More
than 4.5 billion people are using the internet at the start of 2020,
while social media users have passed the 3.8 billion mark. Nearly 60
percent of the world’s population is already online, and the latest trends
suggest that more than half of the world’s total population will use
social media by the middle of this year.
Some
important challenges remain, however, and there’s still work to do to ensure
that everyone around the world has fair and equal access to life-changing
digital connectivity.
Please
also note that some of the underlying sources and reporting methodologies for
some of our core data points have changed since last year, so various numbers
in our Digital 2020 collection will not be comparable to similar
data points in previous reports. See individual report slides for more details.
Digital
in 2020: the essential headline numbers
Digital’s
role in our lives has reached new heights, with more people spending more time
doing more things online than ever before:
·
The number of people around the world using
the internet has grown to 4.54 billion, an increase of 7 percent
(298 million new users) compared to January 2019.
·
Worldwide, there are 3.80 billion social
media users in January 2020, with this number increasing by more
than 9 percent (321 million new users) since this time last year.
·
Globally, more than 5.19 billion people
now use mobile phones, with user numbers up by 124 million (2.4 percent)
over the past year.
You’ll probably spend
more than 100 days online this year
The
average internet user now spends 6 hours and 43 minutes online each day. That’s
3 minutes less than this time last year, but still equates to more than 100
days of connected time per internet user, per year. If we allow roughly 8 hours
a day for sleep, that means we currently spend more than 40 percent of our
waking lives using the internet.
What’s
more, the world’s internet users will spend a cumulative 1.25 billion years
online in 2020, with more than one-third of that time spent using social
media. However, the amount of time that people spend online varies from country
to country, with internet users in the Philippines spending an average of 9
hours and 45 minutes per day online, compared to just 4 hours and 22 minutes
per day in Japan.
Getting to full access:
connecting the unconnected
More
than 2 billion people have come online since the first mention of ‘The Next
Billion’, but just over 40 percent of the world’s total population
– roughly 3.2 billion people – remains unconnected to the internet.
More
than 1 billion of these ‘unconnected’ people live in Southern Asia (31 percent
of the total). Countries in Africa account for 27 percent of the total, with
870 million people yet to come online across the continent as a whole.
Age plays a significant role in determining
levels of internet access across these regions: more than half of Africa’s
total population is below the age of 20, and there are more than 460 million
people below the age of 13 across Southern Asia.
However,
gender is also a critical factor, with data from the ITU showing that women are
more likely to be ‘unconnected’ compared to men. The digital gender gap is also
apparent in our latest social media data. In particular, women in Southern Asia
are three times less likely to use social media today compared to men, offering
meaningful insight into broader internet connectivity in the region.
Even more worryingly, research from GSMA Intelligence suggests
that more than half of all women living in India today are unaware of the
existence of mobile internet.
The
United Nations reports that much of this imbalance stems
from “deeply ingrained social norms and practices.” Regardless of the
cause, however, connecting the unconnected will depend heavily on improving
digital accessibility for women, especially in developing economies.
There’s
lots of work to do here, and it’s work that brands can help with. If you’d like
to learn more about this important topic, GSMA Intelligence’s comprehensive Mobile Gender Gap Report explores many of
the underlying issues and challenges in detail, while their excellent Mobile
Connectivity Index offers richer perspectives at a local country
level.
Mobile
now accounts for half of internet use
GlobalWebIndex
finds that mobile phones now account for more than half of all the time we
spend online, with the company’s latest data putting mobile’s share of internet
time at 50.1 percent.
With 92 percent of the world’s internet users
now connecting via mobile devices, this figure may be lower than some might
expect, but various data points reveal that computers continue to play an
important role in our connected lives.
Despite
mobile’s ubiquity, three-quarters of internet users aged 16 to 64 still go
online via laptop and desktop computers. Furthermore, the latest data from
Statcounter reveal that roughly 53 percent of all web page requests now come
from mobile phones, but that computers still account for 44 percent of the
total.
All of this data points to the fact that most
people still use a variety of different devices to go online. As a result, a
balanced device strategy is still essential. Moreover, people use different
devices at different times and for different needs, so marketers must go beyond
technical considerations to understand the various use cases and contexts for
each device when building their plans.
Apps
are where it’s at
Data
shared with us by App Annie reveals that mobile apps now
account for 10 out of every 11 minutes we spend using mobile devices, with web
browsing only responsible for 9 percent of our mobile time.
