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Though, at first glance, it appears to be organized rather similarly to today’s agency, one difference with the media agency of 2014 is that much of the buying process looks automated.

And on closer inspection the differences become more obvious. TV buyers, for instance, are called AV (audiovisual) buyers, covering both TV and online. They deal with targeting and consumer behavior data much more than before. Planners, now called marketing investment managers, advise clients on all aspects of their marketing strategy, from whether the brand should change its packaging to whether it should launch a new variant or product. They are much more multi-skilled, and refer to a host of different research experts in brainstorming meetings, from consumer psychologists to neuroexperts to social anthropologists to new product development managers.

Product placement specialists go beyond opportunities in events and linear broadcast content, now focussing on ad-funded games and ad-funded widgets. Admittedly, we’re already on our way here in the Middle East. The more local content is developed on TV (ADMC’s Ton of Cash, for example), in cinema (still early days but we’re on our way) and gaming (new games developed locally will soon join the international ones we can advertise in), the more we’re going to see product placement opportunities grow here. Some teams even have creatives working with planners and buyers. Yes, the agency now has a content creation department.

In addition to mobile planners and buyers, there's a new breed of digital marketer. Digital relationship managers are in the business of building and maintaining huge databases of consumers. Many of the campaigns we currently run digitally here are steps in the journey to communicate with “hand raisers,” people who seek an interaction with our brands. Fan pages are no longer a novelty and we now manage the interaction with members. Long gone are the days when all the media agency did was plan and buy a campaign.

TECHNO CHANGE. Technology is the biggest driver of change in the evolution of the media landscape. In most developed markets, the next five years will bring about faster and cheaper broadband speeds, allowing consumers to stream, rather than download, content from various sources simultaneously and on various platforms. Our region’s love for gadgets and technology will ensure this becomes a reality before long. In five years mobile phones will have satellite navigation and correlation-based information so users know where they are and what's around them, enabling them to search for anything relevant. This means search will be much more dynamic too, with results being tailored to our exact needs.

Unlike futurists, who get excited about complex technologies, consumers just want applications that make their lives easier. Any piece of technology that has ever been successful has, in some way, moved the consumer one step further towards his or her goal of being everywhere, with everyone, with everything, at every moment... Just look at the success of Twitter or SMS here in the Middle East. You could say that text messaging has liberated consumers. In our opinion, the most liberating technologies will be those that blur traditional boundaries, such as between the mobile phone and the PC, or the TV and the Internet. The most successful media and media technology will be those that reflect the fluidity of human nature.

PHD’s five “blurs”
TV and online
Content streaming online is already a reality that will only spread, courtesy of YouTube and Hulu. Local broadcasters have so far taken only a few steps on that journey. Consumers are starting to get used to consuming broadcast content online and soon they will sit at home using TV-based search to find the content they want, when they want, probably combining sources on one screen.
Naturally, this will lead to a merging of TV and online buying and measurement. Our own consultancy, integral, is already measuring this through its Total Media Thinking study. Media agencies will merge TV buying with online buying to create an AV (audiovisual) buying department. The move to streaming content will give rise to an unprecedented level of interaction with consumers and traditional buyers will become more accustomed to targeting, ad serving and ongoing campaign management, much like their digital peers. Expect to see behavioral targeting TV planning.

Mobile phones and the PC
By 2014, the mainstream audience will be using mobile devices with intuitive, touch-based controls, paper-effect or e-ink screens, image recognition, high-definition resolution and a constant connection to the Internet. Such devices already exist and the technology will only continue to improve rapidly.
New open-source applications will see convergence increase, much like Google Wave, a new platform that blends e-mail, instant messenger, wiki-software and microblogging, and dramatically reorganize the way we communicate. We will also be able to make use of location-based services such as Google's Latitude, which will be much more sophisticated in five years.
Mobile marketing will become a high-reach and high-segmentation channel, as mobile phone users typically choose ad-funded content in favor of content they have to pay for. The different opportunities on mobile, such as geo-targeting, will lead to mobile specialists working within media agencies.

Entertainment and advertising
With close to 700 channels in the region, the available airtime keeps growing and so must content to fill the airwaves. Yet the drop in audience figures as a result of fragmentation has led to smaller production budgets in a lot of places. This means branded content and product placement will grow to bridge the gap. Regional production companies are much more receptive to it today than they once were. We also see this with games, including some developed in Jordan. We are expecting to see ad-funded gaming becoming commonplace, along with ad-funded apps – online applications that can be downloaded onto a social networking site (these already exist).
Creating content will become a much bigger and more important part of a media agency's remit. These departments, where they already exist, will grow, taking on more creative tasks and working alongside creative agencies. They will employ a vast array of specialists, from product placement experts to software developers.

Consumer and publisher
Bloggers are increasingly becoming media owners in their own right, with a growing number influencing the influencers. A recent survey of 5,000 journalists found that 75 percent used blogs for research, and many newspapers actually reference blogs in copy. Blog quality will keep improving, featuring links to other sites, RSS feeds, online applications, video and images. The influence of these blogging opinion formers will continue and those most active in the blogging sphere – teenagers – will also be a key consumer group in terms of spending in five years' time. Bloggers will also increasingly be looking to profit from their opinions.
Understanding how to influence the influencers will be crucial. Communications agencies will have to become adept at online reputation management.

Online and real-life experience
The 16- to 30-year-olds of 2014 will increasingly blur their online identities with their offline social lives. This age group is completely at ease with creating identities online, whether it is via an avatar, blog or social networking site. Social networking sites will continue to link to mobile phones in the future, tapping into the benefits of location-based data and opening up a whole new world where users can see where contacts are on a map of their area while interfacing with them through an avatar.
Expanding their creative remit, media agencies will employ software developers who understand these communities and can create engaging branded experiences for them. Such consultancies and services will become mainstream by 2014.

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