Kantar unveiled Media Trends and Predictions 2023, its annual forecast of how the media landscape will evolve in the coming year. The leading marketing data and analytics company has a unique and comprehensive understanding of how people think, feel and act globally and locally in over 90 markets by combining its deep domain knowledge, data resources and benchmarks, as well as innovative analytics and technology.

The company’s latest report provides a definitive overview of upcoming trends in the media industry, using Kantar's market-leading data alongside evidence-based predictions and expert viewpoints. The insights will help media companies and brands navigate 2023 and plan for the future. Focusing on new video-on-demand (VOD) models, soaring costs, data usage and new technologies, Kantar's experts predict:

• VOD embraces appointment TV strategies – Marking a new chapter for the TV and video market, the winners in the platform wars will deploy hybrid strategies balancing VOD and linear content. Broadcasters are adopting aspects of VOD strategy that fit their positioning whilst preserving their points of difference, and VOD platforms are adopting concepts like “appointment TV” and curated content discovery. The market will shift away from all-at-once release strategies and box-set bingeing for new content to maximize revenues.
  
  
• Ad-supported models answer to inflation worries – Market penetration for ad-based video-on-demand (AVOD) grew from 20% in Q2 2021 to 23% as shown by Q2 2022 US data. Kantar's Media Reactions 2022 study shows consumers are more accepting of advertising, and as rising costs are making ad-funded content more palatable. The timing is right to introduce ad-funded tiers to limit price-sensitive churn. However, ad-models risk creating two types of viewers: those with less disposable income who become over-targeted by ads, and those with more disposable income, who are more attractive to advertisers, but are harder to reach.
  
  
• Contextualize or fail – Marketers must prepare for a post-cookie landscape by experimenting with proxy-based targeting systems and contextual advertising. Targeting within closed ecosystems, in which consented first-party data is available, will still be possible, but wider cross-platform targeting has hit the barrier of consumer privacy. There will be incremental improvement in the coming years, but the hyper-targeted ecosystem the internet once promised looks increasingly unviable and initial assumptions about the granularity of targeting outside closed ecosystems may have to be reappraised.
  
  
• “Dynamic product placement” edges closer – Nearly 75% of all US broadcast network shows have some form of product placement, targeting those viewers difficult to reach through conventional advertising forms according to Kantar's Future Viewing Experience 2022 report. Dynamic product placement – enabling a product, billboard or screen featured in content to be substituted or overlaid with a different brand or advert – is also growing. Like addressable advertising, different viewers could – with the right data – be shown tailored ads. However, technological possibilities will need to be balanced against what's acceptable to audiences. A negative impact may be inadvertently achieved if a placement is clearly anachronistic, jarring or out of place. Thus, tailored content should be closely monitored.
  
  
• Media companies need to respond to advertisers' (and consumers') Net Zero ambitions – Reducing the carbon impact of media and advertising to net zero is the business challenge of our time and a greater opportunity. 2023 needs to be a year of sustainable innovation – whether that's brands offering green products and services, media owners offering more energy-efficient services, or agencies rethinking how their planning, buying and production strategies are impacting the climate.

"We foresee a year full of challenge and opportunity for the media industry. As global price rises impact consumer spend and advertising, campaign planning could be optimized through improved data application, making budgets go further. From post-cookie solutions to better campaign planning, data is our fuel – but its usage is changing. The future will continue to deliver a host of new technologies, each brimming with potential, and it's important not to get lost in the hype,” concluded John McCarthy, Strategic Content Director, Media Division, Kantar.

By MediaBUZZ