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More than two-thirds of global consumers, young and old alike, seek online reviews or recommendations from others. And we’ve all been put off a product or service by a lone bad review. A fluid and uncertain market is the new normal, which means traditional marketing strategies are no longer effective. In this world, responsiveness trumps efficiency. The ability to engage with customers one-on-one, particularly after purchase, is vital to long-term business success. Doing this adds value, generates revenue and--most importantly--builds customer loyalty.

Every aspect of your business, across all departments, experiences, environments and communications (‘touchpoints’ as we call them at Interbrand), should feel the same. Think of Disney’s commitment to magic, Apple’s to humanizing technology or BMW’s to driving experience.

Brands create value and drive business success. And you need to use digital to make this happen.

According to the many advertising leaders we surveyed, connected devices and wearable technology--or, more broadly, the Internet of things--are top of mind for 2014. But where the last decade of digital experimentation has generally made technology front and center of an experience, the feeling is that the general relationship with technology has now matured to a point where it doesn’t need to be the star of the show. Instead, people are predicting a more seamless integration of technology into brand’s efforts. Or, as Scott Prindle, partner/chief digital officer, Made Movement puts it: “I think we'll see interesting opportunities to use technology to save us from technology.”

We'll see a trend towards ambient intelligence where our devices learn about our individual habits and interests, anticipate the kinds of information we're looking for, and surface it at the right time and in the right place. Our technology will be doing more work for us in the background, helping to free up the time that we're currently spending staring at screens.

It's better to try to invent the future rather than predict it.

“If you’re designing a website and not thinking about the user experience on mobile and tablets, you’re going to disappoint a lot of users,” he warns. Designer Tom Muller thinks big brands getting on board will lead to agencies “increasingly using responsive design as a major selling point, persuading clients to future-proof digital marketing communications”. When doing so, Clearleft founder Andy Budd believes we’ll see an end to retrofitting RWD into existing products: “Instead, RWD will be a key element for a company’s mobile strategy, baked in from the start.” Because of this, Budd predicts standalone mobile-optimised sites and native apps will go into decline: “This will reduce the number of mobile apps that are website clones, and force companies to design unique mobile experiences targeted towards specific customers and behaviours.”

During 2012, the average site size crept over a megabyte, which designer/developer Mat Marquis describes as “pretty gross”, but he reckons there’s a trend towards “leaner, faster, more efficient websites” – and hopes it sticks. He adds: “Loosing a gigantic website onto the web isn’t much different from building a site that requires browser ‘X’: it’s putting the onus on users, for our own sakes.”

Designer and writer Stephanie Rieger reckons that although people now know “web design isn’t print,” they’ve “forgotten it’s actually software, and performance is therefore a critical UX factor”.

social TV lab: “Our team and Bluefin Labs (which Twitter purchased earlier this year) will come together, put mutual skin in game, and create a social TV lab that we think will give our clients unprecedented real-time data on how consumers are watching, buying and the conversations that amplify brand messages."

“the idea that the digital marketplace is moving from ad exchange and targeting and re-targeting to, while still including those things, much more toward creating real-time content and experiences.”

SMV sees Twitter not as a media silo in itself but a platform that extends across paid, owned, and earned media. "If you think the future of marketing is convergence and amplification of big moments over time, as we do, then Twitter becomes one of the essential channels you have to evaluate in any marketing plan.”