Is the marketing pendulum swinging back toward normalcy in 2024? Ad spending is trending that way but skewing more digital than ever. A possible recovery comes on the back of easing inflation, which may lead CMOs to loosen their purse strings following a quiet period.
Marketers can have no shortage of engagement opportunities, including the Super Bowl, the Summer Olympics and U.S. consumers’ growing appetite for more global sports like soccer and Formula 1. Experiments will run rampant with generative artificial intelligence (AI), retail media networks and cookieless identifiers, inviting some stumbles and lessons learned along the best way. Streaming’s embrace of promoting could offset steep losses for TV and foster fresh innovations in CTV marketing — though it might not be enough to stop platform consolidation.
But brands are entering the new 12 months after a battering 2023 that saw many swept up in culture war backlash. Upcoming elections will ignite political ad spending but may lead marketers to play it secure lest they turn out to be the subsequent Bud Light.
“Brands will find themselves within the crosshairs,” said Jay Pattisall, vp, principal analyst at Forrester Research. “The PR industry and specifically the crisis and issues services inside PR agencies might be in high gear.”
Hovering within the background are major unanswered questions: Will the tech antitrust crackdown come to a head? How will ethical and legal battles around AI affect its growth trajectory? Is anyone actually prepared for the death of the cookie now that it’s finally in motion?
Specific is the new broad
With societal divisions running high, marketers may hit the patron sweet spot in 2024 by honing general emotional appeals, including themes around shared humanity. Those efforts will align with a push to deal with a perceived overcorrection toward performance marketing lately, which has hamstrung the power to make an impact.
“You had a lot of really anthemic promoting through the pandemic and you then saw brands shift toward more functional messaging,” said Anne Ryan, vp of brand name strategy at Brownstein Group. “It’s coming back toward the center now.”
Reflecting on 2023’s breakout successes may be instructive. Take Mattel’s popular culture takeover with “Barbie,” a movie that balanced a pointedly progressive, feminist message with crowd-pleasing comedy. The box office smash was buoyed by a dizzying array of tie-ins touching on every little thing from home decor to watches, showing that entertainment marketing has wide appeal.
“Specific is the new broad. With ‘Barbie,’ they really captured that,” said Rona Mercado, CMO at culture agency Cashmere. “When you’re in a position to market to those specific groups — the nuanced groups — it trickles down after which it expands. That was a lesson for everyone.”
Agency identities in flux
Just a few days into 2024, Interpublic Group sold a pair of iconic agencies to relative newcomer Attivo Group. The surprise deal demonstrates that ad holding corporations may look to further trim their portfolios following a difficult 12 months that saw the merger of legacy brands like Wunderman Thompson and VMLY&R. Meanwhile, promising indies are getting swallowed up in a shrinking market for boutique firms.
In the fight for growth, agencies will pursue two paths forward in 2024, per analysts: Peeling back layers to raised concentrate on lucrative boom areas, such as retail media, or hitting the gas on expanding into a full-service offering that balances brand and performance duties.
“It’s the collision of precision and persuasion, or brand and performance marketing. They’re becoming more one and the identical,” said Forrester’s Pattisall.
As agency identities turn out to be more fluid, a positioning around “digital” will disappear in an uber-connected world. Looming over the space are the risks and potential rewards posed by generative AI. The tech will drum up new business in 2024 but additionally lead to not less than one high-profile blunder, followed by a subsequent uptick in agency reviews.
“At some point, the luck goes to expire and a high-profile AI SNAFU goes to materialize. Many marketers will immediately go to their current agency suppliers and begin asking a lot of questions,” said Pattisall. “More questions result in the potential for more reviews.”
Retail media’s gold rush ends
Retail media networks will enter their very own consolidation period in 2024 as marketers sift through dozens of offerings which are fighting standardization and cut those who can’t exhibit a distinct performance boost.
“The growth in retail media will proceed, but it can proceed in favor of those who can prove out that they’re driving incremental value for the brand,” said Jeffrey Bustos, vp of measurement, addressability and data center on the Interactive Advertising Bureau. “The gold rush is over.”
