Public relations and media expert Norman Birnbach, President of Birnbach Communications, Inc., was kind enough to take the time to discuss media trends in 2013. 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 2013 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 and comprehensive forecasts in the fascinating fields of media and technology.
What was the background to creating this list of Top Tech, Business, and Media Trends for 2013?
Norman Birnbach: Each year, we help our clients plan their media and social media plans for the following 12 months by looking at industry, business and media trends to help identify “hot” areas of discussion that they can participate in and be aware but stay away from other topics that aren’t relevant or appropriate for them. We’ve been compiling annual lists since 2001, and then compile a report (http://www.birnbachcom.com/news/tr_2012_track_record.shtml) in December to see how we’ve done. We generally perform quite well; last year, we got an A-/B+.
We often hear that story telling is important but rarely do we hear what that means for social media. What is happening with story in 2013?
Social media clearly has changed the way we interact. I just read a fascinating article in the Wall St. Journal, "from Talkies to Texties" that made the point that movies are shifting the way characters communicate with each other. You can't show people talking on their smartphones when they rarely use those smartphones to make phone calls. So social media and smartphones are changing the ways stories are told but they're not changing the fact that people are interested in narrative. We think the story remains more important than ever; what's changed is how, where and how often you tell the story.
You describe the importance of corporate values and personality. What do you mean by that?
Norman Birnbach: As a part of branding, corporate values have always mattered -- what a company stands for. For example, people bought Newman's Own salad dressings and pasta sauces not just because of the taste but because the profits were donated to charity. But corporate personality wasn't always as important as its values. You know there difference between McDonald's and Burger King but can you really tell the difference between their corporate personalities? Because of social media, we're seeing corporate personality as another way to differentiate yourself and connect with your customers.
Apple may have ignited that focus on corporate personality with its "I'm a MAC" campaign, and corporate personality has been important in selling cars. But you can now see the importance of corporate personality in what otherwise might seem like commoditized sectors: insurance branding in advertising seems to be all about each company's personality -- you don't need to be a psychologist to grasp the differences between Geico, Progressive, All-State and Liberty Mutual.
Social media is multiplying the impact of values and corporate personality. Companies need to be prepared to communicate not just their selling proposition but also their values and personality as they engage with customers via social media.
There is a line of thought that social media is not that effective for Business to Business companies. Has that older point of view changed for B2B companies?
Norman Birnbach: Absolutely. A few years ago, a B2B company we spoke to didn't think its potential customers -- engineers -- were using social media. At the time, Facebook had about 600 million users, and I thought but didn't say, "Of those 600 million, none of those users are your customers?" Last week, I met with the new marketing executive there, and he asked us for a plan that includes a blog and social media. B2B companies need a social media strategy because their customers are online, whether as part of their personal or professional lives.
Social media didn't make sense for B2Bs when it consisted mostly of telling your friends about what you're having for lunch or sharing the latest LOL cats clip. But social media is where people go to get and share information. B2B companies that have been reluctant to engage on social media are realizing that social media provides them with the opportunity to reach customers in ways that ads in traditional print publications are not doing.
You present a concept called the battle for the living room. What is that battle and why is it so important to understand?
Norman Birnbach: Reporters love to add drama to the stories they're writing by writing about them as corporate battles. We think there still be a number of "battles" that the media will write about, the two most important ones are the battle between Apple and Samsung for smartphone and tablet supremacy and the battle for the living room, which is focused on which company can supply the highest of the ultra high definition TVs.
Unlike Apple vs. Samsung, the battle of the living room is important because it involves a range of technologies from a broader group of companies that can appeal to a wide range of users. If the battle between Apple and Samsung is about the way we consume entertainment and information while we are out and about, when we're mobile, the battle of the living room is important because it's about the other way we consume entertainment, when we're home, when high def small screens are not as important as ultra high def screens that span 84 inches. At a time when mobile anything is all the rage, it's important to realize people use different technology when they're at home.
Streaming is becoming ever more important. What are some of the most critical changes in streaming?
Norman Birnbach: For decades, consumers have felt they were locked in by the cable industry because there were rarely alternatives to your cable operator (which often held legal monopolies to cover particular service areas -- and when there were alternative providers, there were few differences in terms of price, service and offerings.
Now, with streaming, and the ability to watch "Mad Men" or "Game of Thrones" on your smartphone and tablet, consumers are no longer held captive by cable operators. They can find lower cost, fully mobile ways to get video content. Those choices are proliferating but so is the complexity because no one service (currently) offers the convenience of cable. All the cable-alternatives require some amount of McGyvering -- using bubblegum, string and other on-hand supplies to create what seems like a patchwork alternative.
