8 things we learnt from the 2016 Internet trends report

Mary Meeker, a venture capitalist based in the US, has become somewhat of a legend in the online world by releasing an annual, much anticipated report on the state of the internet and online advertising.

Today, the 2016 report was released.

Here are some highlights from this year and some of our thought's.

1) We’ve reached 3BN connected people but internet growth is now flat.

This is why Google and Facebook are racing to connect the 4Billion humans who don’t have internet access. If the Internet growth is flat, their business will be flat.

 2)   Google & Facebook together get 76% of online ad dollars in the U.S, but advertisers still over-spend on traditional marketing and under-spend on mobile.

If I were to hazard a guess, NZ advertisers would be even further behind on the shift to mobile spend.

3)   Images are hot, text is not.  For generation Z (aged 1-20), communication has shifted from text-based to image- and video-based. Having video and photo at our fingertips on mobile phones has led to this shift in communication.

We’ve been seeing this shift for a while, with images and video being able to tell a better story in a shorter time than text and therefore driving higher rates of engagement. It’s also a possible explanation for Twitters stagnant user base. 

Check out the evolution below.

4)   Online video ads can be effective but only in the right context:  People find pre-roll video ads annoying & 81% of people mute them. However they can be effective if it ticks these boxes.

1) Authentic

2) Entertaining

3) Evoke Emotion

4) Personal / Relatable

5) Useful

6) Viewer Control

7) Work with Sound Off

8) Non-Interruptive Ad Format

Yip, yip, yip.  Totally agree with the above. If you can get the tone of the content right, and include captions to work without sound, social video can be extremely effective. Tap into some emotion and see your viral reach grow.

5)   Internet = Driving Force for New Product Introductions with Hyper-targeting

Hear, hear. If you’ve ever been to our course you’ll know we talk about driving brand and product awareness as the first step in getting ROI, and social is a great way to do this.

 6)   Pinterest – 55% US users use it to shop for products.

Which is why every retailer needs to have a functional Pinterest account, and to invest in creating images that will be pinned and shared.

7)   Branded lenses and Facebook filters are new to the world of advertising in 2016 and performing well.

And they’re cool. That is all.

 You can read the whole report here. http://www.kpcb.com/internet-trends