Another Four for Obama

The people of America have voted for the status quo. And by virtue of its remote connection to Pakistan, the enthusiastic Pakistani supports of Mr. Obama should also expect this country to suffer through the same state of affairs for the next four years.

This means that Pakistan will keep passing through a delicate time: Drone attacks will continue, power shortfalls will stay, young doctors and their employers will remain at loggerheads, polio eradication campaigns will go on, crime graph will keep rising, war on terror will continue, floods will hit again, IDPs will be rehabilitated, petroleum prices will be ‘regulated’, fares will fare well, do more will be done, democracy will continue to teeth, horses will be traded, corruption will have its heyday, flights will be frequently cancelled, mediocrity will rule the roost, TV channels’ rating will improve, dengue will keep biting, sectarian killings will remain a norm, poverty alleviation will continue, missing persons will not be missed, international cricket will not return to Pakistan, our hysterical media will flourish, queer inventions will come and go, teachers will do polio vaccination, financial bailouts will keep coming, telecom industry will boom, bakery scams will break, China will remain our best friend, FIRs will be registered, trains will arrive late, scholars will be killed, culprits will be punished, more stalwarts will join the justice league, Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline will stay on course, school girls will be assailed, causes will be hijacked, rule of law will remain elusive, institutions will be strengthened, people will keep getting their rights, civil society will condemn, Karachi will continue to burn, everyone will respect the courts, some will court arrest, security will be tightened, Pakistan and the US will keep working together, bombs will be defused, domestic violence will increase, justice will be done, monopolies will be controlled, cartels will still exist, bridges will keep collapsing, legal reforms will be celebrated, the faithful will spread the message through facebook, turf wars will go on, new beginnings will be marked, extortion economy will boom, brain drain will continue, lives will be saved, masses will be made to attend rallies, property tycoons will grow in confidence, Malala will be doubted, politics of reconciliation will prevail, schools will be destroyed, ties with India will improve, NRO letter will be well-received, mistrust will increase, brilliant students will get laptops, taxman will issue notices, Dr. Salam will not be owned, acid attacks will be more frequent, mosques will keep mushrooming, pillion riding will be banned, minorities will willfully embrace Islam, blasphemers will be hounded by believers, no Salman Taseer will dare, ban on youtube will linger on, moon will not be sighted, Islam will be served, two-nation theory will remain intact, nation’s morale will remain upbeat, our flag will fly high, Independence Days will be enthusiastically celebrated, and vision of our founding fathers realized.

Trendsetters: What’s Ahead in International Advertising for 2012? Industry Experts share their thoughts.

During the traditional slow news week between Christmas and New Year, a critical article appeared on the Bloomberg News website: “BRIC Decade Ends With Record Stock Outflows as Goldman Says Growth Peaked.”

The story outlined how Goldman Sachs, who coined the term BRIC -- (Brazil, Russia, India, China), suggested that the best may be over for the largest emerging markets. Nonetheless, that still means an average economic growth rate of 6.1% in 2012 compared to a BRIC high of 9.7 percent in 2007, based on International Monetary Fund projections. However, nations like Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey may overshadow the BRICs in the next five years.

Interestingly, while the most recent ad forecasts have pointed to BRIC growth to fuel the global ad economy, optimistic 2012 ad expenditure forecasts from ZenithOptimedia, Magna Global and Group M all suggest that Quadrennial events like the US President Election, The European Soccer Championship and The London Olympics will augment ad growth, in addition to a Japanese ad recovery.

ZenithOptimedia also believes that the ten developing markets will deliver half of global ad spend growth between 2011 and 2014, while developing markets will increase their share of the global ad market from 32.3% to 35.9% over the next three years.
Perhaps most significantly, Zenith also predicts that in 2012 advertisers will finally invest cash reserves to win market share and stimulate consumer demand.

Rishad Tobaccowala, Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer of VivaKi, which combines the digital and media assets of the Publicis Groupe including Digitas, Razorfish, Starcom Mediavest and Zenith Optimedia, posts in his blog each December the four key factors affecting the future of advertising. For 2012, he suggests the following:

1. Advertising is entering a golden age and will continue to be a booming industry.
He believes: a) technology is allowing for better ways of targeting and measuring advertising, b) brands are growing more important in a fast-moving and cluttered world and c) globalization is bringing hundreds of millions of people with desires and needs into the marketplace.
2. Think People, Think Mongrel, do not only Think Digital.
Technology and digital platforms will play a critical role in the future of advertising. However successful people and agencies will not be "digital at the core;" the future will be about people and putting people at the core. “We need to train people who are cross-bred and hybrid and who are willing to work together. The future of advertising will belong to mongrels and will be about people at the core.”
3. The future of advertising will not fit in the containers of the past.
Most market leaders in the Advertising Agency, Media Company and Marketer fields have been designed for the past, while systems, incentive plans, organizational structures have also been designed for the past. The goal of 2012 is to bring in new talent and actually incentivize the new behaviors that are now most important.
4. Change begins with us.
The future of advertising and marketing is much less about technology and platforms and much more about the talent and the mindset in the industry.
2012 Advertising Shift
AgencySpy editor Kiran Aditham recently shared his thoughts for 2012 with Media Bistro in the US. He’s been observing a significant shift as more major brands are severing long-term relationships with their agencies of record—even parting with agencies they’ve used for half a century. He sees this continuing in 2012 “as stalwart brands feel like monoliths and want to change.”
Media Trends
According to Randall Rothenberg, President & CEO of the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB), the rise in popularity of tablets will bring back a focus on creativity -- rather than technology -- when it comes to online advertising. He believes 2012 will become a breakthrough year for ad creativity and digital content. Rothenberg calls the movement a "cultural breakthrough," as ads will be created first for the tablet, rather than start on TV or print in magazines and be repositioned to fit on a tablet. These ads, designed for consumption on tablets first, will have a cultural impact on society.

Other Media Trends for 2012 include:

• Branded-content production: Marketers will continue to have greater involvement in original-content production, which should lead to better standards for successful campaigns.
• Privacy Expectations Will Shift
There will be widespread cultural change as people find it more acceptable to offer increased personal details on social media—from sharing likes, opinions, photos, videos and other personal information.
• Advertising that’s User-Selected: As inventory becomes commoditized and brands focus on user initiation as a metric of engagement, user-selected advertising will grow.
• Search Engine Interaction Will Change
Google's Social Search will change the way we interact with search engines by pushing relevant, real-time content from our personal networks to the front of search results, making them more personalized. “Influencer Marketing” concepts will become more important.
• A Greater Merging of Web and TV Talent: TV stars will be looking to use their name and reputation to gain more significance in social video, while YouTube and Twitter celebrities start to make more waves on TV.
Content Aggregators Grow in Importance
• As the ability to manage the volume of content becomes more daunting, content aggregators will become critically important… and potentially become a new growth industry.
• Online Video & TV Content Blend: For agencies, the distinction between online video content and television content will become less pronounced. This will affect how budgets are spent and result in an increased ad load online as video viewership grows.
• Publishers will Include More Video: The evolution to more video on publisher sites is inevitable, even if it starts in display.
• Social Networks “De-Centralize”
Digital experiences will leverage the power of social networks through personal information and the relationships as concepts like Facebook Connect and Google's FriendConnect grow.
• Augmented Reality Will Alter Business Relationships:
Information from social-media will be used to enhance everyday experiences with a melding of contacts with Twitter fees with Reviews linked to GPS mapping. Socially- enabled CRM will change how companies manage business relationships forever.--The Internationalist Magazine