Until last year, the battle of streaming was basically one between Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Prime, and iTunes. This year, the market got more crowded, as even cable and satellite companies now offer streaming video as a perhaps last-ditch effort to stem the loss of the five million households that have dropped cable or satellite service and are now known as Zero TV households. Just don’t expect prices to drop from around $5 to $10 per month.
Norman Birnbach (photo left)
Is there a continuing battle for attention between large companies and why should people take notice?
Norman Birnbach: Large tech companies used to have fairly distinct operations that limited true competitors. For example, Oracle used to be database company that competed against other database companies and some software companies. HP, which makes other products, mostly used to competed against Dell. Google was a search company. But now the lines have blurred. Microsoft makes hardware, competing against Apple, Samsung and HP while Google is in the operating system business, competing against Microsoft and Apple.
This represents a significant change. In Fast Company, tech writer Farhad Manjoo called this "The Great Tech War Of 2012." making the case that "Apple, Facebook, Google, and Amazon battle for the future of the innovation economy." It's a smart article but Manjoo or the headline writer got one thing wrong: As technology continues to converge, the tech war didn't end in Dec. 2012. It's an ongoing war. And given the size of the companies involved, I'm not sure there will be a lot of attrition -- even as HP makes a lot of missteps. Interesting the war added a new tech giant: Samsung, which in recent weeks has been reported battling Apple and Google.
Look, I don't know if people should take notice but I think most will because the media continues to report about it in breathless prose, making it all but impossible to ignore. The downside of all this attention on a handful of giant companies is that it may not leave much room for small but innovative companies.
Who are some of the emerging or continuing leaders in the internet world?
Norman Birnbach: We're seeing a big change in terms of what innovation means to the average consumer. Innovation used to be about how fast your computer is and how much RAM it came with. For a while, innovation used to be about the Internet. But we live in a Post-PC world where computers aren't as important as smartphones and tablets. As for the Internet, it's still important but there seems to be more innovation among app developers.
That said, we see Facebook continuing to lead the way on the Internet though we expect to see some Facebook fatigue among users who stop posting as frequently as they once had -- similar to the falloff we've seen on Twitter.
What does the future hold for the much discussed Apple TV?
Norman Birnbach: Just as consumers have felt they've been held captive by cable operators, they're also feeling captive to the old ways of watching TV. We have more channels than ever, hundreds of them, but In a pinch-and-swipe world, the idea that we still have to click all around the dial when we're searching for something to watch is outdated. We're frustrated by an interface that was invented decades ago, which is fueling desire among some that Apple can figure a way to make the viewing experience much less frustrating.
Despite Apple’s persistent denials that it is not developing its own TV set, we expect to see more articles about Apple's effort into redesigning a TV set for how we watch today. We also expect to see continued articles that speculate about the implications from a programming and TV set-manufacturing perspective.
Are automated homes and smart appliances about to be everywhere?
Norman Birnbach: The concept of automated home and smart appliances received a lot of hype in January, following CES, but I don't think we're going to see Americans in droves buying Internet-connected refrigerators and ovens. At least this year. One reason is that people tend to hold onto refrigerators for a long time (because they're big and expensive), and they don't expect to replace them every few years, as they replace cars, computers, and smartphones.
If that refrigerator-buying behavior remains unchanged, appliance makers will need to find ways to make the displays and the software running the smart appliances to be easily upgradeable because what makes a device smart today won't appear too smart a decade from now. Another challenge for smart appliances is going to be the lack of interoperability – the ability for one smart device to be able to communicate effectively with another smart appliance.
If you buy one brand of toaster, will it be able to “talk” with your refrigerator? If they can’t, you basically have a Kitchen of Babel. Appliance manufacturers will need to make sure their appliances can talk to each other (and not just to the apps on your smartphone).
One of the hottest topics is 3D printers. Are they about to take the world by storm and be found everywhere?
Norman Birnbach: Again, I don't think 3D printers will be as popular as the media coverage about them has been. The technology enabling 3D printers has matured significantly but it still seems somewhat of an early adopter item. If people have problems with paper jams in regular printers, just imagine the potential problems with 3D printers.
We think that obstacles to purchasing 3D printers, for most households, include limited use for most households, the learning curve on how to use it, costs of the necessary supplies to create 3D replicas, and the need for technical support. We do expect that media and blogger coverage of 3D printers will focus on how cool it is, and that the business press will look at the implications for U.S. manufacturing.
What are the three most important trends for 2013?
Norman Birnbach: To paraphrase the three most important things in real estate, the three most important tech trends in 2013 are: mobile, mobile, mobile. More than anything else, what’s driving innovation is the need for mobile access. The great enablers of mobile include: Increased wireless network speeds and the increased push of cloud computing.
