Trends to Watch for in Digital Media from Bonnier R&D

How is "playfulness" changing the media landscape? More than you think, says Björn Jeffery of Bonnier R&D and Bonnier Digital, who defines playfulness as integrating game mechanics into everyday life, for example collecting points for specific actions, such as driving a car more environmentally, to compete with yourself or others. Playfulness is just one of 11 media trends that Jeffery and his team have identified as worth paying more attention to in Bonnier R&D's internal annual Media Map report.

"The Media Map aims to fill out the knowledge gap that can occur when focusing solely on one's core business," says Jeffery. "Through zooming out slightly, we try to put consumer, market and technology trends in a slightly wider perspective."

Bonnier.com talked with Jeffery about the Media Map, which was written for management within Bonnier and has been presented to many within the company.

Can you see any overarching trends?
Actually, all trends in this year's edition are overarching more or less. Instead of picking trends in each business area, we found that the media landscape was so converged that it was more honest to present them in clusters of trends instead. The big changes in consumer behavior and technology affect all business areas to some extent, and therefore it made sense to cover all of them that way.

Any lessons learned that the average person at Bonnier should be thinking about?
Plenty, but a particularly interesting change - in days when paid content is on everybody's mind - is the success of services over single products. The packaging of a service of some sort has shown to be successful when it comes to engaging consumers and making them want to come back more often. This in effect also has positive effects on their willingness to pay.

Can you talk about one of the 11 trends a little in detail?
One of the more fun trends is the notion of playfulness, which has its own chapter. It describes how game mechanics are moving into everyday life in different creative ways. Things like a leaderboard, or creating a sense of achievement in some way, can be a powerful driver and motivator for people. If well-executed, it can make people do things that they otherwise might not have done. We're seeing a lot of this trend since we wrote the report early this year, and I think it will continue to increase in the coming years, too.

What was the strangest thing you found?
Probably the iPhone application "Sleep Cycle" that you lay under your mattress and in the morning it shows you a graph of how you slept based on your movement during the night. It also wakes you up when you are nearest to awake in your sleep cycle, making it easier for you to get up. But the most fun part of it is the "Share on Facebook" button that posts your sleeping graph to your friends. The question "did you sleep well?" will never be the same again.