DUBAI: Kantar, which bills itself as “a data-driven analytics and brand-consulting company,” has released a report on the trends and predictions it believes will shape the media industry in 2022. “The media landscape has always been dynamic, with the pandemic further fueling all the change,” said Keerat Dhillon, the regional associate director and media effectiveness measurement lead for Kantar’s Insights division, in a press release. “Digital consumption increased massively, and while some newer players grew exponentially during this time, advertisers still need to think very strategically about how to steer and operate in this changing landscape,” she added. The report focuses on five key areas: video streaming, remodeling of the commercial internet, performance media and marketing, a new approach to data, and adapting to COVID-era behaviors. As more video-on-demand viewing figures are published, content owners and producers will command higher licensing and carriage fee negotiation rights than before, and streaming platforms for sports and e-sports will gain more traction with fans, Kantar predicts. Single-subscription offerings will become less common as platforms continue to consolidate due to the need to offer better and more content bundles to attract viewers in an increasingly crowded space. A serious recalibration of the commercial internet is now underway, the company says. “Brands and agencies are experimenting with hybrid data strategies that fully encompass privacy, purposefully blending their owned consumer data with panel-based sources and other high quality — and fully consented — third-party data,” the report states. Targeting is expected to become more contextual and brands are expected to invest heavily in direct-integration-based management systems to measure campaign effectiveness. During the pandemic, many brands shifted to performance-based strategies to survive. Now, as the market rebounds, Kantar’s experts expect to see increased competition for performance marketing spend, with local retail giants becoming more sophisticated at e-commerce. They also anticipate a rebalancing of spend across performance media and brand-building campaigns. Data is at the center of a lot of these changes, and advertisers’ attitudes toward data are also expected to change, with high-quality data becoming the fastest-growing issue in the next year, the company predicts. Kantar’s experts anticipate that brands will lean into their direct consumer relationships to make the most of their own data. They will also experiment more and develop new ways of using this data to tackle the lack of competitive data intelligence in the hope of developing greater understanding of their consumers. Finally, there is no doubt that consumer behavior has changed during the pandemic and some of these changes are here to stay, the company says. “Brand offerings will need to reflect and shape the changed realities of consumer behavior,” the report says. Businesses will need to focus on consumer needs including convenience, value, sustainability, and innovation. Although this can be a challenge, it is also an opportunity for brands to explore different and deeper audience segments and grow their brand beyond existing audiences. “There’s a real dilemma of effectively reaching consumers, especially with the increase in penetration for online yet stability of offline,” said Rana Mokhtar, director brand and analytic at Kantar’s Insights division. “While we’re living in the time of digital diversity, offline still has its strength in reaching wider segments and causing different impacts. Multimedia use, with the correct balance in spend and content, is, therefore, the secret to media-planning success in 2022,” she added.