Excerpt from a SHOOT Staff Report – December 16, 2011

To gain insight into where we’ve been in 2011 and what from this past year can help us in the future, SHOOT posed the following pair of survey questions to a cross-section of industry folk:

1. What do you regard as being the most important industry lesson or lessons learned by your company this past year?
2. What industry trends or developments were most significant in 2011?

Here’s a sampling of the feedback we received:

Conor Brady, Chief Creative Officer, Organic

Lessons learned, trends & developments

HUNCH OR CRUNCH: As we move into the era of big data with more and more to crunch, the real skill will be in what is the data telling us. Will we just use the data to replicate what we are already doing, but a little better—or will we use it to make an educated hunch on what will be the next big thing?

MOBILE FIRST: Big brands will adopt a mobile first marketing and design philosophy. Mobile will continue to grow into the platform that is the most useful and timely interaction with a brand for a consumer.

RESPONSIVE DESIGN: We are going to have to get smarter with how we approach user experience and marketing. As budgets shrink and the number of platforms we are expected to deliver on increases, we will have to adopt the design once and deploy many approach. This will more than ever require a close relationship between design and technology.

OPTING OUT: I believe a lot of us, especially the younger generation, is really struggling with “social openness” —that idea that your life and all aspects of it are just broadcast to everyone. The result being our social feeds are becoming more and more junked, with randomness and brands taking advantage of the openness. We have seen everything from the extremes of people holding farewell parties as they resign their Facebook accounts, to others limiting who is exposed to their social feed.

BUDGET WARS: Clients are really starting to embrace an all agency at once briefing model, but that has created an interesting scenario when the client steps back and allows the agencies to come together. As Traditional agencies say they do digital and agencies like ourselves shoot TV spots and print, it is becoming harder and harder to define who should lead, and who should own the budget.

ARTISAN BRANDS: At Cannes this year on the Design Jury, it was really interesting to see small brands and self-promotion pieces pick up Lions. Their attention to detail and their ability to use unique and interesting design solutions to make up for lack of budget presented an interesting rise of the craft and attention to detail.

See the full story at Shoot Online here.