1) Gravity Thinking attended the Changing Media Summit hosted by the Guardian which featured leaders from major media, technology, and marketing companies discussing the changing media landscape. 2) Key themes that emerged were the rise of content and social media, changing consumer media habits, and how brands can leverage opportunities while avoiding risks in this new environment. 3) Brands will need to become more responsive, participative, and meaningful by embracing open collaboration and providing quality content while carefully managing their online presence and communities.

1. Last month Gravity Thinking were
invited to join the great and good of the media
and communications world at the Changing Media
Summit hosted by the Guardian.The event featured an array
of the biggest names in the business including Dennis Crowley the founder
of foursquare,Tim Armstrong of AOL, Adrianna Huffington and Adam Crozier
CEO of ITV, as well as representatives from Facebook, Disney, Nike, Google, BBC and Guardian.
The 2 days produced some fascinating themes with huge implications for marketers tackling the challenges
presented by the changing media landscape. We thought we would share these so you can consider the impact
within your business.

2. The Changing World
“If you work in media and marketing
and don’t think it is exciting then get out!”
The tone was certainly set by Paul Hayes of News International
and although it is a universal truth that the world of communications has
become hugely exciting, fast moving, opportunistic, and in some cases unsettling,
everybody seemed to have differing opinions on by how much, how far it is going to go and
what impact it has for media channels and in turn brands.
There were some clear areas for consideration from the asendancy of content and social media to the changing
media habits of consumers and perhaps most importantly how brands can take advantage of these opportunties, avoid
the hazards and choose the right type of partners to help navigate this journey.

3. Content is king
This was the one clear meme from
the majority of speakers and they all agreed
the reign would be a long one as content is constantly
demanded, universally accessible and always up to date.
From the free rich content offered by citizen journalists, bloggers and media
owners such as guardian.co.uk, who now receive over 4m visits a day, to the paid
content provided by the likes of FT.com with over 10,000 paying subscribers. Everything
is shared, adapted, commented on and spread quickly and efficiently.

4. Quality & monetisation is key
Increasingly content is not just about news and
articles but includes gossip, advice, games and a plethora
of resources available online which the success of sites like Videojug
demonstrate.That said quality wins out - in the words of Stevie Spring from
Future Publishing “nobody wants crap even if it is free crap.” To deliver this quality
many of the speakers indicated that paid is a route that many of them are exploring to both
monetise their offerings and fund the provision of future content. With increasingly niche groups of
consumers demanding narrow and deep content and friction free payment systems being offered by the
likes of Apple and Google with their One Pass, free content looks like it will increasingly be a thing of the past.

5. Linear vs non linear
Surprisingly, the rise in time shifting media devices
and universally available content via platforms such as
Youtube is yet to impact the mainstream, despite the iPlayer on
iPad experiencing over 55k downloads in 24 hours. According to
Adam Crozier of ITV 93% of TV viewing was still in real time (with 6% on
catch up and 1% on VOD) and actual viewing has risen by over 2 hours in the last year
to just over 28 hours per week driven by the likes of X Factor, IACGMOOH and Downton Abbey.
However there were 2 interesting developments - content aimed at certain audience profiles was seeing a
increase in non linear viewing,The Only Way is Essex for example has an equal split of linear to non linear, and
different methods of viewing was growing with over 1m people viewing the World Cup games live online last Summer.

6. Social turbocharges distribution
If content is king then social is its most loyal subject
– not only driving the message, but dictating how to receive the
message and when to receive it. If you tell a good story, people will retell it
(Like orTweet/Retweet) many times over but this needs to be considered carefully
as your kingdom can also turn against you and worse still, abandon you.
TroyYoung of SAY Media summed this up perfectly when he said“people are the new content and influence
is the new distribution.”Big brands are starting to react to this – Gino Fisanotti from Nike referenced how 99%
of their spend for theWorld Cup 2010 was spent on Facebook andYouTube compared to under 20% in 2006.
The numbers also seem to back this up – 90% of tweets are related to content, according to Christian Hernandez of Facebook his site
is now the number 1 referrer for the majority of online content and Crozier pointed out that 44% of people use social when they watchTV.

7. Implications for brands
This brave new world presents both huge
opportunities and clear and present threats to brands.
You don’t need to look beyond Nestle’s handling of Greenpeace’s
efforts to highlight the use of palm oil in Kit Kat, and BP’s disastrous
buying of search terms relating to the oil spill to highlight their clean up efforts,
to see where the dangers lie. Many agreed however that the majority of these pitfalls were
avoidable with a clear digital brand planning coupled with quick reactions.

8. Using content
That said opportunities to embrace
the world of openness, collaboration and
curiosity by far outweigh the threats. Never before
has there been a better chance to grasp the chance for brands
to become content providers, owners, curators, developers or distributors.
The examples were manifold - Richard Pinder of Publicis referenced how a partnership
between Coke and Avatar meant the film was featured on 140m cans and 30m fridge packs in the
US with no money changing hands, Renault have recently launched aTV channel where 80% of their brand
budget is now taken up on providing content compared to 30% last year forTV commercials.There has also been a
big return to sponsorship with P&G tying up with Olympics for the next 10 years and Gillette continue with theirWorld Sport association.
With brands such as Fosters working with Alan Partridge andVodafone with Katy Perry the consensus seemed to be that this one would run and run.

9. Finding, funding
and being the future
Marc Giusti of Leo Burnett summed up the
opportunity for brands when he said brand agility was key
– essentially brands need to become responsive, participative
and meaningful and ensure that they are explorative not exploitative.
There was however a big watch out, in Marc’s words “be careful what you wish for as many
brands are not set up for moderation and community management, and with the social media tap
always on brands needs to make sure they consider their plans in digital and social media carefully.”
So brands needs to make sure they consider their plans in digital and social media carefully.

10. Brands of the future?
One of the closing panels were asked to name
their 3 brands for the future and there were no surprises
in their unanimous response – Google, Facebook and Apple – all were
seen to be driving the changing media and communications agenda, innovating
constantly at their own pace and not looking likely to be slowing down anytime soon.
Interestingly two of these companies are integral to the success of brands in the new media age
with Google increasingly integrating real time search and including social within results and it goes
without saying that Facebook continues to be the King of social networking.

11. Forever in beta
So lots of exciting and fascinating
developments and many different opinions and
points of view but one undeniable fact - nothing is certain
except that the future is bright.To embrace this new world brands need
to create platforms to allow for two way interaction with their consumers and carefully
consider the opportunities within paid, earned and owned media as well as exploring evolving
channels like mobile which, according to Ian Carrington from Google, now accounts for 25% of web traffic.
The key is to find the right partner(s) on this journey who understand the changing media landscape and who can
help shape the plans for this eternally evolving marketplace.
Find out more about Gravity Thinking at http://www.gravitythinking.com
For more info and videos from the summit visit http://www.guardian.co.uk/changingmediasummit