‘Trends and Predictions: Marketing in 2024’— Key Insights Delivered By C-Suite Executives

Marketing has taken rapid strides in recent years, which has made it significant for businesses to adapt and evolve their strategies.

Quite a few trends made headlines and are continuing to transform the digital landscape. To shed light on the trends that are predicted to be the next big thing in the industry, we hosted a live webinar featuring esteemed industry experts.

Hosted by Arwinder Kaur, Vice President of Marketing at Grazitti Interactive, the webinar kickstarted with a quick round of introduction of our guest speakers, David Edelman and Amisha Gandhi.

David is a Professor of Marketing at Harvard Business Review and former CMO, Aetna while Amisha is a global CMO Advisor and Consultant.

Our speakers shared cutting-edge insights and data-driven strategies that every CMO and marketing specialist should consider when formulating their marketing plan for the year. Let’s take a look at it!

What Were the Significant Marketing Trends in 2023?

As the conversation began, David delved into the year’s defining trends and challenges. Reflecting on the marketing landscape of 2023 reveals a year marked by significant shifts and challenges.

1. David highlighted that in the United States alone, marketing budgets went down on average about 9%. So, marketers are feeling the pressure to do a lot more with less as the budgets have been getting much tighter.

2. He also pointed out that technology is playing a bigger role in marketing nowadays. However, he observed that many marketers are struggling to grasp its full potential. GenAI, in particular, presents a significant challenge for marketers to navigate.

3. Figuring out how to get the best utilization out of these technologies along with cookie deprecation happening, it is becoming harder to create not just a marketing tech stack but this whole concept of identity stack.

4. A lot of companies in the media landscape are coming up with identity solutions and marketers are looking at how to string that together and match that with whatever first-party data that they have.

5. He concluded his stance by saying that a combination of shrinking budgets, new GenAI experimentation, marketing technology, and identity stack, all while exploring new channels, feels overwhelming.

6. He said that 2023 was a tough year, some companies figured out how to do cool things but for the average CMOs, it’s been overwhelming in terms of navigating the changes.

Which Marketing Trends Are Defining 2024?

Seeking Amisha’s input, the Vice-President posed the question of which trends she believes will shape their course into 2024.

Throwing light on the marketing trends to dominate in 2024, the global CMO Consultant said that people were focused on costs last year, there was ‘do more with less’, and we see some of that trend already.

She said, “In my CMO networks, it’s not like our budgets have increased a lot but it’s more about where are we spending to get more revenue out of the channels we have.”

Adding to what David shared about AI, Amisha mentioned that Generative AI was a major trend last year and generated a lot of excitement. But really what does that mean and how is it driving customer experiences, that has become very important to know.

During several significant conferences, there was a notable shift in focus among Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs). Instead of solely concentrating on net revenue, CMOs are now prioritizing customer upselling and maximizing value from existing customers.

This is the current trend in spending: companies are doubling down on what works and investing in technologies that have proven successful. They’re approaching investments more cautiously but are still committed to growth.

Despite the constant push for innovation, marketers are noticing a shift in spending strategies. Amisha said, “While spending may pick up again later this year, for now, businesses are prioritizing proven strategies and allocating only a small portion of their budget to experimentation.”

What Are the Key Forces of Change in 2024?

David spoke about CMOs getting overwhelmed with so many parameters such as the rise of connected TV, voice search optimization, and first-party data to dominate.

Therefore, the host requested David to elaborate on these key forces that are impacting the lives of marketers in 2024. Here are some insights David shared during the discussion:

1. One significant concern is the transition of GenAI from the experimental stages to its widespread integration into marketing processes. Marketers are actively seeking methods to seamlessly incorporate it into their workflows at scale.

2. Marketers are currently navigating the balance between automation and human involvement in leveraging GenAI. There’s a shift towards a ‘co-pilot’ approach, where AI works alongside humans rather than autonomously generating content. Instead of simply using AI to generate multiple versions of content, there’s an emphasis on collaborative utilization.

3. The key aspect of utilizing AI effectively is the ‘test and learn’ approach. This concept of increasingly adopting ‘test and learn’ methodologies is expected to be implemented on a larger scale.

4. To leverage GenAI effectively, businesses will benefit from adopting agile marketing practices. The concept of forming small, multidisciplinary teams that integrate marketing strategies, analytics, creativity, technology, and operations has gained significant importance in the realm of AI.

5. This shift towards agile marketing is expected to fuel a heightened interest in utilizing AI tools for enhanced personalization. Embracing AI-driven personalization presents a promising growth opportunity for businesses operating in the AI landscape.

Following David’s comments, Amisha shared:

1. When considering spending in 2024, it’s essential to carefully evaluate decision-making processes. Surveys conducted by global decision-makers indicate a lack of clarity and alignment in objectives. This challenge is exacerbated by the need to prioritize top objectives, such as revenue lift (29%) and ROI (30%), despite being tasked with doing more with less.

2. On the other hand, the influence of influencers in the purchasing cycle is increasing, making digital and personal interactions equally important. However, it remains to be seen whether these digital interactions will provide value throughout the customer journey—from discovery to evaluation and purchase. Leveraging data insights will be crucial for achieving ROI and revenue lift.

3. In 2024, there’s a shift towards leveraging statistics to inform investment decisions, emphasizing the need for optimization, increased spending, and doubling down on effective strategies.

4. Global advertising expenditure has been steadily rising and is projected to reach $836 billion by 2026, according to Statista.

