrace now to get ahead of the curve.

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Consumers are out there and many want you to find them. Location features of social apps such as Foursquare, Ban.jo and Path are potential goldmines of important consumer data. The near field communication (NFC) technology in products like Google Wallet is just starting to show its potential. And while privacy issues surrounding location services will need to be resolved, consumers are still demanding that marketers understand all of their daily contexts and find ways to make their lives easier. If the rumors are true and the iPhone 5 has NFC embedded, expect these features to go from leading edge to mainstream.

While new online video and mobile platforms are -- unsurprisingly -- attracting a lot of heat, their marketing spend is still way out of whack, compared to the amount of time consumers spend there.

Dont just throw money at these new channels. Instead of pre-roll video ads and other "forced view options, look to user-initiated solutions that respect the user's time and interests. Research new ad formats that help brands look beyond clutter and banner blindness, such as in-image ads, which integrate brand messages elegantly within relevant content.

User-generated curation (UGC) is powered by content discovery apps such as Pulse, Flipboard, Fancy and Foodspotting. Content producers and merchants provide the feeds, and consumers tweak them to suit their interests and contexts, filtering data and curating personalized information platforms.

More here:
5 Huge Digital Marketing Trends You Can't Afford to Ignore