It's in developing the latest apps to serve the latest tablets, smartphones and hybrids. PC manufacturers that have killed development of their handheld or mobile units could be in big trouble over the next few years because interest is so strong in mobility and interconnectedness. We don't necessarily want to use our phones to speak to other people but we want phones that have apps that allow us to communicate with our appliances (even if we're not home), to allow us to work (even if we're not in the office), to shop for and pay for items (whether we're in the store or at the beach), and to access information we need with no connectivity or bandwidth issues.
This focus on mobility, along with the interconnected issues, will continue to define the rest of the decade. Also important is mobile ads and mobile search.
What is the future of the cloud in 2013?
Norman Birnbach: Because it is a big driver of mobile computing, we expect that more companies this year will turn to cloud-based solutions to provide access to proprietary information that would have been inconceivable just a few years ago. And while the benefits of cloud computing includes lower cost, there could be a backlash about hidden costs as consumers realize that over time they may be paying out more than if they relied on portable storage devices, which are less convenient but offer a one-time cost.
We think the cloud brings some risks, including security and privacy, and that there will be a few outages this year but that they won't have much impact on the cloud's momentum. We also think that resistance to the cloud is futile.
Are there some trends that will continue despite many forecasts of their demise?
Norman Birnbach: There are always some people who like to predict what we call the Premature DeathWatch of technology that people still use, like PCs and cable TV. While I think both are in decline, I think we're a long way off from when mainstream populations don't own PCs or subscribe to cable TV. We've seen predictions of e-Readers' demise (supplanted by tablets) and GPS (either built into new cars or available on smartphones), too. In entertainment, Blu-ray machines and DVDs have also been marked by death -- except by those who own dozens of movies on DVDs as well as radio.
Funny thing is that radio was supposed to have died years ago. Landlines and cellphones that aren’t smartphones continue to hold on. What's interesting is that, for a lot of people, the reason they still have a landline is because of packages offering combined phone, Internet and cable. (The landline is probably the cheapest communications service most of us use.) Some people have claimed press releases are dead but, even now that the SEC has said it's okay for public companies to use social media to distribute material news, it can be difficult to communicate important information in 140 characters or less.
My favorite Premature Deathwatch has declared the Office (not the NBC sitcom) as dead because technology has enabled us to work from anywhere we want. Look, people love to hate their offices, and the articles that often depict an officeless future are more wish fulfillment than actual transformation. That said, current technologies like cloud computing and videoconferencing do facilitate working from locations other than from an office, and we’ve seen a steady increase in telecommuting and working from home, leading to articles about tech in bed – but for a lot of jobs, an office will remain necessary.
Paper has also been declared dead, but almost 40 years after BusinessWeek published an article called “The Office of the Future,” in 1975, modern offices are still overwhelmed with stacks of paper.
What other ongoing stories will receive media coverage in 2013?
Norman Birnbach: We think there will be a lot of stories from 2012 that will continue to generate coverage this year. Some are obvious -- political topics like the implementation and implications of Obamacare; gun control laws; and the budget. Privacy and security, including cyberattacks, specifically from China, will continue to be big stories -- just as we said last year.
We said that salary inequality would be a big story, and then Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg's book, "Lean In," came out, and that has expanded the story from what women should be getting paid to how women should be treated in the workplace -- that's an important topic for society to address and to improve. On a less serious note, we expect there to be a lot of articles about all things Star Wars, leading up to the release of Star Wars VII in 2015.
What is next for Norman Birnbach and Birnbach Communications in 2013?
Norman Birnbach: I'm personally interested in two trends that are bubbling up but that I see as hitting in 2014: Google Glass and driverless cars. Google Glass, to reach beta users sometime this year, provides hands-free Internet access wherever you go (except, I guess, if you go beyond WiFi coverage). I know people like to be connected but also that we need time to not be connected (just ask any parent of a teenager). So I think how it plays out will be interesting, and wonder what the UV rating on its lenses are.
I also think driverless cars are proving themselves to be reliable -- after some 400,000 miles. But the liability issues around potential car accidents, whether with another driverless car or one driven by a human, will delay mass introduction of driverless cars.
As for my business, we've seen a lot of changes from the time I launched the agency 12 years ago. And a lot of that change has been concentrated over the past five years -- it's remarkable how much has changed so quickly. The discipline of developing an annual list of trends helps us have our finger on the pulse of the times, which enables us to help our clients navigate the complex and ever-changing communications landscape. It's a tough but exciting time, and we feel our insights help us and help our clients.
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