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We've got some exciting insights for you from Bruce Neve, President of True Media Canada. His 30+ years of experience working with brands of all sizes makes him an authority in the field, and he's here to share his predictions for the media landscape in 2024. Enjoy the interview...
Where have you seen the biggest changes in media consumption (since this time last year)
Bruce - Media time spent, which had been increasing over the long term, has plateaued and even slightly declined. There are only so many minutes in the day: consumer fatigue, fragmentation and cost concerns are all accelerating.
The time spent with TikTok is the one platform showing dynamic growth (but do ads get attention?)
Connected TV has continued to see revenue growth as viewers shifted viewing to streaming services, FAST channels and smart TV penetration continues to grow.
We have seen more concerns over Brand Safety this past year than ever before, are things better yet?
Bruce - This issue is only going to heat up in 2024. Lawsuits in the U.S. are bringing Meta, TikTok, YouTube, Snap to court regarding mental health issues and harmful content to teens and children.
The ownership concerns and data safety of TikTok persists. X is a quagmire, witness the current exodus of clients and agencies given anti-semitic content.
Is the metaverse dead?
Bruce - The metaverse is an idea ahead of its time- it is on life support. Economic slowdown, the high cost of entry, the massive computing power required, privacy concerns have all combined to put the brakes on progress.
The rapid ascendance of AI (generative AI) has taken the forefront of energy, learning application and industry focus.
AI has become the current buzzword - how does AI fit into 2024?
Bruce - AI, AI OH! Already over-hyped, drama (Sam I am) , conspiracy theories and dystopian scenarios.
To date, I would argue that the impact to date has been modest, but it is finding uses quickly, broadly and widely and our industry will be changed dramatically over the next 5 years.
AI can be used to do things faster than it’s done today. It can already do some of the tasks that agencies do—and it’s rapidly improving. It will enable employees to create significantly more output per hour which will lead to conversations about hourly rates shifting to value based pricing
Today, it can do things for creative agencies such as: Writing, Image generation, video generation, audio generation, language translation, synthetic voices and content marketing creating personalized content quickly and at scale.
Top AI Use Cases for Agencies
Media agencies can use AI tools to:
- Explore a multitude of channel mix options to strategically allocate media budgets.
- Discover new audiences and create audience personas.
- Conduct trend analysis and competitive monitoring
- Help analyze digital post performance.
- Create Social posts automatically from existing content..
One example is Google Performance Max as it can now offer advertisers faster Generative AI-driven campaign creation, personalized targeted advertising, cost-effective asset production, quick testing and optimization of ads
Agencies that test and learn will emerge as winners by training and upskilling talent to leverage AI technology – the power is in talent plus AI.
Many social networks have been testing paid options in other countries, will this become widely adopted across the board in 2024?
Bruce - Paid options, besides being a cash grab, have been instituted to provide verification and authentication to reduce bots and disinformation from social platforms.
Where are the consumers going to be in 2024?
Bruce - As I said earlier, consumers are media fatigued and time spent is actually plateauing or even slightly decreasing. What matters more is attention and engagement, relevance and impact (both short and long term).
Consumers will follow quality content and are still attracted to and share cultural media moments ( eg The Crown ,White Lotus, Barbie , Paris Olympics, Euro 2024, key sports happenings eg Messi ) .
Everyone agrees CTV, Retail media and TikTok are “hot”, but look for new AI enhanced opportunities in voice search and social.
What are you excited about as we move into 2024?
Bruce - We are in an industry that constantly changes, evolves, adapts and often leads adoption of new tech; that in itself is exciting to me. It demands lifetime learning, curiosity, collaboration, creativity to succeed. Let’s see where AI takes us. I am excited about the summer Olympics – the men’s basketball team in particular.
What are you concerned/worried about 2024?
Bruce - I dread a year of U.S. debates, nonsense, divisive talk and opinion trumping facts across N.A. leading up to the U.S. Presidential election. This impacts social media discourse, TV news, Canadian legislation re: tech giants and consumer confidence. The cookieless reality will finally hit hard. Generative AI still has concerns regarding hallucinations/accuracy, privacy, copyrights and transparency.
Here are Bruce's predictions from 2022 and 2023.
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