What to expect in 2014 when it's already 2014?!?!

Aloha!!!!!!!!!

Can you believe that is really happening? Me neither, but that's for real - I am back for regular contribution to this blog, full of genious ideas and ready to impress you with every new post.

In this first paragraph let me quickly update you on what's happening in my life and on the 'where you have been hiding for the past little-bit-more-than-a-month' issue. I returned back home from Glasgow, celebrated Christmas and New Year, had great birthday party, celebrated Chinese New Year, got Glasgow-homesick (Glasgow-sick doesn't sound right...;) and have been actively looking for the perfect job! I have already had a number of interviews and almost been offered the President of the World role, but I will tell you more about it in my next post, while now I offer you to read the hopefully-still-relevant ideas on the Marketing/PR/Advertising trends of 2014!

I know it might be a little bit too late as 2014 has already arrived, but I tried my best to reflect this issue in the headline for this blog post to avoid confusion, disappointment and all those sad things. On the bright side, I had more than enough time to think this post through, read everything relevant news media had to offer on this topic and come up with some interesting ideas. Enjoy! And, please, come back for more, as I realised it will be too difficult to fit all 5 trends into one post. Hope, I have not lost your attention already...

The trends of 2014, according to me, are:

1. Storytelling is the thing of 2014

2. Transmedia storytelling/
cross-platform PR is hot

3. Old school is good as new

4. E-commerce is rising

5. UX is all about simplification 

1. Storytelling is the thing 

I don't think this will come as news to you that I advocate storytelling as the core to successful comunication. Not only have I finished online courses regarding this trend and already posted my ideas here, but started reading some cool literature on the topic as well! I am going to share it with you after I explain what is going to happen with storytelling in 2014. Wait for it. :-)

'No matter what you do, always and forever, our job is to tell our story, and that is never going to change. The way you make real money, the way you make real impact, the way things get changed is by great storytelling [...].  My biggest problem right now, in general, is that I feel that far majority of people, businesses, organisations, media organisations all across the board are storytelling like it's 2007 in 2014's world!' - says Gary Vaynerchuk in this inspiring video I have just found. In case you are to busy to watch it, here are some key notes I made from his talk:

• 2014 is the year of micro stories and 'breaking news storytelling' as opposed to 'heavy and thick movie storytelling' (which still works in some cases). 

What has happened is that everyone suddenly got ADD (by the way I read that the guy who invented this disease admitted it was not a real thing, anyway). Therefore, supply and demand of attention is completely out of control. I do agree. Have you noticed that even dinners with friends in restaurants and cool coffee shops are now all about Instagramming the food, checking-in for Facebook and spending more time with your smartphone that your actual smartfriends? I wake up every morning and the first thing I do - check my phone, not that I am addicted, but yeah...that's my first source of news and I just can't not check them.
 

On the other hand, the one thing we totally do have control over, or at least think we do - is time. We like text messages, because we can respond to them anytime we want. We tweet, because we want to capture this exact moment. We watch all 3 seasons of Sherlock in one night and do not really care about BBC programming. 

Those two factor (our control over time and our lack of attention) are the biggest challenges for storytelling in 2014. What this means for storytellers and marketers is that, according to Gary, 'you have to tell your story where the eyes and ears of everybody are'. To illustrate, you spend money and kill trees to send catalogues to your 'potential' buyers and they end up in a trash bin without even being opened. Moreover, that huge expensive billboard will never be seen, as your target audience 'is not looking on your billboard, they are not even looking on the road, because they are too busy texting'. 

• Quality storytelling always wins

The second cool thought I borrowed from Gary is that marketers ruin everything. They've ruined email marketing (which is now 'delete-spam-unsubscribe'), they are ruining Groupon, even Google Adwords is down by 15%. People don't watch YouTube ads, people hate annoying pop-up banners, journalists don't even look at our press-releases. To the contrary, P&G's 'Thank You, Mom' story is so touching, I can watch it forever. The same can be told about Dove's 'Real Beauty'. Those are not just commercials or instruments of selling stuff - they are stories of really high quality! If we think about marketing and PR in a broader sense, quality storytelling is recent Facebook 'Look back' tool (p.s. Happy Birthday, Facebook!!!). Moreover, I guess this is a highly valuable tool for brands who have their Facebook pages (I guess all of them do). Not sure if it is possible to create such video for business pages, but I guess it would be cool to see how their stories look like. Anyway, SMMs can ask themselves what those 'lookback' will look like for their products/pages/services. Will it all be about 'buy this/check this out/buy 2 get 1 free' or something meaningful/bright/hilarious/fascinating/shocking? 

I also think that product placement and branded entertainment are the most promising means of storytelling in 2014. With the first - you don't have to tell the actual story, but feature your product in the right story in a right way. While with the second, you get to tell a story with your product, about your product and in a way that is not as pushy as it is with commercials. Tough challenge which I guess is worth accepting! To provide you with at least one example of branded entertainment, IKEA and their 'Easy to Assemble' web series had really nailed the task.  

• It's not about the CONTENT, it's about CONTEXT

Surprisingly, although IKEA, P&G and Dove excite us with brilliant content, Gary argues that in 2014 'where everyone gets fucked up' is that 'we think it is all about the content, and all the action right now is in the context'. Thus, social media channels are mainly considered by marketers as means of distributing information and this though is wrong. When this is your image of SNSs, you use them accordingly - write and share the same stuff on all the different social networks (it's like email distribtuions). The correct or the 2014's way to tell stories is to respect the psychology of different channels and their users. We should ask ourselves what people are doing on Twitter and what they'd like to see you, as a marketer, doing there. It may seem like a very 2007s advice, but never ever handle your Instagram/Facebook/Vine/Tumblr/ Twitter identically. I would also suggest to think twice whether your brand needs all of those contexts, because Instagram for a local dentist sounds too odd to me. ;-)  To sum up with Gary Vaynerchuk's quote: 'The context of the room changes the way you storytell'. 

Well, I guess that is too much of What's Trending talks for one blogpost! In my next 4 posts I will explain the rest of the tendencies, so don't give up on reading me just yet. 

See you soon!

P.S. This is the promised short reading list.

Avi Savar, Content to Commerce: Engaging Consumers Across Paid, Owned and Earned Channels

John Truby, The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller