The world of digital advertising is forever changing. Changes in technology, consumer trends, and consumer habits all impact how marketers need to advertise. Three examples of changes that may impact the digital landscape are Virtual Reality (VR), voice Artificial Intelligence, and Social Media.
Virtual Reality (VR) has been around for a very long time, but did not become widely seen until the 1990’s. In 1993, SEGA announced their VR glasses which was one of the first attempts at a consumer VR product. Unfortunately, the SEGA VR glasses had issues and never made it to mainstream development. The first real look at a World with VR was in 1999 when The Matrix came out. Years later in 2007 Google introduced “Street view” which allowed users to see locations in 3D. By 2012 Oculus came out and was finally a successful consumer product for VR . Since then more companies have created VR headsets for consumers (Virtual Reality Society, 2020).
With the rise of VR, virtual events are becoming more popular. Due to the pandemic and cancellation of in person events, virtual events have become a large topic of conversation. More and more people work from home and now use different types of virtual technology to attend meetings or interact with co workers. Large scale events are working on technology where users can wear VR headsets and feel like they are actually at the event. With the interest in these VR events, there are opportunities for digital advertisements in the virtual arenas, theaters, cities, or other locations these events take place (Hecks, 2021). Soon you could see your business or product advertised on a virtual billboard, or many other places in a virtual world.
Another trend that could change digital advertising is Voice Artificial Intelligence. This would refer to the AI in Google home devices, Alexa, and Siri. More and more people have one of these products in their home. In a Keynote by Gary Vaynerchuk he mentions that voice AI will be the next big this as consumers are looking for quicker more convienient ways to do things. Soon everything you can do on your smartphone you will be able to do through voice AI on Google, Alexa or Siri (Vaynerchuk, 2019). This use of AI will force marketers to find a way to advertise on these products. The world of AI is increasing and soon enough tasks will be handled through AI versus a person physically going to a website or browsing a store (Brown, 2021). Through this new technology digital advertisers would need to find ways to get ads or products into the voice AI landscape.
Lastly, social media is an ever changing product that will cause marketers to need to change digital advertising. Not too long ago Myspace was the dominate social media platform. In the blink of an eye Myspace was gone and Facebook has dominated ever since. With the constant change Social media platforms will come and go. Looking back 10 years no one thought an app that had posts that vanish after 24 hours would be successful. Today, 10 years later Snapchat is one of the most popular platforms. Consumers are always looking for the next big platform so digital advertising needs to be fluid and adjust to the changes. Marketers may need to move advertisements from Facebook and spend more money and ad space in TikTok or Twitter or some social network that hasn’t even been created yet (Forsey, 2021).
References:
Brown, A. (2021, August 8). Voice AI technology is more advanced than you might think. Forbes. Retrieved December 3, 2021, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/anniebrown/2021/08/08/voice-ai-technology-is-more-advanced-than-you-might-think/?sh=4f66f1839d3b
Forsey, C. (2021, November 30). 10 social media trends marketers should watch in 2022 [data + expert tips]. HubSpot Blog. Retrieved December 3, 2021, from https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/social-media-predictions-2017.
Hecks, E. (2021, August 17). VR trends you should expect to see in 2021. The Glimpse Group. Retrieved December 3, 2021, from https://www.theglimpsegroup.com/vr-trends-you-should-expect-to-see-in-2021/.
Vaynerchuk, G. (2019, July 5). How voice AI will impact business decisions in … – youtube. Retrieved December 3, 2021, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ym7UymLvZo.
Virtual Reality Society. (2020, January 2). History of virtual reality. Virtual Reality Society. Retrieved December 3, 2021, from https://www.vrs.org.uk/virtual-reality/history.html.
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