We may not have psychics standing by (or do we . . . ?) but current events and previous trends continually shape the future of the marketing industry. From video games to shopping without hands, global experts weigh in on what’s to come.
Gaming
SuperData estimates that by the end of 2017, the global mobile games market will be worth $44.8 billion, and $54.5 billion by 2019. Free-to-play PC games like League of Legends will reach $19.6 billion in 2017, premium PC games will fetch $5.3 billion and premium console games will garner $7.3 billion. By 2020, total software sales are estimated to reach $89.7 billion, Superdata predicts. This figure is conservative compared to estimates by analyst firm DFC Intelligence that software sales with reach $98 billion by 2020.
Superdata also predicts that eSports revenue will continue to rise over the next few years, reaching $1.1 billion in 2017 and upwards of $1.4 billion by the year 2020.
AR/VR And Mixed Reality
By 2020, over a billion people worldwide will regularly access AR and VR content, according to predictions by the research firm IDC. In an attempt to reach this growing demographic, IDC predicts that 30 percent of consumer-facing companies in the Forbes Global 2000 will experiment with AR and VR as part of their marketing efforts in 2017. A large of part of this adoption will be via digital assistants, with over 110 million consumer devices with embedded intelligent assistants installed in US households by 2019. Garner Analysts predict that by 2020, 30 percent of web browsing sessions will be conducted without a screen, relying on voice-activated assistants such as Amazon Echo. Garner further estimates that 100 million consumers will shop in AR.
The global mixed reality market is expected to reach $6.86 billion by 2024, according to a recent report by Grand View Research, Inc. “The surging acceptance in entertainment and automobile and aerospace designing arenas is expected to boost the market growth,” the company stated.
Marketing
Seventy percent of marketers will spend more on marketing in 2017, with 67 percent saying they will spend up to 75 percent. Just 19 percent said they will spend the same and 5 percent plan to spend less. About one-third plan to hire more SEO and content professionals, according to a study by Conductor. The data, which focuses on supporting content and search engine optimization, found that 80 percent of marketers will increase their focus on digital advertising, content marketing and SEO in 2017.
Zenith, meanwhile, predicts that in 2017, mobile advertising will surpass advertising on desktop. By 2018, Zenith estimates that mobile advertising will reach $134 billion, more than what marketers will spend on newspaper, magazine, cinema and outdoor advertising combined. Mobile revenues are expected to increase, according to Newzoo, predicting that global app revenues will grow to $80.6 billion by 2020.
By 2018, programmatic digital video advertising will reach $10.65 billion, or 74 percent of total video ad expenditures, according to predictions by eMarketer.
The analytics firm also predicts that YouTube’s net US video ad revenues will reach $2.89 billion in 2018, up from $2.16 billion in 2016. Superdata, meanwhile, predicts that gaming video content revenue will reach $5 billion in 2017, and continue to grow to $5.9 billion by 2019.
