How to keep advertising relevant in era of new-age marketing gimmicks

Authored by Priyanka Chugh

New-age marketing trends have transformed the world of advertising. From ideation to execution, everything revolves around how we can take a simple concept and mold it into something that catches the eye. The core of advertising is to build a brand with dynamic content - and the correct use of these platforms based on relevancy has the potential to create new trends.

The first of many points that we need to consider when it comes to keeping advertising relevant, is to know your audience can impact a brand and its overall acceptance in the market. Personalization plays a vital role in audience segmentation and creates an understanding of what the consumer likes and needs.

Brands like Nike use consumer data to figure out and bifurcate their audience based on their lifestyle and preferences. As audiences differ from region to region, they create tailored campaigns around each segment, with content that’s relevant to their preference. This understanding of geographical and demographic research adds up to their marketing strategy.

Social-media-specific content is something that has got the world wrapped around its finger, however, it needs relevancy to go “viral” - and whilst in mind that users are avid consumers of short format videos from around the globe today.

Sponsored posts, collaborations, and whatnot - are bridging the gap between brands and consumers. Today you could tweet to your favorite brand about what is lacking in their store and expect some response in return; similarly, with personalities you admire and services you require, social media is the primary medium to have two-way communication with content creators who act as advocates to brands.

Marketing now is also holding hands and moving together with AI and automation. From customer analytic data integration to personalized recommendations, everything that we see, hear, and feel is influenced by some form of AI. But as they say, “nothing is perfect”, AI misses the human touch and intimacy with the audience that advertising needs. The fear that AI will soon replace essential human jobs gets nullified with this statement. Brands investing in AI use it as a boost they need to enhance their customer experience, personalization, and content creation.

All the craze around ChatGPT - a chatbot that has taken the world by storm, is a perfect example. Sometimes we forget that it requires precise human input to come up with tangible results. It minces words but mostly they lack a soul. And advertising without heart or soul in it will fall flat. The same applies to Canva and AI art.

The primary aim of advertising is making brands humane, tools such as AI can only do so much for you today.

So, how do we make use of these trends to keep advertising relevant and up-to-date in this new age of marketing? 

1. Understanding what the audience likes, needs, and invests in requires in-depth research, and this is essential to keep up with the ever-changing audience. To create ads that resonate with the target group, the utilization of tools and insights to build an effective communication strategy is vital. Talking to people, reading and analyzing research studies and surveys, and depending on what you're selling, learning to adapt strategies to go hyper-local or global. Your ideal customer will tell you how they can be targeted. Once you know that, tailor content to make it relatable for them.

2. Content is king, relevancy is THE QUEEN. They both go hand in hand. Rather than just creating content to sell, advertisers should develop ads that solve a very specific problem, and then ensure that it reaches the target at the right time. Keeping it short, simple, and pertinent is the way to go. 

3. Consumers despise repetition. Building content libraries or content buckets is an effective way to keep the audience coming back for more. Brands these days collaborate to create high-production content or even something as simple as GRWM (get ready with me) videos. Remember, new is always better.

4. Content created for different mediums with a cohesive communication strategy - that's the future of targeting. For example, an ad on your TV will ask you to buy a room freshener, on Spotify Drive Modes it will promote car fragrances, on laptops you're most likely to see luxury fragrance ads. All from the same brand and with a probable tagline that says 'smell marvelous', which works for the entire category. Data is intelligence here.

5. Staying true to the process of understanding consumer behavior is the key to staying ahead of the competition while executing what the new and younger generations or consumers like.

6. Saving the best for the last, authenticity is the trump card to winning in advertising. Consumers love it when you keep it real, and agencies should strategize on how to give them exactly what they need. Advertising is about making brands genuinely humane, not boringly mundane.

The final note is the reiteration that the advertising industry understands how dynamic and ever-changing the new-age marketing trends are. Let us look at them as tools to create relevance and not bandwagons to hop on every time.