12 technology trends from major developer announcements from the largest companies in tech and evolving consumer habits that have dominated the first half of 2019. We filter these trends through the framework of Empower, Exponential and Enhanced.

1. 2019 Mid Year
Trends
July 10th, 2019

2. Foreword
As we continue to move towards a time in which technology works for
us, instead of for it, we notice incremental changes that improve our
lives in a multitude of ways.
Our trend framework helps to analyze the shifting landscape of
consumer interactions through technology, focusing on the shift from
desktop and mobile, to voice, vision and touch fueled by intelligent
systems.
We’ve looked towards social movements within generations and
developer announcements from the largest companies in tech to
formulate our trend framework and think it provides valuable
implications for brands and marketers as we continue into 2019 and
beyond.
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3. Trends Framework
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Empower – Trends that allow consumers to own, create and
democratize experiences and how the mobile device has empowered
consumers. This section highlights everything from updates to Google’s
search results utilizing AR to privacy initiatives, screensharing, gaming
and more.
Exponential – This section focuses on how AI & intelligent systems are
accelerating the evolution of experience. From all facets of AI (machine
learning, deep learning, natural language processing) to conversational
experiences powered by virtual assistants and the rise of systems-based
marketing.
Enhanced – These trends focus on how our world is shifting towards
enhanced reality with the convergence of location, computer vision and
mixed reality that will reshape how we interact with the physical world
and each other as well as the rise of new virtual economies.
We hope you enjoy our 2019 Midyear trend predictions. We filter these ideas
through the framework of Empower, Exponential, and Enhanced.

4. Empower

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AR Brings Search to Life
One of the most interesting things that came out of Google I/O this year was
updates to traditional search. Search will now go beyond answering specific
questions and will put a larger emphasis around context and utility. Google
was able to show this by enhancing the depth of news around a topic and
providing relevant secondary information.
The secondary information included a focus on integrating computer vision
and augmented reality within search. For example, if a user searches for a
Great White Shark, not only will they receive information about that shark, but
they’ll also be able to view a 3D model of one and place it within their physical
world.
Google’s attempt at using Lens to categorize the physical world, will ultimately
find the company blending into traditional search results, as users find
themselves utilizing AR within search more and more.
Implications
As more and more productized information populates within search results,
marketers must ensure that they are following best in class practices.
These include utilizing 3D assets to appear within search results and using
Google’s new schema markup to provide relevant search related information,
across Google’s suite of products.
For brands that lend themselves to 3D imagery, like CPG and apparel, this
update is a very exciting opportunity to beat your competitors to market,
providing an entirely new experience to consumers.
Google’s AR search results allow users to visualize their search terms,
bringing a great white shark right into the backyard.

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The Future is Private
A common trend throughout 2019’s major developer conferences was a
primary focus on privacy, as users have come to expect more from
companies with regards to transparency and data ownership. Facebook
proclaimed “The Future is Private” and looks to be on the cusp of their 3rd
major internal shift, promising to introduce privacy features into each of their
products.
Microsoft announced that they’re building on blockchain to provide users with
a Decentralized Digital Identification (DID) as a bet on providing users with
data ownership, and a competitive option to ‘logging in with Facebook or
Google’. Apple took a similar route with their ‘Sign in with Apple’ feature,
hiding user email addresses and disrupting the ability for targeting in the
digital media ecosystem.
Implications
Marketers will have to closely watch this shift to privacy, providing their users
with transparent information around what data they are collecting. We predict
that those that provide easy and transparent data portability options will
ultimately see less of a turn over than those that do not. Privacy as a
marketing tool will only continue to increase.
As privacy initiatives spread, the ability to track users around the web
diminishes. Due to lack of actionable data, marketers may see disruption in
their ability to target and track users within their digital media efforts.
According to Mary Meeker’s trend report, “In Q1, 87% of global web traffic
was encrypted (preventing unauthorized access to usage data), up from 53%
three years ago”. We’ll continue to see that number rise as consumers place
a higher emphasis on the privacy while browsing the web.
Apple’s Sign in with Apple feature, announced at WWDC, will provide
users with a way to log in to third party services without divulging
personal information.

