2022 Digital media trends
The evolution of digital media can be attributed to the emergence of Industry 4.0.
The Deloitte 2022 digital media trends provide insights into how different generations of consumers interact with media, products and services, mobile technologies, and the Internet.
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The trends focus on preferences relating to advertising and social media.
Here are the top trends:
1. Streaming video’s retention struggles continue
The shift to streaming video has been extremely successful at disrupting television, though potentially far less profitable. Like TV and movies before them, streaming video on-demand (SVOD) companies have relied on the innate emotional and intellectual value of their stories to engage audiences and monetise their attention. But will people always value this kind of passive, lean-back-and-watch experience? That’s the big question. As more major media providers launch their own streaming video services, competition among them has heated up, just as their value proposition to audiences may be losing some of its luster.
Over the past few years, consumers have become increasingly frustrated when they lose content to other services, have to manage multiple subscriptions, and receive poor recommendations. These conditions lead to churn: when people cancel, or both add and cancel, a paid SVOD service. According to a report by Deloitte, younger consumers often cancel and then resubscribe to watch the latest content.
2. Consumers want more SVOD content and pricing options
Streaming video on Demand (SVOD) providers could go down several paths to help reduce churn and overall frustration. Consumers are looking for flexibility in subscription plan pricing and newer content. More than half say they’d be willing to put up with some ads in exchange for cheaper or free subscriptions.
Streaming services can also use gated content to offer consumers pricing tiers. Some companies are experimenting with offering premium access to everything at a higher price and cheaper options for less content. To retain more subscribers, SVOD providers are exploring ways to shift the value proposition in their favour. Offering flexible pricing options could be the most direct path.
3. Consumers are eating up User-Generated Content (UGC)
UGC has become a time-filler; many consumers find the stream of algorithm-fueled, personalised videos irresistible. People are finding more relevant, engaging, and shared entertainment on social media. Social media services have become increasingly dynamic spaces. For many consumers, these services have offered essential ways to connect, gather information, and stay entertained. They provide both passive and active experiences and offer up near-infinite streams of personalised content—all lit up with swarming behaviours around trending content. And it’s all free and available anywhere, anytime.
User-generated Content competes for attention with other entertainment activities: More than half of UGC consumers say they watch more user-generated content than they did six months ago, and half always spend more time watching UGC than they had planned—while 70 per cent of Gen Zs have trouble pulling themselves away.
4. Influencers boost social commerce around the world
Popular content creators can become influencers—users with large followings whose lifestyle and product recommendations can become powerful sales enablers. Influencers have clout around the world. Partnering the right influencers can help brands tap into desired communities and increasingly sell product. The purchase intentions of consumers are influenced by these “influencers”.
People worldwide, especially younger ones, are drawn to influencers—from the content they post, to the lifestyles they promote, to the communities they create—and often relate to them on a personal level.
5. The gaming frenzy is global, social, and unstoppable
Just as social media has enabled communities to create and interact around content, and even reach the kind of stardom once reserved for major celebrities, gaming has opened doors further, empowering people to step directly into once impossible worlds. Globally, younger generations are more likely to be gamers, with Gen Z and Millennial gamers spending an average of 11 hours per week playing.
Video games offer people an outlet for self-expression, immersion, connection, and relaxation, and game companies have monetised these qualities quite effectively. Amid lockdowns and social distancing requirements, the pandemic has only underscored the value of socialisation in digital worlds.
Gaming allows people to become part of the story, gives them autonomy and a chance to win, enables them to share rich experiences, and it can support their emotional needs. Games companies capitalised on this with freemium mobile games and gaming subscriptions, in-game purchases of new content, and an economy of virtual goods that has drawn in more brands and franchises.
6. Game experiences blur virtual and real worlds
Video games are blazing a trail toward an even more personal, social and sticky digital future, one in which digital and real life converge.
According to a 2022 digital media survey by Deloitte, gamers say playing games helped them stay connected to other people, while close to 60 per cent say playing games helped them through a difficult time.
As game experiences become increasingly sophisticated and multilayered, they are steadily blurring the lines between real and virtual worlds—moving us closer and closer to the promise of the metaverse.
With large, global audiences aggregated and engaged on top gaming platforms, advertisers are working to access and influence them. As game worlds become more dynamic and customizable, in-game advertising and branding opportunities get more creative. Top social games support greater personalisation by offering digital clothing, skins, and gestures that increasingly include branded virtual goods. Imagine sprucing up your avatar’s appearance with a pair of your favourite brand of sneakers or buying a designer handbag you’ve always dreamed of.
Conclusion
As Gen Z and Millennial entertainment choices gain favour across the globe, social and gaming experiences compete head-to-head with video for consumers’ attention.
In the integrated marketplace of the future, streamers, social media, and gaming companies could see their business models further disrupted—not just by younger generations, but also by the emerging infrastructure of Web 3.0.
For now, streaming video, social media, and gaming are all very successful without full immersion, tokenised economies, and universal interoperability. But the twin engines of capital and human behaviour may be moving irrevocably toward that kind of unlimited reality. Media and entertainment companies may need to collaborate more to create a future where they remain at the centre.
The writer is Partner, Risk Advisory
Telecom, Media & Technology (TMT) Industry Leader
Deloitte Ghana
Email: [email protected]