THE HIGHLIGHTS
5G mobile: A fifth dimension of user experience
At the Festival of Marketing, delegates heard why 5G mobile networks will be a revolution in immersive media
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If you think the advent of 5G is just going to mean better texting or tweeting, think again. As Verizon Media’s senior director of studios Geoffrey Goodwin told the Festival of Marketing, the creative capabilities 5G connectivity can deliver will take brands’ relationships with their consumers to the next level.
Speed, he says, is a given. Users will be able to stream and download via mobile much faster than they can today, making for a much better experience all-round. However, it’s the improvements in ‘latency’ – the delay between sending and receiving mobile data packets - that Goodwin calls “the really sexy bit”. This will give advertisers, TV producers, media companies and others the ability to interact in real time.
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at the Festival of Marketing on demand
Find out more about the opportunity of 5G. Watch Verizon Media’s session,
‘What can 5G do for you?’, at the Festival of Marketing on demand now.
‘Density’ is going to be another key element of 5G’s improvement in connectivity. Removing the frustrations of not being able to find friends in a crowd after a match or concert notwithstanding, dramatically increasing the data bandwidth for crowds will mean a world of opportunity by allowing for supercharged second-screen opportunities at events. From highlights and replays, to a merging of in-person and online shopping, 5G is handing marketers the opportunity to engage more deeply with
the audience as well as further develop revenue streams.
Most important, however, is what Goodwin calls his three premium opportunities: ‘immersive’, ‘interactive’ and ‘smarter’.
Immersive technology is not new but 5G will democratise access to content like never before. But it’s interactivity where Goodwin sees a giant slice of potential. “Netflix has already got its own interactive studio and programming slate. Being able to create content to work with the audience in different ways, through branching narratives or choosing different adventures, is exciting for editorial but also really exciting for advertisers,” he insists. And this will all become possible due to near zero-latency upload speeds - essentially delivering real-time interactivity
He points to the fact that interactive media by its very nature reveals a much deeper insight into consumer motivations and desires. “Typically, humans are either factually or emotionally driven. If we know how people react, we can serve up a more satisfying story for consumers.” The implication is, of course, that by understanding which branch of a story consumers choose, brands can learn which tranche of their customer base will respond better to a different creative approach, and be able to tailor messaging in a much more intuitive and targeted way.
His third and last ‘pillar’ of opportunity from 5G is smarter technologies. There are already connected cameras on film sets and TV shoots that are able to ‘talk’ across systems, creating more efficient production and post-production environments and delivering cheaper campaign creation overall. But, he says, we should expect 5G to also deliver a second-generation explosion in vlogging.
Just as improvements in broadband and desktop recording equipment spawned the first generation of YouTubers, 5G will release vloggers from their desktop shackles even more than ever before. “We will become our own Martin Scorsese, with daily family dramas, birthday videos - really, our own ‘Made in Chelsea’.” 5G will unleash and exponentially drive the creative communities on Instagram, Tik Tok and elsewhere to deliver ever more complex, sophisticated and longer-duration content - including a move into fiction programing, long the bastion of deep-pocketed broadcasters and production companies.
There really would appear to be no limitations – 5G will democratise content creation like never before. ■
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THE HIGHLIGHTS