A few of Quirk’s top minds took some time to reflect on the last year and weigh in on their predictions for the coming year - which cover everything on the evolution of the agency structure to big data and exciting developments in tech.

Follow these super-smart QuirkStars on Twitter for more on what’s going to be hot in 2012 and beyond: @justinspratt, @thejamesmckay, @kathsharfman, @blakey, @CraniumJack, @thescott, @craigraw and @tomfinnianbrady. 

Big data – Justin Spratt and Sarah Blake

Quirk Agency CEO, Justin Spratt, sees 2012 as the year of "Big Data". It will get over-hyped and lots of capital will be drawn to the space with aim of gaining insights into the snowballing data we’re accumulating as the world increasingly transacts using digital devices. Unfortunately, most of the investment will be wasted. Alignment with proper data analytics shops will be critical in getting those insights to translate into actions that drive company revenues or reduce costs.

Sarah Blake, Head of Optimise, agrees saying the important thing about big data is "big". As Steve Watt (@wattsteve) said at his Tech4Africa talk this year, big data with a dumb algorithm beats lower data volume with a smart algorithm. Sarah believes that big, mass brands should be doing more with the big data that they have available and their smaller counterparts should be learning from published case studies and information - not over-investing where they don’t have enough data for meaningful analysis. Smart organisations will realise the value of bringing data sources together for combined analysis and this is a big opportunity for digital. Be the team that's building the dashboards and analysis for multiple data sources.

Advertising budgets near and afar – Justin Spratt and Kathryn Sharfman

Macro-economically, Spratt says the globe will continue to contract or stay flat at best. The Great Recession, as it is now known, will be "bath shaped" as Sorrell said. We’re in for a long period of stagnate global economic growth before the first world economies pull themselves up again. For Africa, Brazil, India and China it will mean increased appeal in foreign investment as the world looks for higher returns. In terms of advertising and marketing budgets, there will be a bump Africa-wide, but don’t count on any of that flowing into SA’s traditional advertising space.  

Here at home, we can expect digital to grow at a similar pace to 2011 at almost 100% Y-o-Y as marketing budgets shift to the digital platforms that promise higher ROI. South African digital marketing budgets are still a fraction of what we’re seeing in sophisticated global markets and there’s no reason to believe South Africa should be dislocated from this trend. This is especially true for agencies that can turn "big data" into meaningful business insights that inform strategy and drive revenue growth and cost reductions. The implications of big data is that marketers will increasingly be people with math and science degrees. Deep understanding of psychology, sociology and anthropology will also drive much of the strategy within agencies as they work with analytics specialists to interpret this data.

On growth, ClientLove founder, Kathryn Sharfman sees digital remaining in a highly unique situation of growth. Despite restrictions in the economy, corporates will continue to seek ROI from their marketing budgets and will turn to more cost-effective solutions - using digital over traditional tactics.  

Streamlined, effective platforms – Tom Brady

Quirk UK’s MD, Tom Brady, operates in the sophisticated global market mentioned by Spratt and he’s seeing a real industry focus around intelligent conversion and ultimately ROI - specifically making digital marketing actually visible when it comes to macro-econometrics. SEO has enjoyed HUGE amounts of growth and is now firmly entrenched in the clients' minds as being a real area for investment. We are also aware that there is a tangible disconnect between Social Media spend and volume uplift for FMCG clients. Either campaigns do not have the correct Call to Action (i.e. one that requires a digital buy-in) or they are not taking advantage of mechanics that could facilitate more engaging purchase path (F-commerce, M-commerce, video).

When it comes to FMCG clients, Sarah Blake believes that there will push towards greater digital measurement approaches, particularly in Social Media. People tend to talk about the measurability of the web, but usually as a direct response environment. However, the web is also a great experience environment - where there is no direct sales response. This means that brands without an online direct sales response are pushing the agenda when it comes to measuring digital's role in offline ROI. We'll see big FMCG players pushing measurement approach and models with focus groups and research. Again, smaller brands should watch and learn, and test to find their own measurement approach.

Brady also highlights that the shift in focus for mobile technology is going to be increasingly important for retailers. NFC/EPOS integration is going to be costly, but it seems unavoidable - and micropayment platforms like Google Wallet are going to start to gain momentum over the next 24 months. The ultimate goal is a unified, simple platform that can cater to any need, be it paying for coffee or opening your hotel room door using your NFC enabled mobile. This integration is a logical step for the consumer and with the advent of Web TV platforms (and the integration of technologies like DG and MediaMind as well as Google's latest rich media developments in Google Analytics) there is a palpable excitement regarding the fact that as advertisers/agencies we are going to be staggering towards a multi-touch attribution model set to yield unprecedented levels of insight.

Tom’s foresees a movement towards using streamlined, effective platforms that harness the innovative application of data to create results. In this climate, all spend is rightly questioned and levels of accountability will only become more important as data models become more complex.

Consumer behaviour and retention – Kathryn Sharfman

In 2012, CRM is acknowledged as important… but Kathryn Sharfman doesn’t see it being really implemented in 2012. With a long recession predicted and austerity measures being taken, customer retention is increasingly important for corporates who need to lengthen churn cycles and to extract more value from existing customers that have, to date, been overlooked whilst they focus on new business. Marketing budgets will be reduced to accommodate CRM budgets and strategies will be created, but not implemented effectively due to lack of adoption through poor change management and overly complicated, unwieldy, long-term transformation plans.

