Public relations and media expert Norman Birnbach, President of Birnbach Communications, Inc., was kind enough to take the time to discuss media trends in 2012. He describes what is happening with television, newspapers, ebooks, publishing, and online media. He also shares a few surprising trends that will be appearing in 2012 as well. Norman also blogs at the popular and highly regarded public relations blog PR Back Talk.
Thanks to Norman Birnbach for his time, and for his intriguing forecasts in the fascinating fields of media and technology.
What was the background to creating the Top Tech, Business, Media Trends for 2012 Predictions report?
Norman Birnbach: Each year for the past 10 years, we've helped our clients develop their communications plans by identifying the trends we think will be important for the coming year. The idea is that clients have certain internal news and milestones and we try to connect those to larger trends that reporters, bloggers and others will be writing about. By putting clients' news into the context of business trends can help anticipate and generate coverage.
One of your findings was the desire to be connected around the clock 24/7 may change in 2012. Why do you say that?
Norman Birnbach: A while back, only the very wealthy could afford to be connected wherever they went – equipped with satellite phones while exploring the most remote locales. These days, teenagers are texting round the clock – or that’s what it feels like to their parents. The fact is we almost never have downtime anymore – I remember hearing a buzzing of someone’s smartphone while attending a funeral. And people are beginning to notice that’s not all good.
Being connected leads to the probability of being distracted on a 24/7 basis. We feel it’s so important to respond that some people text while driving or answer their smartphones while hiking. This lack of downtime may negatively impact our ability to concentrate and avoid distractions at work and at home. And being connected 24/7 isn’t making us happier. Even as we spend more time connecting to people via Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest, we’re spending less time in person with people we care about.
Already a handful of companies have limited corporate email, both during the day and after hours – and we think more will join those ranks. We also think the concept of going on vacation without access to email or cell will become more of a status symbol because it now takes a lot of money to disconnect yourself from your regular workday.
You point out that more people may get rid of cable television. Why will more people cut the cord on cable?
Norman Birnbach: The cost of cable continues to increase, even though Congress passed a bill nearly 20 years ago to keep cable fees in line. The cost that content producers charge continues to climb -- to the extent that even cable operators, who pass along those costs to subscribers, are complaining. Part of the increase is from sports programming like ESPN. And part of the dissatisfaction is that subscribers can pay $1,200 per year to get cable service and still feel like there's nothing on that they want to watch. At the same time, we have new technologies available that provide for the first time alternatives to cable.
Amazon Prime, Hulu.com, Netflix and other new services are popping up offering television shows and movies at a cost that severely undercuts cable or satellite. One problem we've seen is that the experience is not seamless or easy yet. It still takes subscriptions to several different services along with several hardware purchase to give you access to content -- and you won't be able to get all that you may want, like local stations, or all current episodes of a show you want, etc. Still, consumers have a choice, a chance to cut the cable and avoid paying for what they don't want.
Norman Birnbach (photo left)
Media has been converging for at least a decade. Will that trend continue and in what ways?
Norman Birnbach: Yes it will. When you look at how the media – newspapers, TV news and radio – are adjusting to the Internet and to distributing their content via apps, it’s clear the lines among the media has blurred. It’s not just that more people access newspapers online without smudging their fingers with newsprint. It’s that newspaper reporters are more likely than ever to prepare video reports for the newspaper’s website and apps. And TV and radio reporters – who, the joke went, once only needed to know how to pronounce words, not spell them – are now typing up text articles to accompany their video, also available on their websites and apps.
And, of course, they’re all tweeting and blogging about the news they’re covering. So yes, expect more media convergence to the point that the specific media will stop being defined by the device on which we used to consume them. We’re no longer “taping” a “TV program” to watch later anymore because we’re not using tape of any kind – we’re recording it onto a DVR or downloading a show and watching it on a tablet.
E-books are the fastest growing segment in publishing. How will e-books evolve to maintain that growth momentum?
Norman Birnbach: E-books will evolve as the technology allows them to do more things – it has to do with convergence again. Already some publishers are working on combining video and other interactive features into their e-books to provide more value. With the growing capabilities of e-readers like the Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble’s Nook as well as iBook on the iPad, expect e-textbooks to include interactive exercises, and nonfiction e-books to include more video, photos, and audio. We also expect that fiction books will come packed with featurettes much the way DVDs are packaged, with video interviews with the author and interactive guides for book clubs.
We keep hearing dire forecasts that the press release is dead. Is that indeed the case?
Norman Birnbach: Not at all - the press release is alive and well, despite dire predictions to the contrary. It seems like everyday a different blogger gleefully declares something else has died -- PowerPoints, emails, in-person meetings, for example -- and most of those have been wrong. They may be imperfect, but we still use all those tools, including press releases, because they get the job done even as new forms for meeting and collaborating rise up. A lot of those new tools are imperfect, too, by the way, and need to evolve. I think we'll continue to see the press release evolve, but it won't die in the near term.