However,
when we consider the extent of app offerings available to today’s mobile users,
this is perhaps unsurprising. New data from GlobalWebIndex
show that we’re using apps in almost every aspect of our lives, whether it’s
staying in touch with friends and family, relaxing on the couch, managing our
finances, getting fit, or even finding love.
It’s worth noting that helping people find
love is big business too. Tinder generated more revenue than any
other non-game app in 2019, while the world’s lonely hearts spent a total of
US$2.2 billion on all dating apps during the course of 2019 – twice as
much as they spent in the same category two years ago.
Our love affair with apps shows little sign
of slowing either, despite the rise of ‘progressive web apps’. App Annie reports that the world’s smartphone users
downloaded more than 200 billion mobile apps in 2019, spending a total US$120
billion on apps and app-related purchases over the past 12 months. Combined
with recent data from Ericsson, these figures suggest
that the average user now spends an annual average of more than US$21 per
connected smartphone.
App
Annie’s new State of Mobile 2020 report also reveals
that games account for the greatest share of mobile app downloads – more than 1
in 5 of the total – and drive 70 percent of worldwide consumer spend on mobile
apps. However, games are not the biggest category when it comes to the
share of total time spent using mobiles, as we’ll explore in the next section.
We really are
social animals
Roughly
half of the 3.7 hours that people spend using mobile phones each day is spent
using social and communications apps, meaning that these platforms account for
the same share of our mobile time as all of our other mobile activities put
together.
Across mobile devices and computers,
GlobalWebIndex reports that we now spend an average of 2 hours and 24 minutes
per person, per day using social media, up by 2 minutes per day since this time
last year.
Once
again, the story varies by country. Filipinos are still the world's most
‘social’ people, with the average internet user aged 16 to 64 spending almost 4
hours per day on social platforms. It’s a very different picture at the other
end of the scale though, with internet users in Japan spending an average of
just 45 minutes per day using social media.
But
where exactly are we spending all of that social time – and just how big
is TikTok? All will be revealed below…
Facebook still dominates
Despite
various challenges over the past few years, Facebook is still top of the pops
when it comes to social. Trends in user numbers reported in the company’s
earnings announcements suggest that the platform should have already passed the
historic 2.5 billion monthly active users (MAU) mark, and user numbers
continued to grow steadily across most countries during 2019.
However, for various reasons, marketers can’t
reach all of these users using Facebook advertising, and the platform’s own
self-service advertising tools indicate that the total addressable Facebook
audience now stands at 1.95 billion, or roughly 80 percent of total MAUs.
Facebook has seen a few audience declines
over the past year too. Its self-service advertising tools reported notably
lower reach figures for India, Spain, and South Korea at the start of 2020
compared to just a few months earlier. However, overall, Facebook’s audience
reach has grown by 1 percent in the past 3 months alone.
Critically,
marketers can now use Facebook to reach one-third of all the world’s adults
aged 18 and above, and more than half of all the world’s adults aged 18
to 34.
Time for TikTok
TikTok
was probably the media’s top social story in 2019, with some huge – and often
misrepresented – numbers hitting the headlines. However, a TikTok advertising
sales deck leaked by AdAge a couple of months ago
offers more clarity on what’s been going on.
First
up, there’s no denying it: TikTok is big.
800
million monthly active users big.
However,
500 million of these active users – more than 60 percent of the total – live in
China. That means that the platform has roughly 300 million monthly active
users outside of China.
Furthermore, the latest data from App Annie suggest that Chinese users
account for 80 percent of the total time spent using TikTok in 2019, while
users in India account for a further 10 percent of the total. That means that
users in China and India are responsible for roughly 9 in every 10 minutes
spent using TikTok around the world.
Regardless
of country differences, however, TikTok climbed to sixth place in the global
mobile app rankings by monthly active users for 2019. For context, TikTok is
still behind WhatsApp, Facebook, WeChat and Instagram, but it’s already ahead
of all the other social platforms.
However, it’s important to stress that the
data do not indicate that TikTok’s success has come at the
expense of any of the Western social networks. In fact, Facebook, Instagram,
and Snapchat have all reported increases in their advertising audience reach
over the past few months, even amongst users aged 13 to 17.
Strong
growth isn’t limited to TikTok
While
the media has been distracted with all the hype surrounding TikTok, some other
social platforms have been posting some impressive numbers that seem to have
slipped under the radar.