Kathryn foresees that internationally, consumers will continue to become expert value seekers and it will be difficult for luxury brands to grow volume. While brands can continue to grow engagement, they will need to plan for restricted volume. Brands need to be brave to continue their engagement with less return on investment with their broader target audience to sustain themselves during the recession whilst also concentrating on their top tier customers.

Twitter and digital planners go mainstream – Scott Gray

Head of Think, Scott Gray sees 2012 as the year Twitter hits the mainstream South African market. Without knowing it, the mainstream will start adopting semantic principles that lead the way to the so-called Web3.0 (or Semantic web for short). Hashtags, keywords that are typically used to describe a piece of data (in this case a tweet), will give a layer of meaning that machines will be able to understand and act upon. Conversations across topics and consumer groups will be beautifully aggregated and presented back in meaningful ways for marketers. Think measurement in the forms of reputation management and sentiment as well as brand engagement.

Scott also sees next year as a big one for digital planners. As digital evolves and becomes a more important part of the overall marketing mix, digital strategists and planners will be relied on to guide brands into the future in a way that extends across channel. Brands will start looking to their digital partners to provide sound strategic brand leadership in the digital space.

Tech in 2012 – Kathryn Sharfman

Kathryn Sharfman warns that whilst technology will continue to be invested in as a way to improve business, it will take time to bear profit/returns. Projects may be terminated before their value is extracted as businesses panic and stop the change that will make the business better. Quirk, BrandsEye and Idea Bounty CTO, Craig Raw has some exciting thoughts on technology in 2012.

Internet TV – Craig Raw

This has been coming for some time now, but neither the Apple TV or Google TV have really replaced the "dumb" screens in our homes yet. There are signs however that this may be about to change, with Google chairman Eric Schmidt making the bold claim that the "majority" of new television sets will have Google TV embedded next year. There are also hints from Steve Jobs' biographer that the tech visionary "cracked" the secret of interacting with a computer from your couch - perhaps using Siri? Whoever manages to do it, it's clear that the next step in the unstoppable rise of Internet video is viewing it in your lounge on your biggest screen.

Hybrid apps – Craig Raw

This one is important because it sits at the convergence of several past mega-trends: mobile, HTML5 and app markets. Hybrid apps are mobile apps built mostly with HTML5 and distributed using the Apple Store, Android Marketplace, BlackBerry App World or similar. Facebook, Microsoft, LinkedIn, Netflix, Yelp - all have used hybrid apps recently and they represent a particularly interesting approach to solving the problem of a very fractured development environment in the mobile space, using commonly understood and accessible technology to deploy on a wide variety of devices from a single development stream. Craig believes that it's likely that app markets still have a number of years to run as the primary distributors of mobile functionality and hybrids will span that gap.

Responsive design and user experience – Craig Raw and Sarah Blake

Craig feels that as brands are faced with challenge of delivering their content across a range devices (desktop, tablet, phone), so the complexity increases. Do you really need three different sites, one for each type of device? With responsive design the answer is no - this approach uses client-side technology to adapt the layout and media on a web page to fit into the different resolutions. Responsive design really came into its own with the redesign of bostonglobe.com this year, and since then many examples have surfaced. Look for brands to join this trend as they seek to minimise costs, homogenise branding and reduce time to market.
When it comes to user experience, Sarah believes that we'll be seeing experience design mapping a total consumer's experience with a brand or organisation, with digital as an interface on the journey. It's a good way to ensure a more total vision of a consumer's experience with a brand, and to understand how digital fits into the bigger picture.

Technology to inspire creativity – Clint Bryce

Quirk’s Chief Creative Officer, Clint Bryce, has his own take on Pixar's mantra which frames his thoughts on the year ahead, "Ideas challenge technology. Technology inspires ideas". 2012 will see creative ideas that adopt location-based services, dynamic data environments, decentralised messaging and the promise of Gamification in their expression. In terms of creativity, no matter how beautifully packaged, information does not equate to an idea and 2012 is set to see a demand for brave, new and relevant ideas. Brand stories that take full advantage of modern techniques and years of lessons learnt.

This is what success looks like - James McKay

Quirk Cape Town’s MD, James McKay says the marketing space as we know it is changing at the speed of light. With it, the agency landscape has to adopt a "change or get relegated" attitude! The world has experienced a massive digital overlay which has shifted the way consumers interact with the ideas agencies create: the ideas will remain bigger than any channel, but the means and platforms consumers use to receive and engage with the ideas will increasingly be digitally informed. This dynamic has begun the race for an agency construct yet to be achieved and fully appreciated by most agency groups. The so-called "traditional or classical" agencies are scrambling to purchase successful digital agencies with the belief that this will solve "the question of digital" their clients are asking them. This approach of "purchase and bolt-on" will fail - it already has. The true success models in this ever-evolving space will be attained by those agencies that have the vision to completely reconstitute their agency business structures around the intersection of five crucial aspects: brand ideas, data, technology, aesthetics and user experience. This is what success looks like.

A final one to watch from Sharfman - the world will look for a visionary to replace Steve Jobs who will be brave and move the boundaries of business innovation. Any thoughts on who it’ll be?