Apple, Amazon, Google Wage Content Wars

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Defusing the disruption won't be easy for everyone. In a few years, the online landscape will expand to thousands of device formats. Morgan Stanley (MS) analyst Mary Meeker thinks the world will soon contain 10 billion web-enabled gadgets. Many will act as dedicated appliances, such as General Motors' OnStar or Ford's (F) SYNC in-car connectivity systems, with unique interfaces.

Forrester Research (FORR) analyst Josh Bernoff refers to this brave new multiplatform world as "the Splinternet," where the common Web browser experience of the past 15 years is shattered into systems of incompatible content formats.

We will all have to adapt to a world where gadgets are the new marketing medium. The device-portal tie-up isn't necessarily bad for consumers, who have plenty of choices for media consumption. But it creates a thorny puzzle for businesses striving to build audiences. How do you compete when your potential customers are using devices and content systems that lock one another out?

Which tool will your customers favor?

The solution is to treat emerging technology platforms as an expanded form of communications inventory. Just as businesses today might create an ad campaign that can be customized for hundreds of different print formats, a marketing message must now fit into numerous technology interfaces. To win, you'll need to know:

• Which emerging new tools will your target customers use? Create a list of devices on the horizon and ask which will be adopted by your core audience. Look for surprises. The average age of a heavy videogame user in the U.S., for instance, is now 39.

• What is the desired action you seek in each format? Mobile users may rebel against ad intrusions, but they might respond well to text messages or so-called QR codes—bar codes that consumers photograph with cell phones to receive further information. Social media users may want to talk with each other more than listen to your brand brag, but giving them helpful content they can pass among themselves might spark interest.

• Set aside funds for testing. If you aren't spending at least 5% of your marketing budget to experiment with new technology and content portals, you will not be positioned for the future.

• Think cheap. There are numerous crowdsourcing agencies or low-cost app design firms that can help you experiment in new tech formats for a few hundred dollars. Being innovative today doesn't mean you have to blow your budget.

This approach works whether you're a marketer with an ad message, a business rethinking an e-commerce Web site, or a consumer searching for services. Rather than look at each new gadget as a silly toy, your business must start thinking about how to fit into each device's content portal. It is no longer enough to let your online behavior rest inside a PC-based Web browser. Gadgets are doing to the Web what the Web did to newspapers—building new roads to content while burning the old bridges.

Ben Kunz is director of strategic planning at Mediassociates, a media planning and Internet strategy firm. He is author of the advertising strategy blog ThoughtGadgets.com.

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