PHD Malaysia discussed new technologies that will become prevalent over the next five years and their impact on society and the marketing and communications industry, at an event held this morning at e@Curve.

The presentation and ensuing discussion was based on the content of a book launched by PHD recently, titled, 2016 – Beyond the Horizon. 2016 explores the likely developments within areas such as connected TVs, markerless augmented reality, enhanced voice-recognition, Natural User Interface (NUI) and NFC (Near Field Communication) and how, coupled with the acceleration of social media usage, they are changing the actual physics of marketing.

The book considers that with one in every two people in the developed world connected to a social network, there are now 1.2 billion independent media owners all linking to each other. They are influential, given that peer recommendations are more trusted than any form of advertising, and since social networks don’t stop at their own boundaries but instead affect the entire web, they leave a print on ‘social graphs’. This is leading to a complete change in how society functions and all of this activity is increasingly mobile.

Andreas Vogiatzakis, Managing Director, Omnicom Media Group, Malaysia, while introducing the book, said, “We are living in a world, where technology is enriching the consumer experience. Technological development will enable us to move one step further on our journey towards abundance – where we are able to be everywhere with everyone with everything in the moment. With this paradigm, we can assess the technologies that are likely to gain traction over the next five year.”

Audrey Chong, General Manager, PHD, Malaysia, said, “New media platforms and smart devices are helping to drive sales and loyalty with input and influence from every single consumer. The future that awaits our industry is connected, networked and dotted with exciting opportunities, waiting to be explored.”2016 looks at how technology will affect the areas of infrastructure, interface and internet as well as the implication on society in 2016, including:

• The most defining difference from 2011 will be people looking through their devices and holding them in-front of their vision to augment their surroundings. It will be a common sight in the street, in shopping malls, in front of outdoor ads, in shops and in cinemas.

• An increasing amount of purchases will be made after a device has been held over the product to see a summary of user reviews and even brand sentiment.

• Youth audiences will amuse the older generations by holding phones in front of their friends’ faces to gain access to their social graph. A large percentage of youths will abandon any concerns of data-privacy, as the desire to be witnessed will be overwhelming. They will be further incentivised by the additional benefits that they receive such as micro-payments, tailored content, pay-wall access, free wi-fi and the kudos of belonging to well-branded groups.

• Voice controlled smart devices will act like personal assistants. We will speak naturally into them to book restaurants, flights or even to find out specific pieces of information.

• Devices will be constantly tapped as people use them in most parts of their daily lives from payment-pads to micro-payments and against shop windows to check-in or check-out.

• TV viewing will be done in some connection with people in the same social graph – people will get used to knowing who they are watching TV with. A large percentage of people will consume TV with their smart-device in their hands and have the content working across both screens.

• The smart device will commonly be used to find out more information about what is on screen and make purchases there and then – an increasing amount of the products within content are embedded with more information, socially enabled so they can ‘Like’ them and connected to an e-commerce engine so they can buy there and then.