Top of
the growth charts is Reddit, whose reported monthly active user numbers have
surged by 30 percent (100 million new users) since this time last year, with
the company’s latest reports revealing that the platform now attracts 430
million users each month.
Meanwhile, Pinterest has enjoyed similar
success, growing its total active user base by 29 percent over the past
year. The platform has attracted more than 70 million new monthly active users
(MAUs) over the past 12 months, to reach a total MAU figure of 322 million at
the start of 2020.
The
company has also added a number of new countries to its advertising targeting
options, resulting in a quarter-on-quarter increase in reported potential
advertising reach of 12 percent between October 2019 and January 2020.
Sina Weibo has also been enjoying impressive
growth, with recent trends suggesting that the platform’s MAU numbers should
pass the half-billion mark within the next few months. The 497 million MAUs
that the platform reported in November was buoyed by an annual increase of 51
million new users, equating to year-on-year growth of 11 percent.
The influence of the East
Mirroring
a trend that we highlighted in our Digital 2019 Q4 Digital Statshot report,
various data points in our Digital 2020 reports show that the internet’s centre
of gravity is moving progressively eastward. This trend is even more visible in
the latest data, with Asian apps and websites commanding an ever-increasing
share of global activity.
In
particular, the latest rankings of the world’s top websites illustrate the
dramatic rise of Asia’s ecommerce platforms. In its latest list, Alexa
[note: not the voice assistant] places China’s Tmall in third place in
the global website rankings – that’s ahead of both Facebook and Baidu, and 10
place higher than its top Western competitor, Amazon. Across the full top 20
sites, Alexa includes 5 Chinese ecommerce sites, 4 of which belong to Alibaba.
It’s worth noting that Alexa uses a 3-month
rolling average of monthly website traffic to determine its rankings, and the
latest data include activity around Singles’
Day. This huge online shopping festival – the Chinese equivalent
of Black Friday or Cyber Monday – is increasingly popular throughout Asia, so
it’s perhaps not surprising that China’s ecommerce giants are becoming much
more visible at a global level.
However,
it’s not just China’s ecommerce sites that are breaking through at a global
level:
·
Baidu, China’s top search engine, ranks fifth
in Alexa’s latest list, and fourth in a similar ranking from SimilarWeb.
·
QQ,
a popular messenger platform owned by WeChat’s parent company, Tencent,
currently claims the sixth spot in Alexa’s rankings
·
Seventh spot in Alexa’s rankings is occupied
by Sohu,
a popular online portal that offers news, search, gaming, and various other
services.
·
Qihoo
360, a Chinese internet security company that is best known for
its antivirus software, popular web browser, and mobile app store, takes
Alexa’s tenth spot.
Asia’s
rising influence is also evident in the latest rankings of mobile apps. App Annie reports that 6 of the world’s
10-most used non-game apps in 2019 belong to Chinese companies, while 4 of
2019’s top 10 games by monthly active users were developed by Chinese
companies.
For
context, Eastern and Southeastern Asia account for roughly one-third of the
world’s total internet user population at the start of 2020 (1.5 vs 4.5
billion). What’s more, with more than 50 million new users coming online for
the first time in the region over the past 12 months, these audiences will play
an increasingly influential role in shaping the next phase of the internet’s
growth – in Asia and beyond.
Voice
continues to grow
The
latest data from GlobalWebIndex show that use of voice
interfaces has grown by more than 9 percent over the past year, with 43 percent
of the world’s internet users between the ages of 16 and 64 now using voice
search and voice commands on any device each month. For context, if that figure
were applicable to the entire global internet users base, it would equate to
almost 2 billion monthly active users.
However, it’s important to stress that the
rise of voice isn’t only about the use of smart speaker devices. One in three
global internet users now use voice interfaces on their mobile phones each
month, but these figures are even higher in Asia: 40 percent of Indian internet
users say they used a voice interface on their phone in the past month,
compared to 42 percent in China, and an impressive 48 percent in Indonesia.
With
these countries home to some of the world’s largest internet populations, expect
voice control to find its way into an increasing number of mobile apps over the
coming months, especially because people around the world are increasingly
using voice search as part of their shopping journey.
The
worried wide web
Privacy
remains an important issue for internet users around the world, and the latest
research finds that we’re more concerned today than we were this time last
year. GlobalWebIndex reports that 64 percent of internet users are worried
about how companies use their data, up from 63 percent at the start of 2019.
