What’s Trending with Dan Calladine
Dan Calladine has worked at Dentsu for over 15 years, creating thought leadership including producing the annual media trends report for over ten years. He has also appeared often in the media, including on podcasts for Campaign, WARC and the IAB.
Dan has worked in and around media for over 30 years including PR, advertising and technology for agencies, ad tech companies and consultancies.
You are well known for your media trend reports that are dropped at the end of each year. What are the two major marketing trends that you see shaping things for this year that will have some longevity?
AI / CHATGPT. A lot has been spoken about Chat GPT and Open AI around job replacement etc but it will be over the next couple of years where solid use cases will come to the surface to inform how AI will support media and marketing initiatives as well as automation, new ways of living and working. There is the potential for it to be as transformative as Cloud has been over the last 15 years, but understanding where the value is being added or created will be key across 2023.
ATTENTION. Brands and platforms’ ability to capture our attention and deliver messaging and tools that bring value will be a key area for media and marketing this year. More studies showing where, when and how consumers are engaging with their devices, online utilities and comms enable the ability to create messaging that delivers higher attention and in turn longer engagement with brands.
The FAANG crew have dominated for quite a while now which has led to numerous issues across the board, as well as some great innovation. What are you seeing from a start-up/challenger brand POV in the marketing space that could disrupt the status quo?
There are a lot of start ups that are building on top of existing platforms with the promise of delivering time and cost efficiencies. This has sped up recently with recession theory in the air, with companies looking to do more with what is already in play as opposed to starting from scratch. The two areas that I have seen the most interesting innovation are in consumer influencer marketing and contextual targeting, these services should be launching this year so can say more then!
Influencer marketing has really established itself as a go to channel in B2C, what would you say B2B influencer marketing can learn from that space to help it grow?
- Authenticity is key, 100%. Instagram influencers have been called out down the years for associating themselves with brands not in keeping with their personal brand and have turned off the audiences they have built as a consequence.
- Ensuring that the collaboration has a value exchange for the audience first and foremost is key to making sure the content being delivered is useful and in line with expectations.
- Podcasting is a great way to engage an audience on a separate platform in a different way than blogging as this allows the influencer to show more personality and to interact more with other industry people and brands in a conversational style that can lead to highly engaging debate and analysis. Audiences have become more and more receptive to podcast culture since 2020 with huge growth in the sector. It is almost a given that a person with an online following will be delivering a regular podcast.
Who influences / inspires you online and why? From a work and leisure time POV?
- Benedict Evans Delivers a cutting edge weekly newsletter (sounds familiar Dan..) on all things tech, media, politics, enterprise as well as recommending new online things to discover.
- Tim Harford Leading UK Economist and author. A good source of book recommendations and economic analysis.
- Meera Sodha Award winning chef and author. I have been inspired to make Indian food from her recipe books quite regularly.
If you could only have access to 5 websites / platforms for 2023 what would they be?
- Gmail
- Google Podcasts
- City Mapper
- Nextdoor was mentioned in passing as a site for great neighbourly gossip and online rants but not necessarily one to live without…