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Social, Gaming and Celebrity Converge
In Mid February, Marshmello, a popular EDM artist, held a concert within
Fortnite. That concert became the biggest moment in Fortnite history, drawing
in 10.7 million concurrent viewers and that’s only those that watched it in
game. Live streams on Twitch and replays on YouTube bring that total up to
north of 50 million.
The combination of social, gaming, music and celebrity are being used in
combination to activate a massive audience and introducing new, very
relevant content channels for brands that otherwise might not believe they
have a place to play in.
It’s also important to note that over this year we’ve seen Fortnite evolve into
its own social media platform, providing a place for young audiences to hang
out, communicate, game, build, and show off their emotes. Recently, Epic
Games purchased social video chat app Houseparty, in an apparent future
effort to bolster the social aspects of the game.
Implications
For brands that haven’t engaged in eSports and gaming, now is the time to
explore what relevant audiences are out there and what ways are available to
engage with them.
The industry is prime to reach a core segment of younger, actionable minds,
many of which don’t identify as heavy gamers. Brands and marketers that feel
this space is ‘beyond’ them, may not be looking deep enough.
For those that are already active, now is the time to review what you’ve done,
how the target audience has responded and act off the engagement data to
provide new and highly relevant experiences.
Marshmello’s Fortnite concert was the game's largest event to date,
drawing in over 10 million live viewers.

8. Screensharing and Co-Viewing
reshape the mobile experience
While the functionality had been available for a while now, updates in
hardware have made mobile screensharing a possibility. To envision this,
think of the experience you have while sharing a laptop screen during a
presentation, only on your mobile device.
Apps like Squad and Dote are pushing this functionality, allowing users to
video chat with one another while viewing their partner’s screen, and vice
versa. This type of interaction provides a way for users to ‘hang out’ on their
mobile devices without having the pressure of paying close attention to the
person on the other end, a gripe often found in traditional Facetime calls.
Championed by the likes of Facebook and YouTube, Co-viewing, or the ability
to watch digital content with another viewer, will evolve to follow this screen
sharing format, creating an new social experience on mobile devices.
Implications
What used to be a passive, singular behavior on mobile, like scrolling through
social feeds and browsing ecommerce sites, will shift towards a group activity,
as user’s will easily be able to share screens and interact together. This
behavior puts the onus on experience providers to adapt mobile UX from a
singular experience, to one that’s conducive to groups.
To lead in this space, brands and marketers must take advantage of group
browsing engagement opportunities that drive commerce and provide tools to
engage users, capturing attention and dollars. Shopping parties, makeup
tutorials, product demos, giveaways and more are all on the table. When
promoting these engagements, relevant influencers will be a key driver of
participation.
Squad’s app allows friends to video chat while screensharing, paving
the way for mobile interactions to move from singular passive activities
to engaging group ones

9. Exponential

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Facebook Messenger Plays a
Central Role
Facebook wants to put Messenger in the center of their product ecosystem.
The Messenger experience will evolve to be the central hub of how users
communicate with their friends and family.
There is a shift towards how we connect with loved ones, how we share
experiences and the ephemerality (short lifetime) of them. Co-viewing will
push users to hang out within the Messenger environment and seamless
messaging across devices will allow conversations to persist throughout your
day, complete with a new dedicated desktop app.
With 2 Billion+ users communicating within Messenger, the move to integrate
the back ends of Instagram and WhatsApp will bring enhanced utility to the
service by bridging the gap between all three services. Additionally, their push
to include an integrated cryptocurrency will open up new engagement and
revenue channels by expanding commerce options and introducing micro-
payments.
Implications
Facebook’s push to make Messenger the center of its ecosystem is a
testament to its focus on private interactions. As more and more people shift
their mobile communications to Messaging, it will become important for
businesses to have a reliable presence within the ecosystem.
Through automated chatbots, marketers are able to automate lead generation
and CRM to provide utility and drive sales within Messenger. Businesses that
do not have automated process here will soon be at a loss as this behavior
becomes learned and expected.
Sephora’s Facebook Messenger bot allows users try on new products,
book appointments, and talk with brand experts.