People are also increasingly distrustful of
the things that they see and hear on the internet. 56 percent of adults aged
18+ around the world surveyed by The Reuters Institute for the
Study of Journalism said that they were “concerned” about what is real or fake
on the internet, up from 54 percent in the previous year’s study.
GlobalWebIndex reports that nearly half of
all internet users aged 16 to 64 used an ad blocker in the past month, up from
the 47 percent that they reported this time 12 months ago.
However, it’s worth highlighting that
respondents cited frustrations with the sheer number of adverts on the internet
as the primary motivation for using ad blocking tools, ahead of motivations
related to privacy concerns.
Moreover,
various data points in this year’s reports point to what we might call a
‘digital privacy paradox’. There’s little doubt that many of us really are
increasingly concerned about our digital privacy, but we’re also increasingly
likely to adopt devices and technologies that are specifically designed to
create and share even more intimate data about our lives.
For
example, Statista reports that the number of homes
around the world with at least one smart home device increased by a third over
the past year, indicating that tens of millions of people have consciously
decided to spend an average of US$550 a year on devices that actively listen to
and track the things that they do in the privacy of their own homes.
Games are a serious
business
More
than 4 in 5 internet users aged 16 to 64 around the world play video games
every month, which would equate to a total global gaming community of more than
3.5 billion people if we applied that figure to the total internet user
population. The majority of gamers play games on their smartphones (69 percent
of all internet users), but 25 percent of internet users also report playing
games on dedicated gaming consoles.
These more ‘dedicated’ gamers spend an
average of 70 minutes per day playing console games, but this rises to more
than 90 minutes per day for console gamers in Thailand, the Philippines, and
Saudi Arabia.
People are increasingly willing to spend
money on games, too. NewZoo reports that gamers spent more than US$150
billion on games in 2019, an increase of almost 10 percent compared to the
previous year. Similarly, Statista reports that internet users spent
more than US$83 billion on online game purchases in 2019, up roughly 5 percent
year-on-year.
Mobile
games are also big business, with App Annie reporting that the world’s mobile users
spent more than US$65 billion on game apps and game-related in-app purchases in
2019, accounting for more than 70 percent of total consumer spend on mobile
apps in the past 12 months.
It’s
worth noting that in-app purchases are an increasingly important part of the
gaming industry, with GlobalWebIndex reporting that 8 percent of all internet
users aged 16 to 64 purchased some form of game-related “DLC” (downloadable
content) in the past month alone.
People are also spending more time watching other
people playing games. 1 in 5 internet users aged 16 to 64 watched a
live-stream of someone else’s gameplay during the past 30 days, while 1 in 7
watched an esports tournament.
Many
marketers in the West remain skeptical of esports, perhaps because they see
little evidence of their popularity in their own lives. However, the data offer
irrefutable evidence that hundreds of millions of people around the world already
watch other people playing games each month.
Video
is still the one to watch
The
latest data from Ericsson suggest that the
world’s mobile internet users will consume more than half a trillion
gigabytes of mobile data during 2020, with roughly two-thirds of that total
being used to stream and download video content. Fun fact: if you tried to
store all of that data on 3½” floppy disks, you’d need a stack of
disks that stretched from the Sun to somewhere beyond Jupiter.
Video’s
scale isn’t just about data consumption, either. GlobalWebIndex reports that 90
percent of internet users aged 16 to 64 now watch online videos each month,
which would translate to more than half of the world’s total population if we
applied that figures across all of the world’s internet users.
YouTube still commands the greatest share of
the world’s online video viewers, and our calculations indicate that roughly 3
billion people watch at least one YouTube video each month [note: YouTube
itself reports 2 billion signed-in viewers each month].
However,
the number of people streaming TV content via the internet also continues to
rise. GlobalWebIndex’s latest data show that two-thirds of internet users aged
16 to 64 now watch TV content via some form of subscription service like
Netflix.
Paid video subscription services are popular
with mobile users too. App Annie reports that video apps accounted for 5 of the
world’s top 10 non-game apps ranked by consumer spend in 2019. Three of these
apps – Tencent Video, iQiyi, and Youku – cater primarily to internet users
in China, reinforcing a finding from Statista that the country’s
internet users are the most willing to pay for digital content.
No stopping shopping
Roughly
three-quarters of the world’s internet users aged 16 to 64 buy something online
each month, with GlobalWebIndex finding that ecommerce adoption rates are
highest amongst internet users in Indonesia, Thailand, and Poland. The
distribution of adoption across geographies suggests that economic development
is not the primary determinant of ecommerce use, and that other factors are
more important, such as sites that cater to the language needs and cultural
preferences of local shoppers.