CPG brands which are under pressure to prove their bets on retail media are price it can demand a few offerings from networks in 2024. Those include programmatic marketplaces according to what Kroger and Walmart are developing, together with greater scale into channels like offsite and in-store media. Demands for programmatic know-how will proceed to profit a burgeoning intermediary ecosystem that features The Trade Desk, Criteo and Pubmatic.
The shock to the system that the death of the cookie will provide could also make retail media dearer. On-site inventory is reaching a tipping point, pushing more publishers to concentrate on offsite formats, which could drive up the worth of ID-based ad targeting overall.
“The supply hasn’t caught up enough to enable [retail media networks] to proceed scaling within the open web as they’ve been scaling over the past few years, on-site primarily,” said Patrick Gut, vp of U.S. at Adlook. “As that’s really fizzling out, we’re going to see not as much growth.”
Will social commerce (finally) have its moment?
As the digital takeover continues, social media is anticipated to be certainly one of the fastest-growing segments in 2024. Google’s removal of third-party cookies helps marketers reevaluate the channel’s data-driven potential, said Jimmy George, strategy director at Mischief @ No Fixed Address, including within the revitalized area of social commerce.
(*8*)
“I feel Threads has a great opportunity to displace X.”
Evan Horowitz
Co-founder and CEO, Movers+Shakers
Retail social commerce sales within the U.S. are expected to total $82.82 billion in 2024, a 23.5% year-over-year gain, per Insider Intelligence. Much of the recent buzz within the space has focused on the U.S. launch of TikTok Shop. Already the preferred app amongst teens, TikTok could set a new category standard, anticipates Evan Horowitz, co-founder and CEO at Movers+Shakers.
“TikTok will pass Instagram at making that [purchasing] funnel even shorter,” said Horowitz.
The creator economy can also be on the upswing, with 44% of advertisers expected to increase their investment this 12 months. Social commerce is anticipated to fuel creator spending, in keeping with Cristina Lawrence, executive vp of consumer and content experience at Razorfish, who added that creators will turn out to be “armed with commerce sophistication.”
Horowitz expects long-form content to bounce back this 12 months to a point, though TikTok will proceed to guide short-form’s charge. The exec also anticipates stronger interest in Threads, especially as Elon Musk’s X continues to struggle to draw brands.
“I feel Threads has a great opportunity to displace X,” Horowitz said.
Disruptor brands pose a stronger threat
Brands have been challenged to remain nimble and look beyond traditional media tactics or risk falling to the wayside. Demands for agility are particularly high amongst younger generations, who lack conventional brand affinity but are gaining in spending power. Accordingly, disruptor brands, often lauded for their ability to maneuver swiftly, have taken the highlight and are expected to turn out to be an excellent greater threat to legacy marketers in 2024, in keeping with Jason Mitchell, CEO of Movement Strategy.
(*8*)
“Disruptor brands can move more quickly and take more risks to capture attention… That will only proceed.”
Jason Mitchell
CEO, Movement Strategy
“Disruptor brands can move more quickly and take more risks to capture attention, and with that, steal market share away from established brands. That will only proceed,” Mitchell said in emailed comments.
The exec anticipates that legacy marketers this 12 months will adopt more of a disruptor mentality, recently seen in viral successes from corporations McDonald’s and Heinz. TikTok has been fundamental in supporting disruptors’ growth, though it has also supported the resurgence of older players like Stanley.
“TikTok has just collapsed the funnel prefer it’s never happened before and created this more level playing field for disruptive brands to are available in and construct an audience really quickly,” said Movers+Shakers’ Horowitz.
Meanwhile, newer brands like Celsius and Skims have taken a page from legacy playbooks by inking deals with sports entities just like the MLS and NBA, respectively. Those forms of deals will proceed in 2024, in keeping with Mitchell. More broadly, during an promoting period still showing signs of recovery from financial strain, disruptors aren’t expected to lose their risk-taking appetites, said Mischief @ No Fixed Address’ George.
“In the case of disruptors it’s about breadth, and within the case of legacy brands, it’s fewer, greater, higher is where they have a tendency to make decisions,” said George.