5. A growing trend is the emergence of the ‘Creator Economy’ and its impact on advertising spend. Digital eCommerce, influencer marketing, and overall growth will be driven by creators, who can enhance brand awareness and convert audiences.

AI Was a Game-Changer in 2023—Will It Impact Businesses in 2024?

The former CMO, Aetna shared some insights on how the hype on AI may peak but the use of it is still going to be an incredible runway. He said, “AI needs data, it can help you create and integrate data.”

Quoting an example of how companies are using that, he said, there is a small startup called DataOrb.

It takes all of the interactions happening in your call center and digitizes that through Natural Language Processing. This allows marketers to gain insights into the topics and tone of customer inquiries, which can then be leveraged for targeted marketing efforts. Essentially, it transforms conversations into valuable data for analysis and targeting purposes.

Hence, marketers can now seamlessly integrate data from marketing, sales, customer service, and billing, facilitating a more streamlined and efficient process.

Summarizing his stance, he highlighted that marketers embracing the following elements will be able to create value using AI:

1. Data Creation and Integration: Creating and combining data is one way marketers can use AI.

2. Analysis: Second is, analyzing data—With vast pools of information available, the challenge lies in identifying new segmentation methods and deciphering how customers navigate their journey with the brand.

3. Activation: Companies are leveraging tools to analyze the customer journey, develop innovative segmentations, and determine the next best action for customers. He mentioned the tool, SundaySky, which specializes in personalized videos. These videos can be utilized for onboarding, cross-selling, and creating custom content as part of Account-Based Marketing (ABM) strategies.

4. Optimization: Marketers have access to tools capable of conducting multivariate testing. These tools allow them to experiment with various creatives, offers, messages, and timings, enabling them to set up and execute tests efficiently. By analyzing the data generated from these tests, marketers can then leverage GenAI tools to identify the optimal visual combinations for their campaigns.

Why Should CMOs Invest More in Advanced Creative Roles?

As Arwinder mentioned, it is predicted that by 2026, 80%^[i] of creative roles will be tasked with harnessing GenAI to achieve differentiated results, and CMOs will be compelled to spend more on talent.

Sharing her thoughts on this, global CMO Consultant Amisha emphasized the technological advancements shaping the landscape for 2024. Beyond AI, she highlighted the transformative potential of augmented reality, virtual reality, and blockchain, which are not only reshaping business strategies but also revolutionizing marketing approaches.

People are very comfortable with using technology. She quoted the example of IKEA and how they came up with an augmented reality app. It allows customers to visualize furniture in their homes before making a purchase.

She also talked about personalization, customer experience, and how marketers can leverage data, analytics, and AI technologies. In the past, we used to look at the customer’s profile and assumed that they would like certain things based on trends and research.

Now, experiences are customized for each customer, allowing them to self-select as they engage with your brand. By analyzing their behaviors, you can effectively determine their preferences. These personalized experiences are powered by data analytics and AI, enabling real-time adjustments. Spotify is a great prime example of this with its personalized playlists and recommendations, which leverage user data to enhance the user experience.

Another uptick in this area is community engagement and user-generated content.

Brands will increasingly harness community engagement and user-generated content (UGC), feeding them into AI tools. This allows AI to gain insights into the community and UGC, enabling it to curate the most relevant content for individuals.

PS – Social media is a great place to showcase ‘creativity’ and can inspire businesses to modify their existing artifacts. Learn here what’s trending in social media marketing this year that you can capitalize on.

Death of Third-Party Cookies, Domination of First-Party Data & Privacy-Focused Marketing Becoming a Norm

You can’t track as easily with cookies, says David. He continued by saying that several things are going on—the concept of an identity stack, and companies coming up with new forms of AI-driven components.

So, numerous tools are emerging and marketers are trying to build their databases of first-party data. They want to ensure that they can get some kind of interaction but then there’s a new thing, which is the retail digital media networks.

That’s an interesting reflection of the primacy of first-party data because retailers have a lot of first-party data and they are monetizing that now by selling themselves as media channels/placement agencies for brands that don’t have first-party data.

Retailers can use this data to target their properties and they can create the kind of advertising capabilities that Amazon has done. Additionally, they can utilize their data to target potential customers beyond their own platforms. This shift is fundamentally altering the retail landscape.

Amisha’s Take on 20% of Brands Plan to Go ‘Acoustic’ Amid Rising AI Concerns.

Amisha began by highlighting the increasing prominence of AI, alongside an accompanying concern. With the projected AI market size expected to reach $1.3 billion by 2032, it underscores the significant potential for reshaping the marketing landscape. This emphasizes the imperative to harness the power of AI and consider the following:

a. Understanding the driving forces behind the customer journey
b. Addressing ethical, governance, and compliance concerns
c. Navigating the implications of a cookieless future
d. Ensuring that GenAI complies with regulatory requirements

Adding to why 20% of brands going AI-free, David said that a lot of this is around maintaining the authenticity of your brand. For some brands, the inability to leverage AI authentically poses a significant challenge, as authenticity is a key aspect of any platform.

Amisha further added that with the advent of GenAI, there are now tools specifically designed to extract insights solely from a brand’s own information. This allows businesses to direct the AI to focus on a designated pool of data for generating insights.

Key Takeaway

Delivering the right marketing mechanisms to the customers is a long road but not one that cannot be measured.

Our speakers emphasized that by aligning with the evolving trends shaping the marketing landscape, enterprises can significantly impact their customers’ experiences and ultimately enhance their business’s ROI.

Learn More About the Latest Marketing Trends You Should Focus On. Connect With Us!

References

^[i] Gartner on Applying Generative AI in Marketing