Adweek Magazine In Print - Advertising News - Advertising Information
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`Page 2 of 6
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` December 17, 2007
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`Top 10 Trends of 2007
`December 17, 2007
`
`NEW YORK It's a small world after all. Private and
`public lives are merging on the Internet, corporate giants
`are embracing environmental initiatives, industry
`competitors are collaborating, and the transfer of wealth
`from the developed world to emerging economies is
`picking up speed at a mind-boggling pace. Our identities
`and our businesses are as fluid and amorphous as they
`are, well, practical. To find focus within the shifting
`boundaries, we identified, in no particular order, the top
`10 trends of 2007. While many did not originate this
`year, they certainly became more prominent. Which of
`course means that, for good or for bad, they'll also help
`shape the future.
`
`WEB SPIN-OFFS Striking writers need no better
`example of the intertwined lives of TV and the Internet
`than this year's migration of online content to the
`broadcast nets. In the glitziest news, Marshall
`Herskovitz's and Edward Zwick's Webisode series,
`"quarterlife" (running on MySpace and quarterlife.com),
`was picked up by NBC, which no doubt hopes to cash in
`on the success of the duo's angst-ridden generational
`dramas, My So-Called Life and thirtysomething.
`Reportedly, the eight-minute segments will turn into
`hour-long episodes. And in September, gossip site
`TMZ.com—the place to go for snarky, breaking
`entertainment news—became a half-hour syndicated TV
`show that delivers solid ratings. Even online animated
`characters are having their night in the limelight thanks
`to Fox Business News picking up Hoofy the Bull and
`Boo the Bear for a financial segment. The two cartoon
`critters are from minyanville.com, a site that creates
`branded properties to help make learning about finance
`less of a drag. Now that's entertainment.
`
`ALL US, ALL THE TIME People's drive for self-
`expression apparently cannot be tamed. Self-
`proclaimed dazzling personalities are blasting their
`tastes, opinions, music, art and mundane routines to
`Web sites and mobile phones around the world in a 24-
`hour media fest that's giving everyone their chance at, if
`not fame, then at least at recognition. In October 2007,
`there were 110 million unique visitors to social-
`networking sites MySpace, Facebook and Bebo
`compared to 73 million visits to those sites in the
`previous October, according to comScore. And micro-
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`http://www.adweek.com/aw/magazine/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003686012&...
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`12/17/2007
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`ZIPIT EX. 2074, pg.1
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`

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`Adweek Magazine In Print - Advertising News - Advertising Information
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`Page 3 of 6
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`blogging sites Twitter, Pownce and Google-owned Jaiku
`caught on, too, as users sent instant messages about
`their daily activities, with no event too small not to share.
`("Look at me, I'm stuck in traffic!") Critics warn people
`will tire of the sharing of such mundane details—but
`there was a time when e-mail, too, was written off as
`just a fad.
`
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`LEAVING THE PC BEHIND "Leave the PC, take the
`mobile device" could be the Godfather-inspired slogan
`of 2007. Phones (and not the clunky "smart phones"),
`music players and game machines now let people do
`most of their planning, organizing, searching,
`connecting, gaming and more on the go. The
`redesigned Zune from Microsoft lets users share music
`with their friends; the PlayStation Portable, also
`redesigned, plays music and movies as well as video
`games; Zipit Wireless 2 can instant message, show
`photos and play music; and the iPhone lets people do,
`well, nearly everything. Even Web sites are getting into
`the act, with Google and News Corp.'s MySpace
`announcing plans to launch their own phones at some
`point next year. Now we're waiting for a phone that
`extends our days so we have time to use all its other
`features.
`
`THE REAL DEAL Fake it 'til you make it? Not this year.
`As Dove's "Campaign for Real Beauty" continued to
`garner accolades and blogs like Consumerist and
`Gawker remained committed to calling bullshit on
`companies they deem hypocritical (like, well, Unilever,
`who markets Axe as the anti-Dove), many brands made
`a move for authenticity. On the Web that meant viral
`videos, word-of-mouth campaigns and heartfelt
`apologies from Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg when
`early iPhone adopters and Facebook friends
`complained their trust had been breached by big
`business. Beyond its rebate, Apple even gave some
`brand loyalists their 15 minutes in a series of user-gen
`TV spots. But with "real people" modeling agencies
`popping up like toadstools and "electability" driving the
`polls in Iowa and New Hampshire, is real on its way to
`becoming the new fake?
`
`THE DEATH OF PRIVACY When the Federal
`Communications Commission met in November to
`discuss whether consumers' privacy is being adequately
`safeguarded, we wondered what the debate was about.
`Yes, AOL announced plans in the fall for a do-not-track
`list (a preemptive strike before the hearings), and
`Facebook's Beacon retrenched in its quest to turn users
`
`http://www.adweek.com/aw/magazine/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003686012&...
`
`12/17/2007
`
`ZIPIT EX. 2074, pg.2
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`