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Voice Design Moves Towards Utility
Within Skills and Actions, Amazon and Google’s voice applications, usage
data shows that users aren’t buying things through branded voice apps.
Consumers that do buy through voice will order through Amazon or Google,
without having the need to launch an associated application.
Instead of focusing on commerce within these channels, allow for discovery
and engagement, providing utility through voice while allowing users to add
relevant products to linked shopping lists. These lists have a high propensity
of purchase post engagement.
Walmart, which recently moved its products outside Google Express, instead
created an Action that focused on product discovery and list building. By
taking this route, they provided a way for their voice marketers to hit relevant
KPI’s, utilizing voice as a channel to impact other aspects of the business like
repeat purchases and top of funnel engagement.
Implications
Brands will need to ensure that their products are formatted for voice-first
discovery through data markup on Amazon and Google. Ensuring the same is
true for discovery within retailer (like Walmart’s) voice application's will aid in
product discovery.
There will likely be co-creation opportunities to promote certain products and
list building from discovery to purchase will continue to be an important
aspect in brands consumer decision journeys.
Walmart shifted their voice strategy on Google from commerce first to
product discovery, engagement and list building

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Siri Improves and Opens Up
Siri Shotcuts, Apple’s attempt at opening up the voice assistant to third party
ecosystems, has gained momentum over the past year. Additionally, the tech
giant’s recent acquisition of conversational design tool Pullstring, hinted at a
future update to the service’s ability.
At WWDC, we previewed what that will look like in iOS13, featuring an
updated Shortcuts app, integration into the operating system and an easier
way for users to create voice commands from related apps. Additionally,
developers can suggest a voice command and instead of having to record
their voice, users can opt to include it with the tap of a button.
In accordance with updates to Alexa and Google Assistant, Siri will also be
more conversational, with the ability to ask follow up questions and provide
contextually relevant answers.
Implications
While Apple is still behind in their efforts to open Siri up to third party
developers, the strong focus on improving their conversational design tools
will reduce the barrier for entry and provide every user with the ability to
personalize their voice assistant.
For brands and marketers, providing utility through Siri means integrating
relevant Shortcuts into your mobile app with a focus on aspects of the
consumer decision journey.
Brands and marketers will be able to integrate easy ways to invoke
their applications through Siri, providing new use cases along
consumers mobile journey.

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Blockchain Shifts Ad Incentives
Blockchain technology, promising a shift through decentralization in
payments, politics, social media and more is very much still in its nascent
phase. Within the marketing and advertising industry, the technology is being
used to account for a missing party within media delivery, the user.
Utilizing Brave, a privacy focused internet browser, users can opt to view or
ignore ads. Rewards, in the form of Basic Attention Tokens (BAT), go to
users that do opt to view ads. Utilizing these tokens, users can redeem
products from Brave’s reward network, consisting of hundreds of partners.
While the current impact on traditional DMP’s and DSP’s is small, it’s a threat
that is only likely to expand as the value of BAT increases.
Implications
In conjunction with an increased public focus on privacy, we expect a large
enough subset of users to value their attention as a form of currency, that
major brands will have to shift funds to experiment with this type of ad format.
Publishers can also gain value in this space by opting to join Brave’s network,
providing content creators with compensation for their work in the form of
BAT tokens. This completes the triangle of value delivered from advertisers,
publishers and users.
In 2018, around 62% of all digital display ad buying is for programmatic ads,
however as targeting options decrease due to privacy regulations, marketers
may come to find that attention based advertising provides greater
engagement than traditional media.
The Brave Rewards network allows users to get paid for viewing ads
and allows them to redeem BAT for prizes or support their favorite
content creators

14. Enhanced

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AR Platforms lend
themselves to Utility
From Google Lens to Snapchat’s recently launched Scan platform, we’re
seeing these platforms shift their AR strategy to include more functionality.
What started as a fun and engaging entertainment channel (think throwing up
augmented rainbows) to one that’s providing additional utility to every events.
We’ll find that consumers will utilize these tools to provide an ease of
convenience in how they interact with digital tools that shape the physical
world.
For example, previously, someone who wanted to get reviews of a
restaurant’s most popular dishes, would have had to manually search Yelp or
Google Reviews. Now, they’re able to pull out their phone and point the
camera at the menu, resulting in a digital experience that seamlessly
integrates with your physical surrounding.
Implications
The next year and a half will see a massive shift in UX and the general
perception of AR, as the average user comes to understand that its’ benefits
range far beyond adding dog ears to your head.
Brands can enable users with utility by providing them with the tools to solve
real world problems utilizing contextual information and augmented reality.
Additionally, OOH and traditional print media are prime channels for
augmenting information that otherwise would not have fit or made sense to
include in the print layout.
YouTube recently launched the ability to split screen and try on
makeup utilizing augmented reality while the viewer watches branded
influencer makeup tutorials

