How Will The Push For Innovation Drive Marketing Trends in 2020 & Beyond?
Innovation plays a key role in the ever-evolving behavior of consumers such as consumption and purchasing patterns to achieve an overall betterment in living standards. As competition stiffens due to the blurring industry lines, innovation is the only ray of hope in which businesses not only fight a war of survival but also obtain competitive advantages over competitors. Innovation will play an important role in modern organizations; all the firms worldwide are increasingly making it mandatory for their business operations. As such, innovation is becoming a competitive necessity for marketers.
Content Creation and Consumption
With new platforms encouraging live content consumption (streaming) and social media, there are observations made that consumers’ attention is shifting away from traditional media, thus allowing new voices to be heard. Supporting this phenomenon, there is certainly no lack of talented content creators — thought leaders, key opinion leaders, social influencers, media partners, and content distributors of all kinds. Additionally, a monumental shift in content consumption behavior (think Tik Tok) is creating opportunities and pushing businesses out of their comfort zone to re-evaluate ideation and content generation processes. Brands can no longer do well by applying the same marketing strategies they have always deployed.
Moving slightly beyond marketing, the content creation process can also influence product design in new ways. Brands can ask consumers directly which means they can influence the user experience and interface (UIUX) of the products and services they need, which in turn changes their engagement with brands — a new model of consumer ownership where products and services are designed and created in part by the community.
Artificial Intelligence and 5G
As mentioned in previous articles, AI and ML are expected to fundamentally change consumers’ journey — how people interact with brands and services as the evolution and integration of technology into our world creates new consumer interactions that are simple, instantaneous, and intuitive. Brands will face the pressure of enhanced consumer expectations and those that live up to the challenge will unearth tremendous opportunities. With platforms having their own goals of reaching the mass, brands on these digital ad platforms have the potential of achieving communication at scale. Combining with real-time customization potential through AI and ML, marketers will soon be able to tailor and serve campaigns to dynamic consumer intent at any one moment. Marketers will be able to consider all the data points collected at the customer level, such as purchase history, browsing history, and even locations data. Sooner or later, ad campaigns and consumers’ interactions can be made seamlessly relevant end-to-end.
Additionally, it is exciting times ahead about what 5G will bring to the future of live engagements. A faster, more powerful connection can potentially unlock a more social, frictionless, and immersive experience while presenting a powerful opportunity for deeper engagement between consumers and brands.
Culture
Firms have a tremendous responsibility not only to build brands’ equity but also to consumers. Marketers have the ability to bring out the camaraderie between people, blur divisive lines, and celebrate inclusion. By amplifying and communicating such messages effectively, marketers are in the driver’s seat to influence a culture that is truly about inclusiveness and connectedness. It is impressive (and brave!) for brands to be willing to stand for something relevant and meaningful in the ecosystem, even if it is unconventional and unorthodox. Brand marketing is more than just providing products and services — it should help change cultures for the better. Customers today have increased expectations of the 5Ws and 1H brands show up and what they stand for.
Personalization
It becomes easier to develop a deeper relationship with consumers because of the access to real-time data, allowing personalization at scale. This is the motivation to raise the bar for the communications that marketers present to consumers. Marketers who understand the power of insights and data use it as an accelerator to create value and emotional connection with consumers. Ultimately, customer data should be used for building brands, and not just for driving sales.
Experiential
It is observed that the majority of younger people respond to meaningful connections that support their values. The move from the age of the customer to the age of trust — the sooner firms craft brand experiences with an optimal consumer journey in mind and seamlessly fulfilling their needs, the better chance they have at building a brand that creates a lasting and sustainable impact. After all, “experience” is the new product, and “time” is the new price.
“Experience” is the new product, and “Time” is the new price
In the world of experiential marketing, brands are streamlining their teams and agency partners to work together on initiatives as opposed to the separate silos that most marketers are accustomed to seeing. Most importantly, there has to be more cross-functional planning where marketing, media, comms, and experiential all have a seat at the table together so marketers can curate and execute really dynamic experiences optimally and holistically.
Data
As data provides access to a deeper understanding of the customers’ experiences and preferences, retention will be king. Marketers should focus as much, if not more on retention as compared to acquisition. Getting existing customers to consume again will definitely bring about a lower cost of activation as compared to acquiring new clients which usually has a higher cost of acquisition. Customer relationship management (CRM) technology provides an intriguing opportunity for firms to engage with customers where they already have an existing relationship with the brand. Marketers should note that with innovation, the balance will swing back to where consumers have more autonomy and control over what data brands collect, use, and for how long they are able to use it, more than ever before.
Conclusion
The concept of innovation is not new. If we turn back the clock to a decade or two ago, the consumption patterns of consumers then as compared to now, are nearly unrecognizable. With the dust of the “new norm” settling around the world due to the ongoing pandemic, innovation will unearth new ways of needs-based consumption largely driven by technology. Marketers will need to change their mindsets consistently as gone are the days a successful marketing strategy will be successful at the next implementation due to the ever-changing landscape. Whether we like it or not, innovation will make sure that as marketers, the saying that change is the only constant will always be our guiding principle when formulating our strategies. We can only hope that the trends mentioned above do not become “past tense” too quickly!
What other marketing trends have you observed that I may have missed out on? Do share with me, always keen to learn more from my networks!
Disclaimer: This article does not reflect my present nor my past employer’s view, all views above are solely from my own personal standpoint.