Worldwide, ecommerce consumers are more
likely to purchase through a mobile device than through a laptop, although the
data reveal that most people use both devices for their online shopping,
depending on the type of product they’re buying and the context of their
shopping activities.
Meanwhile, the latest data from Statista shows that worldwide ecommerce
spend grew significantly during 2019, although – as one might expect
– growth rates varied by category. Travel, the largest category by online
consumer spend, saw the slowest year-on-year growth amongst the categories that
Statista tracks, with global annual revenues up by roughly 8 percent to reach
almost US$1.19 trillion.
Online purchases of Furniture &
Appliances saw the fastest year-on-year growth, with 2019 worldwide consumer revenues
of US$316.7 billion marking a 19 percent jump compared to 2018 spend. The
Fashion & Beauty and Electronics & Physical Media categories also saw
impressive gains, with consumer ecommerce revenues in both categories
increasing by 18 percent between 2018 and 2019.
At a global level, the average ecommerce
shopper now spends almost US$500 on online purchases of consumer goods each
year, although Statista reports that this varies significantly by country, from
an average of US$1,441 per person in South Korea, to just US$20 per person in
the Philippines.
Average
annual revenues per user (ARPU) grew by 9 percent over the past 12 months, but
growth in Southern Asia was much faster. The latest data show that average
ecommerce spend on consumer goods in India has increased by 43 percent compared
to 2018 figures, but is still below US$50.
However, these figures are based on absolute
ecommerce spending, and don’t factor differences in average income and each
country’s overall economic strength. By comparing ecommerce ARPU to GDP per
capita, we get a more representative perspective of the countries in which
ecommerce is gaining the greatest momentum.
As we
detailed above, China’s ecommerce websites are already amongst the world’s
most-visited online destinations, so it might not come as a surprise that China
leads the way in GDP-adjusted ARPU rates. However, despite relatively low
figures for absolute ecommerce ARPU, Egypt and Indonesia both rank highly for
these GDP-adjusted averages, while Ghana, Kenya, and India also find themselves
much higher up the rankings.
Shopping is a journey,
not a destination
“Omnichannel”
has become a buzzword in the retail industry, and rightly so: all the evidence
indicates that the world’s shoppers are making less and less of a distinction
between ‘online’ and ‘offline’ when it comes to their shopping. Blended
behaviours such as ‘click and collect’ are on the rise, and showrooming
– where consumers visit physical world stores before buying products
online – is also an increasingly common practice.
Overall,
GlobalWebIndex reports that search engines are the primary source of discovery
for new brands and products for the world’s internet users, slightly ahead of
television adverts.
Meanwhile, across all online shoppers aged 16
to 64, search engines are the first choice for people who are actively researching
brands, products and services to buy, with more than half (53 percent) of
GlobalWebIndex’s survey respondents saying that they use these tools.
However,
the company also reports that younger users are more likely
to turn to social media when they’re researching brands and products, finding
that social networks have already overtaken search engines as the most popular
method of online research for people aged 16 to 24.
Social
media’s role in the purchase journey continues to expand, with 43 percent of
internet users around the world aged 16 to 64 now saying that they use social
networks when researching things to buy.
But
social commerce hasn’t caught on to the extent that many marketers might have
hoped. As GlobalWebIndex stated in their recent Commerce trends report,
“While social networks often play a central role in
the initial steps on the path to purchase, only 12 percent of internet users
say that a ‘buy’ button on a social network would drive them to check-out
online.”
The
authors go on to note that,
“At present, enthusiasm about buying ordinary goods
and services via social networks is limited. However, this is something that
robust branded content and inspiration can change.”
The
key takeaway here is that there is no silver bullet when it comes to “closing a
sale”, and marketers would do well to consider the full scope of the consumer
purchase cycle – from initial discovery through to purchase, and even
post-purchase activities – when devising their plans.
Moreover,
marketers would do well to stop thinking in terms of ‘online’ and ‘offline’.
With most shoppers demonstrating that they’re equally happy to engage with
connected devices and physical-world properties in equal measure – often
simultaneously – it’s increasingly clear that these ‘lines’ only exist in
marketers’ heads and budgets.
