Andy Maskin

Please listen carefully, as our media landscape has recently changed

There's lots of buzz about the "Internet of Things" but what does this mean for marketers? At CES 2016 we began to see what I call "aCommerce", the "a" standing for appliance. The idea is that connected utilitarian devices ("appliances") become both media touchpoints and transactional tools.

Virtual Reality has made enormous strides in recent years and has begun to have a major impact on industries and gaming and architecture, to name a few. But for marketers, I'd argue it is to early to leverage this tech for campaigns that need scale and reach, or even immediate positive ROI. That time will come eventually, we just have to accept it's not here yet.

The reason Black Mirror is required viewing for any marketer is that we need to look at each story and really grasp the way people live their lives in that world. And then a marketer must ask from strategic perspective: "If things turn out something like this, what will my brand do about it? How do we influence decision-making when people have access to this kind of technology and media?"

A handful of start-ups at NY Tech Day, the self-dubbed "World's Largest Startup Event", presented technologies that were relevant to the world of marketing. This post takes a snapshot of four companies that brands and agencies might benefit from meeting.

As Snapchat enters the realm of publishing with Discover, it's worth noting that the idea of publishing something that is meant to vanish is antithetical to the origins of the practice. Meanwhile, it's also become an important new channel for content.

Written in collaboration with LA-based consultancy StoryTech, this recap covers the highlights of CES 2015 through the prism of what trends are most important to marketers.

This piece argues that hashtags are overused in mobile campaigns. Unless executed with the right strategy, expecting a hashtag to influence mobile behavior is misguided. The hashtag simply becomes a gratuitous use of precious real estate.

The recent announcements by HBO and CBS to offer à la carte streaming services was a watershed moment in the advancement towards the future of television as a medium. In this post, we explore why these products are such a big deal and what it all means to marketers.

TV as we know it is beginning to profoundly change. In an on-demand, de-bundled, cord-cut world, the big question is “What now for marketers?” In this whitepaper I attempt to lay out the current landscape, the promising technologies that are budding, and the exciting future possibilities that lie ahead.

Each year the IPG Media Lab sends a small team to the South By Southwest Interactive Festival in Austin with three primary objectives:

- Gather strategic insights on trends that affect the media and consumer behavior landscape
- Find new technologies that are relevant to marketers
- Create content that is useful to the IPG network, our clients and beyond

Over the course of the week we attended many panels, met with several dozen startups, and posted lots of content.

Each year, the IPG Media Lab travels to CES to explore the changes happening in technology that will affect the way brands reach audiences in the future. This recap summarizes some of the most important themes we found , and gives examples of specific technologies that illustrate them. Our focus is to look at these themes and technologies through the lens of media, marketing, advertising and consumer behavior.