The reasons press releases continue to be useful is that, even in an age of social media and news by Tweets, press releases still provide more detail than tweets with a 140 characters can. Press releases are important also from an SEO perspective because new content on your website raises your site in searches. And new press releases also show that a company is still alive and active.
How will social media grow in relation to business to business or B2B marketing?
Norman Birnbach: We're seeing B2B clients -- who would have not even considered social media 18 months ago -- to be either seriously considering social media or already actively engaging in social media, via blogs, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. That said, they are not focusing on Facebook to reach their customers.
B2B companies will recognize the need to generate their own multimedia content, and that there are active and engaged business consumers even for niche sectors. We expect that more B2B companies will consider increasing budgets to make engaging their targets through social media, thought leadership and lead generation their top marketing priorities. For example, one of our clients develops and sells an enterprise accounting software, which is as afar from a consumer product as you might imagine. But together we realized they had a lot of great content and insight, and that we couldn't just rely on traditional media to get out that information; so we helped them launch a blog and several Twitter feeds. The response has been tremendous inside and out.
Inside the company, the staff feels proud about the caliber of the content on the corporate blog. As the smallest part of a global conglomerate, our client is getting recognition as the social media leader among all of the company's geographies (including much larger country teams). Further, and more significantly, the client is engendering conversations with customers, influencers and prospects, raising awareness and generating leads.
What is the biggest surprise to most people that you are forecasting this year?
Norman Birnbach: People seem most surprised by the acknowledgement that more connectivity isn’t always good, that we need to take a break, and interact with the people around us. We’re not saying going off the grid, without electricity, is going to be mainstream. But we do think people are burning out from years of always being connected, and when we do talk to people about that, there’s an instant recognition from most people that it would be nice, every once in a while to be able to leave their homes without making sure they have their phone with them.
How have the trends for 2012 built on previous predictions to enhance them?
Norman Birnbach: There are several trends from 2011 that will continue to be significant this year, most of them connected.
· Cloud computing, which actually began in 2010, continues to go mainstream, driven by the need to access your data – content, files, music, etc. – no matter where you are and no matter what device you are using at that moment. There are times when you need to work on a document while standing in line and you need to pick up where you left off when you get back to your PC, for example – and cloud computing makes that happen without having to carry flash drives.
· The post-PC world – or the rise of the tablets. Again, this is a trend that began in 2010. The launch of the iPad has led to the post-PC concept – and to the ongoing battle of tablets. The first round went to the iPad, but so-called iPad Killers have not given up. Competitors still want to get into the action and capture some of the market share. From the media's perspective, it's a two-horse race between the Kindle Fire and iPad. We expect a third option to gain some traction, but the iPad will continue to dominate.
· Mobile, mobile, mobile – arguably the three most important tech trends in 2012, which of course began a year or two ago. People expect to be able to work and access information anywhere on any device (see cloud computing and the post-PC world). We expect to see more consumers adopt cashless payments, using their smartphones to pay for products and services.
· Social, social, social – also arguably the three most important tech trends this year. These days, it seems like everything you do can now be shared online. What you watch, what you read, what you listen to, what websites you visit – these can all easily be shared. But the impact of social goes beyond personal use. Enterprise technology is now informed by social media; we’re advising even our most serious B2B clients that their applications now need not only to have intuitive interfaces, they also must be accessible on iPads.
Which of your 2011 predictions was either too early or a bit off target?
Norman Birnbach: We overstated 2011 as being the Year of the app-based media subscription. We thought the ability to subscribe to a publication via an app versus the print edition would get more attention from the media and social media worlds because publishers still need to find a way to generate revenue from producing online and app-based content. There were some pricing battles between Apple and a few magazine and book publishers. And there are still a number of publications selling app-based subscriptions for a higher price than print subscriptions to the same publications.
And then there are some outlets that provide free online apps to print subscribers. There’s no consistent model, and we thought 2011 would bring clarity to subscription models and pricing, but I think we were too early on this one, but I don’t think we’re wrong about the need for some consistency in how publishers handle app-based subscriptions.
What is next for Norman Birnbach and Birnbach Communications in 2012?
Norman Birnbach: I’m looking forward to the possibility of cutting the cable cord this year, and to the possibility of actively breaking free from 24/7 connectivity. I think we all need some downtime and to reduce distractions that are rampant on our smartphones and tablets. From a business perspective, we love helping our clients take advantage of our insights and trends-spotting to accomplish their communications objectives – as well as to develop new services based on those insights and trends.
We developed new multimedia services in Q4 last year, and have some exciting case studies to offer up this year. So we expect to continue to evolve our practice and to help guide our clients as they navigate the converging media and social media worlds.
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