As 2009 comes to a close, everyone reflects on trends from the year, and start making predictions on where we’re headed next year.  Nielsen just released it’s 2009 wrap-up, and  its projections for the top advertising trends for 2010. In 2009, budgets were slashed, social media networks and UCG (or user generated content) began to be embraced and realized as opportunities to interact and reach consumers in a new and more intimate way.

Neilsen’s predictions for the New Year include:

1. Optimizing media convergence is a top priority. A better understanding of media convergence will manifest in order to deliver a better return on investment. The ability to accurately measure activity and link online ads to offline purchasing behavior will be critical.
2. New models emerge to take advantage of smartphones. Accurate mobile measurement will be required to stay head of the snowballing growth of that media platform.
3. More cross-media ad campaigns surface. The massive growth of online video games played and shared online leads the way for more successful interactive and cross-media advertising campaigns to appear. Growth in the adoption of this innovative advertising across screens and activities will increase.
4. Commercialization of social networking hubs increase. Social media will provide a new sales channel for establishing product awareness and commercializing brands to better support traditional advertising or text-based ads.
5. More interesting and interactive online ads appear. Increased use of more creative advertising and content models online such as video, attention-seeking page takeover ads and mechanisms for greater interactivity will drive the next era of Web development.

So in a nutshell – think mobile, social, interactive, and converging media for 2010.