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`Adweek Magazine In Print - Advertising News - Advertising Information
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`Page 4 of 6
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`into ads, but such moves are not likely to beat back the
`tide. Lives have been turned into bits of digital data
`easily accessed by strangers, friends and enemies
`alike. YouTube videos morph into edited versions never
`intended by their creators; blog gossip, allegations and
`innuendo live forever in the public domain; and a lack of
`accountability in both "news" reporting and digesting
`has turned "facts" into fluid pieces of viral information.
`The Google generation has little trepidation about the
`sharing of their most personal details on social
`networking sites screened by everyone from prospective
`employers and marketers to law enforcement. Although
`one can argue that they invite the scrutiny, not only do
`they not fully understand the repercussions, but anyone
`who spends time on the Web leaves footprints for others
`to track. And it's that accountability for consumers'
`habits, tastes and preferences that is helping marketers
`monetize the medium. Welcome to the world you helped
`create—and be careful out there. —Noreen o'leary
`
`GREEN CAPITALISM Call it corporate social
`responsibility or cold, hard capitalism, but marketing a
`brand or corporation around the environment stepped
`out of the fringes and squarely into the mainstream,
`seven years after British Petroleum repositioned itself as
`"beyond petroleum." Yes, scoring points with
`environmentalists is important to retailers like Wal-Mart
`and oil companies like Chevron, but the bottom line is
`there's money to be made in less bulky packaging and
`renewable energy exploration. Indeed, corporate social
`responsibility is an issue that "no chairman or CEO will
`duck"—as WPP Group CEO Martin Sorrell told industry
`analysts this month—because "it's a major area of
`potential revenue generation and profitability." Hence,
`Toyota advertises its "zero emissions vision" and goal of
`"zero waste in all our plants," ExxonMobil touts
`technology designed to improve the performance of
`batteries used in hybrid cars, and utility holding
`company Exelon Corp. says, "A low-carbon energy
`future is possible, and national climate change
`legislation is a critical step." Even Al Gore has switched
`from being a presidential candidate to an environmental
`advocate, a Nobel laureate, an advisor at Google and a
`venture capitalist. And unlike oil companies whose new
`stance appears hypocritical or at least a stretch based
`on past actions (Exxon Valdez, anyone?), Gore's
`transformation at least jibes with his days as a tree
`hugger. Will corporate America make good on its trendy
`promises? Time will tell.
`
`GAMING GETS SOCIAL We've retired the myth that
`young men living in their parents' basements were
`solely responsible for the $7.4 billion in video game
`sales last year (per the Entertainment Software
`Association). Now the notion that gamers are loners is
`changing as well. New systems from Sony, Microsoft
`and Nintendo all have some form of online connectivity
`that allows players to interact: Nintendo's Wii has some
`online capabilities, and both Microsoft's Xbox 360 and
`Sony's PlayStation 3 let gamers talk, text message and
`video chat. Sony's Home, a planned virtual world set to
`launch next year, will go even further, creating a spot
`similar to Second Life for video games.
`
`DATA IS KING "Content" is no longer the be-all, end-all
`in the digital age. The growing number of social
`networks and marketers interested in targeted, relevant
`
`http://www.adweek.com/aw/magazine/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003686012&...
`
`12/17/2007
`
`ZIPIT EX. 2074, pg.3
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`

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`Adweek Magazine In Print - Advertising News - Advertising Information
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`Page 5 of 6
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`messages has given rise to a new proclamation: data
`rules. Google built its business on this premise, and
`Facebook's $15 billion valuation was due to the plethora
`of information it has on its 58 million users. On the
`media-buying side, we've moved from mass media to
`precision media. Marketers now equate consumer
`knowledge with "insights" that can help hawk their
`wares and justify the huge bucks they're shelling out for
`media time. The Nielsen Television Index more than
`doubled its data output to clients this year (with the
`addition of average-commercial-minute ratings for live
`audiences, among other numbers), and companies
`including TiVo and TNS introduced services that
`measure audiences for commercials and programs
`down to the second. Number crunchers, your day has
`come.
`
`BRIC KEEPS BUILDING This year, for the first time,
`half of the world's population now lives in cities—and
`five of the planet's top 10 most populous cities are
`located in the burgeoning BRIC countries of Brazil,
`Russia, India and China, according to Goldman Sachs.
`Sao Paulo, where 10 percent of Brazil's population lives,
`and Mumbai, home to 1.6 percent of India's citizens, are
`the largest of those BRIC cities. Urban areas are, of
`course, the centers of economic activity and wealth
`generation, where consumers with increasing
`disposable income work their way up the social ladder.
`The investment bank predicts the middle class in BRIC
`countries will exceed 500 million by 2010. Already that
`growing financial clout is starting to be felt: The
`MasterCard Index, which ranks 50 cities according to
`their financial power, includes five from BRIC nations in
`that hierarchy, the most important of which is Shanghai,
`rated at No. 32.
`
`OPEN BEATS CLOSED When it comes to digital media,
`the new prevailing wisdom is open networks beat closed
`systems. The most successful companies of the age—
`think Google, Facebook and MySpace—are platforms
`that allow others to build on them. Facebook in late May
`opened its site to outside developers, letting them not
`only build applications on the site, but also make money
`from them without giving a cut to Facebook. What's in it
`for the site? An army of developers dreaming up ideas it
`never would on its own. Thanks in part to a flood of
`apps that let users do everything from throw virtual
`sheep at each other to share movie and book
`recommendations, Facebook's user base has grown by
`50 percent since it opened up, according to Nielsen
`Online. Now the Internet open-beats-closed ethos is
`moving into new areas like telecom. Within days of
`iPhone's introduction, it had been hacked by users to
`allow them to add features they wanted and the service
`provider of their choosing. After Google announced
`plans for an open mobile operating system, Verizon said
`it would begin to open up to outside developers. That's
`good news for consumers, but it will challenge
`incumbents whose business models are based on
`exerting tight control.
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`http://www.adweek.com/aw/magazine/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003686012&...
`
`12/17/2007
`
`ZIPIT EX. 2074, pg.4
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`

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`Adweek Magazine In Print - Advertising News - Advertising Information
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`Page 6 of 6
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`http://www.adweek.com/aw/magazine/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003686012&...
`
`12/17/2007
`
`ZIPIT EX. 2074, pg.5
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