1) Marketing will return to its first love: creativity. This year, new platforms have made brands braver.  Experimenting with social platforms has brought us the delights of Old Spice Man, Starbucks’ checkins and the arrival of the iPad has not just seen its own campaign epitomise cool living, but has provided another way to deliver effective advertising into the hands of many. The time to experiment is over; the future depends on this creativity becoming mainstream. Digital and social platforms are a great leveller and ensure that 2011 will be the year that winners will come from those who generate ideas and creativity, not those with the biggest mainstream budget. No more lazy ‘me too’ marketing, dispense with ‘same old’ campaigns and rediscover the creative art of marketing. The ideas economy will rule. No ideas, no success.

2) Traditional agencies will suffer if they think they’re the only way of providing integration. The ad agency world has spent a lot of 2010 navel-gazing as much as future-looking. At times, it’s verged on self pity. Agencies have come out of it vowing that with so many platforms now abounding, only they can provide expertise in all areas. This is no longer the case. Smart CMOs reach out to multiple sources to achieve best-in-class results: the platforms have become the means of integration, not the agency. 2011 is the year when everyone will be working smarter, and full-service no longer means one-stop shop.

3) Just do it. Recession-proof marketing has seen more businesses want to get a project done and less willingness to be told what that project is by their agencies. The idea that an external agency is an extension of the internal team has been re-evaluated when the cost of that team has been calculated. There’s more work going on in-house and clearer briefs coming out. 2011 will see the end of additional fluffiness as clients just won’t put up with it.

4) Campaign roles are a-changing. Successful campaigns are led by smart people working out the best place for their marketing activities and managing this presence. It’s a complex orchestration bringing together traditional routes, new social channels and digital media to deliver creativity, impact and results. In 2011 successful businesses will deliver beautiful symphonies, leaving hideous cacophonies of ill-advised campaigns in their wake from those who still maintain a silo-based approach. Companies will look for these smart orchestrators in their agencies.

5) Social engagement. Conversation has always been synonymous with social media campaigns, but the conversation is just the starting point. The aim is to create engagement and build a community. 2010 has seen too many companies awarding themselves social media satisfaction points for creating one-way conversations like an annual call to a deaf aunt. 2011 must see brands using conversation as the stimulus to creating the holy grail that is community. Agencies have to devise campaigns that are more provocative, more questioning,  while simultaneously developing an ear to the market.  The market will lead marketing from now on, because it should and because it can. Without an engaged community, brands won’t succeed. Advanced brands are on their way to gaining that engagement and 2011 will see them drive forwards ahead of their competitors.

6) Crowds come of age. Crowdsourcing is now a widespread practice in fields as diverse as product design, consumer insight, software testing and creative development. It still suffers from being associated with a random approach, an alternative when traditional methods haven’t quite delivered. 2011 will be the year when Crowdsourcing is the first choice of delivery method for creative projects. Ad agencies will have to sit up and take note as they realise that the other 5 things predicted here are happening, and that companies are looking to the Crowd, not the big agency to fulfil them. Grown-up Crowdsourcing is what we already practise at blur Group; we’ve developed the way to engage Crowds, engage customers with marketing requirements and bring them together as one community in a managed fashion. This isn’t just the future of advertising, it’s the future of innovation and creative development.

In 2011,  if you don’t join in and start using the Crowd, you’ll be behind forever.