Opinion: The 7 innovation territories most impacted by 2020

This was the year of acceleration. Thanks to unprecedented circumstances brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, consumers and businesses have been and will continue to adopt digital channels and tools across the board, enabling new behaviors and opportunities for marketers to explore.

For the past four years, the marketing experts at UM have been putting our heads together to track how the media innovation landscape has evolved each year. We judge those territories in terms of their audience reach and their maturity as a marketing channel on a 0-to-10-point scale and compare the year-over-year movement of each territory to gauge the direction and velocity of development.

In 2020, based on the latest expert scores gathered in late October, we identified seven innovation territories that saw significant movement, either in terms of reach or maturity, that all marketers should keep a close eye on.

Of course, not all innovation territories are lucky enough to see accelerated growth. Emerging out-of-home advertising, for example, understandably took a hit in its development, as advertisers turned their focus to digital channels. This is reflected in a 0.6-point decrease in its Reach score and a 0.8 decrease in Maturity.