Mobile is creating new companies. The very
existence of smartphones is enabling new companies to emerge, Mr.
Mahaney said. "Uber is a company that wouldn't exist without a
smartphone," he said, placing Pandora in the category as well. In
time, wearables and connected cars may create similar phenomena, he
said, so stay tuned for what they might create.
Social is a must. "Facebook is a required
marketing channel now," Mr. Mahaney said. It's rare to find
services which touch 800 million people a day, he said, so you need
to be there if you want to stay in front of people. The money going
to social is coming from everywhere, including search, which Mr.
Mahaney said was surprising, since search is viewed as the ultimate
ROI machine.
TV ad dollars are moving
online. Verizon and Mondelez are all
shifting TV budgets online, Mr. Mahaney said, and there's no doubt
more will follow. "I think this migration is almost inevitable," he
said. "I think it is inevitable."
Same day delivery will change CPG advertising.
The are ten cities in the U.S. where consumers can order things
online -- from places like Amazon -- and get them
delivered in the same day, Mr. Mahaney said. The growth of these
same day delivery services is going to change the way people shop,
especially when it comes to consumer packaged goods. So, according
to Mr. Mahaney, more CPG ad dollars will flow online as more people
buy those products online.
The local layer could be huge. A bunch of
companies have tried to facilitate transactions between consumers
and local merchants -- think Groupon, etc. -- but none have been
particularly successful, Mr. Mahaney said. The one who cracks the
code will likely make lots of money. One possible candidate:
Google.
The cloud threatens established players. Cloud
computing is dramatically reducing the cost of founding startups
and scaling them, Mr. Mahaney said, which means "dramatically
increased competitive risk for all entrenched companies." This new
environment means companies like Snapchat can actually threaten
companies like Facebook.
Alternative payments are on the rise. The new
iPhone moved the rise of alternative payments further along, Mr.
Mahaney said, and anything that facilitates retail sales will have
an impact on ad dollars. So keep an eye on this.
Acquisition mania is here. Piles of cash in the
hands of some of the world's biggest internet companies are leading
to acquisitions and experiments. Mr. Mahaney pointed to one such
recent acquisition, Amazon's purchase of Twitch, speaking of it
with some amazement. Visiting Twitch, he said, will take you back
20 years intellectually and emotionally. "It's just fun to see what
these people, it's mostly young men, do in their parents' [houses]
when they're 37, wearing their Batman shirts," he said. But Twitch
also allows for very relevant ads, namely those from video game
publishers.
The internet of things awaits. Wearable devices
and connected cars aren't just a fad, they're going to be the cause
of major change, removing obstacles between consumers, companies
and the internet applications they use, which will lead to growth
markets, Mr. Mahaney said.