Ad-supported streaming leaders emerge
Game-changing moves which have shaken up the streaming video landscape in the previous couple of years — mega-mergers, the introduction of ad-supported tiers and battles over measurement — are set to proceed in 2024. But despite continued uncertainty, major players could firm up their positions as the chickens come home to roost in CTV marketing.
Chief amongst those corporations is Amazon, which can begin to roll out ads on Prime Video on Jan. 29 (a move that, despite being announced last fall, caught many consumers by surprise over the vacations and caused some backlash). The offering could generate nearly $5 billion in revenue for the e-commerce giant, per a Bank of America evaluation, between $3 billion in video ads and a further $1.8 billion from subscribers who pay a fee to avoid commercials.
The introduction of promoting on Amazon Prime Video — described as a “game changer” by Magna in its most up-to-date global ad forecast — will immediately give advertisers scale and reach as the service plans to default users to the ad-supported option at launch, contrary to what Netflix and Disney+ did with their recent AVOD launches.
“It will significantly expand the size and reach of streaming and due to this fact the appeal for advertisers,” said Vincent Letang, executive vp for global market intelligence at Magna, in emailed comments.
Meanwhile, Warner Bros. Discovery — lower than a 12 months after launching its Max service — is rumored to be exploring a merger with Paramount, which maintains its own Paramount+ streamer. Such consolidation could present an appealing option for connecting price-conscious consumers with results-focused advertisers.
“Advertisers are increasingly pushing for media partners to prove outcomes on campaigns they spend money on, and the info is evident: premium content drives more brand outcomes, behavioral outcomes, and business outcomes,” Upwave CEO Chris Kelly said in emailed comments. “As low-quality [made for advertising] content got here to the forefront of the industry’s attention last 12 months, there’s been a retrenchment toward premium video. So, increased scale of premium video assets will only make advertisers smile.”
A new approach to transparency
Digital is sure to stay complicated in 2024. Incremental progress on addressing transparency concerns and media fragmentation may very well be disrupted by Google’s cookie phaseout and the emergence of different ID-based targeting. Mainstay channels will proceed their cleanup efforts as effectiveness becomes paramount. A report from the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) found that the average campaign runs on a median of 44,000 web sites, resulting in massive amounts of programmatic waste. Additionally, information discrepancies remain a top concern for advertisers while data access continues to lag.
While many points of media transparency are expected to evolve in 2024, eliminating waste is anticipated to be a top priority, in keeping with Bill Duggan, group executive vp at ANA.
“Another issue that I feel will proceed discussion in 2024 [is] made for promoting [MFA] web sites,” said Duggan. “I’ve been on this industry for 40 years. I’ve been at ANA for 23. I don’t think I ever heard that term made for promoting web sites until our research team uncovered that insight.”
MFAs often provide a sub-par user experience, which may hurt campaign performance. These junk sites have turn out to be increasingly prevalent, especially as marketers solid such a large net. According to Duggan, the problem is nuanced. Many platforms and publishers feel they’ve been unfairly labeled as MFAs, thus forcing the dialogue to proceed into the new 12 months.
A scrutinizing eye on AI
AI upended the marketing landscape in 2023 within the wake of ChatGPT mania and is certain to see further uptake in 2024. Marketers have taken advantage of consumer hype by creating campaigns centered across the technology, such as Coca-Cola’s use of generative AI to examine the 12 months 3000 on the Las Vegas Sphere. Additionally, the tech has increasingly been integrated into administrative processes. Eighty-seven percent of marketers have used or experimented with AI tools, per industry reports.
However, the trail going forward for AI is sure to be rocky. With mounting scrutiny surrounding data collection and AI misuse, the likelihood of legislative and legal motion is high. Regardless, the technology poses great potential to interact consumers and deliver personalization at a scale not previously achievable — assuming it’s balanced out with a more personal touch.
“It’s the holy grail of hyper-personalization,” said Ollie East, head of go-to-market strategy and U.S. GenAI CX lead at Capgemini.
“The human creativity, the human element of it, is so useful,” added East. “It’s an integral a part of the equation.”
