With the new year comes an outlook on trends that will impact marketing activities. Marketers must account for the greater involvement of artificial intelligence, the growing popularity of virtual reality and short video formats, consumers' increasingly high demands for user experience, and last but not least, the emergence of AVOD services. Here's an overview of the trends for this year.
Artificial intelligence can help in many ways
In the past few years, artificial intelligence has already earned a fairly solid place in marketing. It not only helps with social media algorithms or search, but also with creative development. This is proven by the number of campaigns, including on the Czech market, that have been created with the help of AI. These include Komerční banka's Christmas campaign, McDonald's cheese promotion or Messi's rejuvenation in Mastercard's campaign. While AI can't yet come up with a campaign on its own, it is contributing to smarter solutions and working with large amounts of content.
Virtual reality and metaverse are conquering the space
The virtual reality market is growing. Deloitte predicts it will generate $7 billion in revenue in 2023, up 50% from last year. Far from just being a gaming industry thing, virtual reality is making its way into apps. Brands have also started to explore it in the metaverse, with Nike, T-Mobile and Gucci building their virtual worlds there. The growth of VR is also fuelled by ever-improving technology.
Short videos are gaining popularity
Short videos are growing in popularity. People like to watch them on TikTok and on Instagram as part of the Reels format, 80% of them on mobile phones. According to research by Wyzowl, the average internet user spends up to 19 hours a week watching video content, making short videos an opportunity for brands. Creating them must take into account the ever-shrinking attention span.
Consumers are increasingly demanding
Today, consumer expectations are higher than ever before. Their user experience must be flawless. As Adobe points out, even the best content will be lost if it's taken the wrong path. Consequently, marketers need to pay attention to how fast the site loads, the mobile version, the quality of the imagery, and the style in which the content is crafted. Personalisation also plays a role.
Clear and short messages are the key to success
With the shortening time people are able to hold their attention, marketing messages need to be thought through in detail. It needs to be short and clear. At the same time, consumers need to feel no barrier between themselves and the brand. It is therefore advisable to refrain from commercially-oriented content, not to push the store too hard and to be as open and transparent as possible with people. Content that thinks about people and their needs first and foremost, that helps them and is useful to them, pays off. In fact, up to 94% of consumers are more loyal to brands that speak to them openly and don't play games, and three quarters are willing to pay more for them. Brands can benefit significantly from engaging with influencers to communicate this.
Podcasts dominate, but live audio is also gaining ground
Podcasts continue to grow. In the US alone, consumers there listened to 15 billion hours of podcasts in 2021. And it turns out that it's not only entertaining, but also a very effective way to boost sales - according to research, up to 60% of listeners will look up a product mentioned in a podcast after listening. Again, it's better to offer useful information or entertainment rather than just selling. However, marketers also need to be on the lookout for audio formats, as live audio is slowly but surely gaining ground, for example on Twitter Spaces or platforms such as Clubhouse and Discord.
Employees as brand advocates
Brands are increasingly realising the role that employees themselves play in building their reputation. The strength of their personal social media profiles lies in their effectiveness and their communications come across more authentically than on company profiles, especially in B2B marketing.
AVOD comes to the scene
Streaming video services, which have so far built their business models on ad-free subscriptions, are starting to introduce AVOD (Advertising Video On Demand), a cheaper option with advertising. Deloitte predicts that by the end of next year, all major players will offer it in developed markets, and by the end of 2024, half of the providers will also introduce a free streaming service that relies entirely on advertising revenue (called FAST). By 2030, most subscription online video services should then be partially or fully funded by advertising.
Source: mediaguru.cz