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Auto: The Emergence of a
new Content Channel
As self driving cars continue to make their way into our daily lives, we’ll shift
the way we view the automobile; moving from a transportation vehicle to full
on entertainment and communication channel.
Auto manufactures from Honda to Tesla are providing entertainment options
within their vehicles that will have implications for how consumers access and
consume information within their commute; leading to new commerce and
brand engagement opportunities.
Utilizing gamification and real time predictive data within the vehicle, provides
marketers with a behavioral based content channel unmatched to other
platforms.
Implications
Honda’s Dream Drive system, the company’s platform for in-car purchases,
games, rewards programs and more, will allow brands to view last mile data
to show how their marketing led to sales. This type of behavioral data is
incredibly important to understand for marketers with high frequency products
or those traditionally found in convenience stores.
Outside of commerce, we’ll see personalization increasingly push its way into
the automobile. A recent patent from Amazon dictates a system that activates
in-car preferences based on that passenger that gets in. Imagine having your
vehicle optimize your route to stop at the local grocery store to pick up
missing ingredients based on the time of day and your recent Alexa usage.
Tesla is turning the center console into a full on gaming platform, with
22 playable titles, some of which utilize the steering wheel as a
controller. Don’t worry, the car needs to be parked to play.

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Augmenting Live Events
Live events are increasingly utilizing augmented reality to provide their
viewers and participants with contextual information to help guide them on
their experience. Real time AR can help to enhance the event, providing
information in ways that would otherwise not be possible.
The US Open and PGA Tour have been big proponents of this technology
over the last few years, providing ways for fans at the event and viewers at
home to follow their favorite golfers around the course, utilizing AR. Simply
loading the corresponding app and pointing your cameras phone at a picture
of the course, a virtual representation of the course appears, allowing users to
follow the action in live time.
Implications
While golf is a great example of a use case for this technology, the same can
is true for all types of live events. Concerts, museum exhibitions, baseball
games, and more all involve a layer of information that could be surfaced with
the use of AR.
Major League Baseball has recently expressed their intention for an MLB AR
app which will surface the names of players above their heads along with
their position and additional relevant information during gameplay.
As the barriers towards accessing these types of experiences decreases,
we’ll increasingly move from app based executions to ones that live solely on
the mobile web. Within these live events, there also lies the ability to provide
shared experiences, allowing multiple people to view the same experience at
the same time from different angles.
Download the US Open AR app and scan the image above to view
animated replays of your favorite golfers during the 2019 US Open.

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Consumer Ready VR has Arrived
During F8, Facebook’s annual developer conference, the company placed a
major focus on the advancement of VR technology. The release of Oculus
Quest, a standalone VR headset is one of the first headsets that provides
fully immersive experiences without the need for external sensors or a
dedicated computer.
This could be a game changer for not only the advancement of VR, but for
breaking down barriers involved with utilizing this technology in a retail setting
and driving portable, immersive experiences.
The headset uses onboard machine learning to replace sensors and because
none of that data leaves the device, they addressed the aspect of privacy and
security well.
Implications
The barriers towards VR are being addressed, and we’ll only continue to see
these headsets decrease in price and size. For brands and marketers, it’s
important to recognize this trend and begin prepping experiences that your
users will find valuable in a virtual environment.
These can range from the exploratory and educational to fun and
entertaining. They can be isolated or they can be social. The key is finding
what works for your brand and your consumers, as this is still very much an
exploratory phase with regards to experiences in VR.
According to industry estimations, Facebook will have shipped up to one
million Oculus Quest headsets by the end of year.
The Oculus Quest, which is currently an Amazon Best Seller, is the
first standalone VR headset to offer a fully immersive experience.

19. Meet The Team
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Ian Beacraft
VP, Digital Strategy
@IanBcraft
Tom Edwards
Chief Digital Officer, Agency
@blackfin360
Jeremy Olken
Sr. Innovation Strategist
@JeremyOlken
Wes Henry
Sr. Director of Creative Technology
@WesHenry1

20. Questions