And
finally…
Every
year when we’re producing these reports, we spot something fun in the data. In
previous editions that’s been which emoji people use most on Twitter (we’ve
included that in this year’s report too), or the discovery that Yahoo! is still
more popular than porn (spoiler alert: it still is).
However, this year’s fun fact goes to the
very heart of why the internet exists, and marks a fundamental shift in the
internet’s centre of gravity that’s arguably as radical as the rising influence
of the East.
If
you’ve been online since the 90s (ahem), you may know that the internet was in
fact invented to share pictures of kittens. However, recent
trends in some of our most cutting-edge data reveal that things may be
changing.
Data
from Google Trends reveals that people searched for dogs almost twice as
frequently as they searched for cats in 2019. For reference, the average search
index for ‘dog’ in 2019 was 90, compared to an average of 52 for ‘cat’.
Similarly,
Twitter’s ad targeting tools report that more than 250 million of the
platform’s users are “interested” in dogs, compared to just 250,000 who are
interested in cats – that’s a thousand-fold difference.
Dogs
even outperform cats on Instagram. A quick search reveals almost 250 million
posts have been published to the platform using #dog, compared to just 200
million for #cat. Doug the Pug also has more followers than Grumpy
Cat (RIP).
However, there’s still hope for cat lovers: a
Google search for ‘dog’ at the start of 2020 delivered a total of 6.76 billion
results, but a search for ‘cat’ returned a total of 6.82 billion.
Cats
also still rule Reddit, where r/cats is home to 1.70 million users,
compared to 1.29 million for r/dogs.
We’ll
share updates on this important story as and when we get them.
Let
the debates commence.
Looking
forward: the decade ahead
But
how can we translate these findings into more efficient and effective plans?
Let’s finish with three top tips.
1. Go beyond your bubble
Internet behaviours are changing, with influences from
around the world shaping the expectations and preferences of people in all
corners of the globe. It’s no longer enough to watch what’s going on in your
own backyard (or valley); global marketers who want to stay ahead of the curve
need to broaden their horizons, and look to other parts of the world for
insight and inspiration.
Our 240+ local country reports will be a good place to
start, but you can also take simpler, more everyday steps to learn. Digital and
social platforms make it easier than ever to connect with – and learn from –
people all over the world, whether they’re domain experts on LinkedIn and
Twitter, or everyday people on Instagram.
Top tip: don’t
just rely on research; go out onto the web and into social media and watch
what’s happening for yourself.
2. Prioritise people
Many of the marketers I speak with around the world ask
me whether TikTok will overtake Facebook, whether VR will become “a thing”, or
whether the data I see point to a “next big thing.”
We strive to offer insight on all of these issues through
our regular Global Digital Reports, but my answer to all of these questions is
the same: focus your attention on people, not technology.
Almost without exception, the companies and brands that
succeed over the long-term are those that successfully satisfy people’s wants,
needs and desires – not those who’ve jumped on a bandwagon, created an isolated
‘viral’ campaign, or jumped at every shiny new toy without a clear strategy.
Understanding people will serve you well regardless of
the latest trends in technology, fashion, or business.
My advice here is similar to the advice I shared above:
take a few minutes each day to go onto public social media platforms and learn
about what your audience cares about. You don’t need creepy, invasive data for
this – just search for a few relevant hashtags on Instagram, Twitter, or
LinkedIn, and you’ll quickly start to learn what really matters to your audience.
Don’t just search for product-related hashtags, though.
Try exploring cultures too, by constantly asking yourself what’s different
about what you’re seeing compared to what you expected.
3. Focus
Staying on top of the latest tech trends is one of the biggest
causes of stress for marketers everywhere. Hopefully our Global Digital Reports
help, but maybe a better answer is less, not more.
Do you really need to try that niche new platform with a
couple of million users, or might you be better focusing your efforts (and
budgets) on one or two proven platforms with billions of active users?
Will that shiny new toy really propel your brand to
perpetual success, or is it just a pleasant distraction from quarterly
planning? More importantly, is it a sustainable solution that justifies a steep
learning curve (VR, anyone?)
On the flipside, can you really justify ignoring the big
trends, just because they don’t appeal to you on a personal level? Gaming,
voice interfaces, and esports are all hugely popular with global audiences, yet
continue to be underrepresented in the media coverage, in marketing plans, and
in brands’ budgets.
Top takeaway: in
2020, use data-driven insights to identify a handful of technologies and
platforms that really matter to your brand’s success, and not simply to add the
latest fads to your roadmap.
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