With ever-evolving technology, an increasingly fragmented media landscape, rapidly changing consumer behaviour and a mess of other challenges, marketing just doesn’t seem to get any easier.
And, after all, there’s the danger of information overload and privacy concerns. Marketing teams have access to vast amounts of information – greater than ever before – but effectively analysing and using it to personalise experiences without violating privacy regulations is a fancy challenge.
Measurement is more essential than ever but marketers will need to optimise on this era of privacy, warns Kate Bird, EMEA senior marketing director at Snap Inc.
She says: “Last yr was a yr of disruption for marketers – economic uncertainty and the prominence of Gen AI adoption stretched marketers’ energy and budgets. This climate will proceed to proliferate in the brand new yr.”
Economic pressures are forcing marketers to increasingly measure their success, and as such, they’re pushing budgets to the lower end of the funnel.
“But as a consequence, digital platforms are rising to the highest, having captured 68.8% of the globe’s total ad spend market in 2024,” says Bird. “The platforms that will help marketers optimise their budgets by moving towards measurement like marketing mix modelling (MMM) whilst maintaining investment in awareness at the highest of the funnel, will proceed to hold influence and be rewarded with ad dollars and customer love.”
When it comes to content creation, Julie Bogaert, head of Talent (*3*) EMEA at Snap Inc, believes it’s the moment for the small and the mighty to shine. Niche creators, she suggests, have a golden opportunity for growth.”
“Last yr, we predicted AI to be the following big technological change to disrupt the creator economy,” she recalls. “We expected creators to experiment increasingly with AI tools but for success to lie with the creators who maintain a human connection – using AI as a helpful tool, not a stand in. Much has been reported on this trend, which has largely come to fruition.”
Now, she feels the subject of conversation that creators select is becoming way more influential than their individual personality or reach, as audiences increasingly seek alignment with their very own interests and values.”
There will soon be an increased maturation of area of interest content creators with a growing opportunity to monetise that area of interest, says Bogaert.
Meanwhile, Lucy Luke, head of UK (*3*) at Snap Inc, notes that educational short-form digital content “will rise to the highest and keep audiences connected to the world around them”.
2024’s calendar was crammed with big cultural moments: The Paris Olympics, The EUROS, Brat Summer. But it was defined by the ways these moments were brought to our screens and feeds: short form, snackable highlights that celebrated the highs and commiserated the lows.
“Short form will proceed to dominate however it’s educational content will rise to the highest, says Luke. “Against a backdrop of sociopolitical change and overwhelming amounts of data released into the world, people want to feel informed and empowered to understand the world around them as easily and as quickly as possible.
“This signifies that the brands, creators and media owners that create content based on a cause, purpose or expertise will bolster engagement and construct stronger communities. We’ll even see Generative AI play a task in this data share because it starts to construct a bridge to the past by getting used to regenerate informative, archived content.”
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