New year, new trends. Nobody has a crystal ball, but the executives in our industry have better insight than most into what’s coming next. We asked a selection of them for their 2022 predictions. Here’s what they had to say. 

John Brauer
VP, Insights & Analytics
Effectv

We expect 2022 to be a breakthrough year in how we can use impression-level, cross-platform measurement to better understand how advertising influences buyers of marketers’ products move through their journey from awareness, to research, consideration, and purchase. Rather than focusing on measuring a single phase in the buyer journey, we expect new techniques to understand how different audiences respond to a marketer’s messages to guide their decisions in the products they choose to buy.

Welby Chen
COO
JW Player

Over the last decade, there’s been a widening glut of streaming services available to consumers. With growing subscription fatigue, I expect large media conglomerates who own multiple streaming services (both free and paid), will consolidate their apps and services to streamline their consumer options. Audiences will have the option to choose the payment tier that best suits their needs, and in exchange, media companies will have more loyal audiences.

Paul Pastor
Chief Business Officer and Co-Founder
Firstlight Media

2022 will be a year when OTT providers zero in on two pandemic issues: cleaning up metadata to enable more targeted, robust consumer experiences, and leveraging the cloud to clean up inefficient production and distribution systems. Providers who gathered low-hanging subscriber fruit over the past two years now are tackling the challenge of retaining that audience as consumers app-hop to other services and return to leisure options outside the home. A focus in the coming year will be on metadata—the capture, cleanup and standardization required to enable recommendation engines, advanced search capabilities, editorial input and other engagement tools.

Dr. Abdul Rehman
CEO and Co-Founder
SSIMWAVE

One of the big trends we see is TV manufacturers and aggregators scrambling to become the gatekeepers for streaming services. App aggregation led by platforms such as Comcast Xfinity Flex and Amazon Prime will continue to simplify the customer experience and reduce the need for viewers to juggle multiple apps and user experiences; and Smart TV manufacturers (led by Roku, Amazon, Samsung, LG, Comcast and Google) will flex their position as the connected TV gatekeepers for streaming premium content—especially for free ad-supported services (FAST). As these gain traction, content from multiple providers will exist side-by-side, and differences in video quality will be magnified. It will be essential that each of the partners—the aggregators and the gatekeepers—implement viewer experience automation tools to present their products in the best light.

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