Advertising and Marketing trends in 2023 and 2024

Authored by Piali Dasgupta, Senior Vice President – Marketing, Columbia Pacific Communities

It’s that time of the year again when business practitioners and marketers across the world indulge in a bit of crystal ball gazing to predict the trends for the new year.

First things first. 2024 will be the year in which cookie less browsing experience gains momentum. This year, we already saw the launch of home-grown cookie less browsers such as Veera and Ulaa from Zoho. Google announced this year that towards the end of Q1 of 2024, it will remove third-party cookies for 1% of Chrome users and will eliminate them completely by the second half of 2024.

Marketers will now have to focus on acquiring first party data through various innovative means such as contests, gamification etc.

The creator economy is growing at a CAGR of 25% annually, which is faster than a lot of traditional industries. A large part of the digital marketing budgets of brands are now being assigned to influencer marketing, as marketers try to woo the millennial and Gen-Z audience, who respond much better to soft product plugs and storytelling compared to hard selling. Brand custodians have realised that micro and nano influencers have a much higher engagement rate (an average of 6%) than macro influencers and are far more affordable as well. In 2024, emerging D2C brands will choose micro influencers with a greater connect with their audience, over celebrity and macro influencers for their activations. There will also be a steady growth in the local influencer economies, as content in regional languages gain momentum.

Several studies have shown that purpose-driven brands grow 2x faster than those that are not purpose driven. Companies such as Unilever have found that amongst their vast portfolio of FMCG brands, the ones that are purpose-driven have shown higher profitability than those that are not. And that’s mainly the reason why the conversation around ESG (Economic Social Governance) has gained steam this year. The millennial and the Gen-Z audience, comprising around 65% of India’s population, favour brands that have a purpose, are committed to make the planet a more equitable and better place, and walk the talk. They value authenticity, and care about supply chains, factory conditions, and the environmental impact of the products that they consume.  Hence, in 2024 and in the years beyond, sustainability, diversity, equity and inclusion will be crucial agendas for companies to drive, even if it’s only to safeguard their business growth.

With the launch of Google’s Bard, Generative AI will now become a very competitive space, and one that will only get better, faster, more effective with time. Just this month, Google also launched Gemini AI, which is being touted as more efficient than ChatGPT and will revolutionise the generative AI model. Generative AI would of course impact the way we create content in marketing, and build scale and efficiency, but in a sea of sameness and clutter, the only thing that will gain mindshare and brand salience is great storytelling.

We will continue to see growth in Connected TV in 2024, and owing to its advanced targeting capabilities, brands will spend significantly on programmatic ads on CTV. With conversion rates as high as 30%, shoppable CTV ads will gain prominence in India.

And with dwindling human attention span (currently at 8 seconds and less than that of a goldfish), 90-second video formats such as Instagram reels will continue to flourish. 2023 was a year of clear focus on reels for Instagram, and the platform will continue to push this video format, as it competes with TikTok globally, and has realised that short-form, snackable content is best suited for the audience on this platform.