It is a different year, but conversations about likely dominant platforms once again occupy media watchers’ thoughts.

This year, perhaps more than most, however, change is in the air.

In this video interview with Beet.TV, Nii Ahene, Chief Strategy Officer, Tinuiti, a performance digital marketing agency, says he sees three big trends emerging:

  1. the rise of retail media
  2. the future of measurements
  3. the metaverse

1. Retail rising

Ahene is seeing the rise of two new combined ecommerce-and-inventory spaces:

“When you take a look at a product listing page or a search result page on a Walmart or Target, your sponsored listing is no different than an end cap – it just happens to be digital,” he says.

Then you have the class of newer platforms and applications, applications like Instacart, the Uber eats, the Gopuffs of the world. What you’re thinking about here is true incrementality.

“The opportunity is really to be able to make sense out of the different options that are in front of you.”

2. Machine learning ad modelling

The deprecation of digital device identifiers in the ongoing privacy movement presents a challenge – “those days are coming quickly to an end”, Ahene says.

Whilst some may be tempted to to resort to traditional media mix modelling techniques, Ahene says modern machine learning offers an advantage.

“We can understand kind of lifts more nuanced than we have in the past,” he says.

“The successful companies in the future, they’ll be able to leverage machine learning to understand through experimental design, to understand what the impact is of various different attributes that you’re changing in your marketing campaigns.”

3. Metaverse has different guises

Could the hazy potential space being termed “metaverse” be a real engagement opportunity?

Tinuiti’s Ahene thinks gaming will be the Trojan horse, but much – including consumer inclination and which forms may actually be realized – remains uncertain.

“There’s no guarantee that the metaverse has to be an immersive experience – it could be as simple as a Zoom screen,” he says.

“If you use a more expansive definition of the metaverse, you can start to think about other applications in places where it’s not led by gaming, it’s led more by utility, and that’s what I’m excited to see develop over the next 12 to 18 months.”

More viewpoints

Ahene recently joined a virtual panel during Mediaocean’s CES program, Mediaocean Retreat, discussing the importance of an inclusive supply chain.

“Whether it’s a first-generation story or another underrepresented minority story, they have different media consumption habits, they have different understandings, they have different contexts,” he tells Beet.TV.

“When it comes to casting, when it comes to media buying, when it comes to targeting, when it comes to measuring, having that chorus of voices in the room ensures that brands can put their products in front of new audiences, that they may not have reached in the past.”

You are watching “Advertising Transformation: What’s Next for Converged TV and Video,” a Beet.TV Virtual Leadership Summit presented by Mediaocean. For more videos, please visit this page.

By Robert Andrews on @robertandrews