The term Preditor was first coined in broadcast TV production in the early 2000’s. The role was originally the amalgamation of a Producer/Director and an Editor, hence Pr/Editor.

The reason the role came to exist was largely due to budget pressures. Independent production companies were required to create TV programming for much tighter budgets than before and advances in affordable digital editing software such as Adobe Premiere, meant that freelancers could now edit from the comfort of their own home on a decent-spec computer.

Since then, technology has taken several leaps forward. Digital SLR cameras can now shoot in 2k and 4k and, in the right hands and with the right brief, can be used to capture amazing quality content with a crew of just one.

Complex offline and online editing can now be achieved with a Macbook Pro wherever you are in the world and a new breed of filmmaker is emerging with skills across all formats, creating self-made films of a quality which 10 years ago would have been unthinkable.

Enter the new breed of Preditor.

In January 2017, Mirum pledged to demystify innovation with eight talks from industry heavyweights and a start-up trail blazers. The result was Mirum Opus, an event designed to debunk and rebuild our understanding of Innovation. A tall order when even the word itself has become convoluted.

Nevertheless, there are still people who know what truly new ideas look like and here are 10 key takeaways:

“Before the tsunami there are tectonic shifts”

“Look for the warning signs and react to them,” was the advice of Adobe’s Vijayanta Gupta. He identified two main trends with critical mass, IOT and AI, the knowledge and infrastructure exists now comes the application. Vijayanta spoke of Moore’s Law and its downward price curve which he thinks it will rapidly increase the creative use of said tech for a tsunami of change

Deliver micro moments

Micro moments are sequences of unpredictable but intent driven actions. Consumers aren’t immersing themselves with brands for long periods of time. They want immediate results delivered in bite size chunks. This doesn’t just mean that marketing communications need to be succinct. It means that people are online more than ever before but in short bursts, so the experience of a brand needs to be tailored to this behaviour.

2017 has been tipped as the year of Virtual Reality but this technology has actually been around since the first panoramic paintings in 12th Century China. Today, huge tech companies like Google/YouTube, Facebook and Apple are investing heavily in VR technology - which is a good indication that it's here to stay. Plus, with more and more offerings being brought to market (and being made more affordable for consumers) it's worth taking a step back and asking: How will VR change our lives? 

Lucky singletons across the UK capital (London) are being encouraged to find 'love in their latte' thanks to a new pop-up 3D printing coffee van from online dating website Match.com.  

For two days only (ending today), single people might have the chance to find love on the way to work. In what the dating site calls a "UK first", the café has been serving up a select menu of drinks ('chappuccino' or 'femmericano') featuring 3D-printed selfies of eight (four male, four female) eligible Match members. Coffee Ripples were the company behind the 3D-printing tech.

Visual content is so prevalent in marketing these days but as with any marketing tool, it comes with benefits as well as challenges.

A recent survey of 300 marketers by Venngage found that the use of visual content as part of the overall strategy is on the rise. The infographic below illustrates 10 need to know key statistics that will drive visual content marketing in 2017. Check it out here:

When you come right down to it, what is “business” exactly?

At its core it’s probably as simple as one guy going out in the world and producing some value, and then receiving value from another party in return.

If this is true, then it stands to reason that in order to maximise the value we receive in life, we have to maximise the value we give. One follows the other. Indeed we see this proven everywhere we look in life. The friends who bring the most to our lives are the ones to whom we are most loyal. The employee who adds the most to our business is the one who gets paid the most.

This seems like common sense. But if this is true, and if business is just a logical extension of human relationships, then why do we not follow the same value provision principle in marketing?

Marketers are constantly looking at problems with a value extraction mindset, rather than a value provision one. What are we going to get out of this? Can we quantify it?

You have just a few weeks left to get your entries in for The Festival of Media Global Awards 2017.

This year's awards scheme includes an exciting twist with 14 new or updated categories added to the line-up for the event in Rome.

The introduction of the new or updated categories come as a result of the fast-moving world of media, to reflect growing trends in data, digital, insight and content marketing.

“We’ve already seen some great cases in our regional Festival of Media events where new techniques have been used to connect brands to the consumer,” said Festival of Media chief awards and marketing officer Danielle Redwood.

“The addition of our new categories to the Festival of Media Global Awards event will give a chance for increasingly innovative work in media from anywhere in the world to shine.

“Consultation with the industry, including the lead marketers of global brands, helped us refine the criteria for 2017 that will truly celebrate the high standards now being reached”.

Personalised offers and messaging present an incredible opportunity for brands to engage consumers more effectively (just think of Coca-Cola!) but new research has found that the majority of web users are becoming frustrated with websites that just aren't tailored to their needs.  

The problem is that many brands just aren't delivering the personalised experiences that consumers truly want. What's the solution? Well, check out this infographic from MDG Advertising on the '4 steps to unlocking the real power of marketing personalisation' to find out: