Jimmy Gilmore

Most pre­dic­tions are either easy, safe, or just wrong. So why not add a few more to the list? I dare you to go on the record on which ones of these are wrong.

1. Mobile Web will become even bigger.
2. The kids will con­tinue to text at an alarm­ing rate — it’s pri­vate you know.
3. Social media will become more impor­tant to busi­nesses — espe­cially B2B, enter­tain­ment, and high-involvement prod­ucts and services.
4. Tele­vi­sion will still be very impor­tant to con­sumer marketing.
5. SEO will still not be under­stood by many ad agen­cies, nor will they care.
6. Flash will still be over used.
7. Bad ads will be ignored even more easily.
8. Tri­bi­liza­tion of users, lis­ten­ers, and view­ers will fur­ther frag­ment audi­ences and con­fuse marketers.
9. Boomer execs will strug­gle with under­stand­ing social media, much less under­stand­ing how to imple­ment it strategically.
10. “Guru” will become a four let­ter word when put after “social media.”
11. Clients will still not buy your best ideas but you’ll still be pres­sured to present it.
12. Agen­cies will be slow to hire, even peo­ple they need.
13. Web video will con­tinue to blow up and frus­trate old school pro­duc­tion com­pa­nies try­ing to make a profit.
14. Begrudg­ingly mar­ket­ing exec­u­tives will accept that Twit­ter isn’t a fad but still think it’s stu­pid — then turn on their NASCAR.
15. “Microsite” will be removed from the urban dic­tio­nary for lack of coolness.
16. Foursquare will cre­ate real returns for smart busi­ness and some guys in New York.
17. That Apple tablet will finally appear and so will another iPhone that will make you want to throw away your lame and old 3GS.
18. Inter­ac­tive agen­cies will lever­age their band­width and exper­tise to wrench away agency of record agree­ments from tra­di­tional shops — espe­cially in B2B and tech categories.
19. Very-small agen­cies will be at a dis­ad­van­tage pitch­ing accounts since most clients will be look­ing to see strong and expan­sive dig­i­tal capa­bil­i­ties from their agency partners.
20. Very-large agen­cies will have a hard time chang­ing course to cre­ate true dig­i­tal capa­bil­i­ties and still meet the new, tight­wad, cost expec­ta­tions of clients.
21. Agency peo­ple will still be prat­tling about how cool their iPhones are.
22. Same agency peo­ple will still be pre­sent­ing “iPhone App” ideas to clients using Black­ber­ries, Palms, Microsoft, and Google smart phones.
23. 13% of Art direc­tors will burn out and start pre­sent­ing the same lay­outs in dif­fer­ent col­ors for all con­cepts, clients, and mediums.
24. Salaries will remain flat.
25. Your boss or client will buy a Porsche but feel the need to make excuses about how it was too good a deal to pass up.