Trends and Topics in Print Media

Every Monday morning, a team of Access media mavens gathers to read the latest trends and topics covered in print media (yes, we still read print media!).

The team shares these insights agency wide to ensure we’re all informed and equipped for the week ahead. Every week, we’ll share learnings from the consumer, business and tech spaces here on the Access Point.

This week, we learned that technology is literally reaching new heights and that gaming is resumé-worthy:

• The Pilot Has Turned Off the Privacy Light and You Are Now Free to Roam About the Cabin

According to The Wall Street Journal, we can soon expect to see some new and “smarter” advancements to air travel. When you think about it, airlines already know a lot about us—how much we’re sleeping on board, how often we leave our seats, what we’re watching, what we’re eating and how often we’re traveling. With new technology, comes new concerns about where this data goes. In the next two years, your air travel experience may be fully tailored to your personal preferences…we’re talking sensors in your seat adjusting airflow based on your preferred temperature, screens welcoming you to your seat by name, pre-loaded in-flight entertainment based on your streaming data. While this sounds very Year 3000, some argue that companies are collecting too much information in the name of consumer convenience, and without understood consent. Stay tuned, frequent flyers (Scott McCartney, The Wall Street Journal).

• Celebrity Gamers Becoming Live Performers

Our friends at The Wall Street Journal also highlighted the growing trend of video game publishers paying gamers to live-stream their experiences playing newly released games. Popular “celebrity” gamers, who garner live virtual audiences of 15K+, are paid as much as $50K hourly to do so. “If you don’t have live-streaming as part of your marketing spend, you’re doing it wrong,” says CEO of Greenlit Content LLC. However, with this marketing play comes risk as live-streaming leaves much up to chance (think technical glitches, lack of script—basically a PR pro’s nightmare). However, doesn’t look like this tactic is going away anytime soon, given that in the last month alone, people spent 24.7 million hours watching other people play “Apex Legends,” a new game launched in February. Where do we learn to be a pro gamer? Sign us up! (Sarah Needleman, The Wall Street Journal).