Golden 2024 new year numbers with confetti and champagne bottle
As we begin to turn the page on 2023, I sought insight from marketing experts regarding their predictions for the next year. Below, five leaders provide their perspective. One thing is clear - sustainability and AI are top of mind.
Justin Osofsky, Head of Online Sales, Operations and Partnerships at Meta
“Cyber 5 saw marketers lean into generative AI to develop more creative options, more quickly, and use powerful tools like Advantage+ shopping to convert sales with customers. 2023 was the year of the first AI powered holiday with tools being introduced to marketers and 2024 will be the year AI achieves mass adoption. In the new year we predict that marketers put headcount behind AI roles to focus on getting performance out of AI while also training generative AI tools to make ad creative faster and reflect their unique brand voice and style.”
Goksu Nebol-Perlman, VP of Business Product Marketing at Meta
“With the industry predicting modest consumer spending this holiday season, agencies and advertisers will accelerate their investment in creative velocity as 2024 begins to realize performance gains.
- One of the best tips we have for marketers is to constantly iterate your ad creative with insights from your customers to maintain strong performance throughout the season.
- A recent Meta study of 2,700 advertiser tests found that creative diversification led to a 32% improvement in CPA and 9% increase in incremental reach. This means that out of all the things that you can control, creative is one of the most important.
Agencies and advertisers will learn that curation is the most important skill in this new era of generative AI.
- With generative AI putting out more content faster than ever before, marketers will need to have a savvy editorial mindset as they curate and refine this content for their customers.”
Claudia Calori, Vice President, Head of Global Marketing Philips Personal Health:
- “Sustainability – especially when connected with better value: We know that consumers are looking for more sustainable solutions and that they expect brands to play a key role here; however, the past year, with high inflation in many countries and a rise in the cost of living, has posed the dilemma of making green choices that are also good for your wallet. 2024 will see more brand efforts that are skewed to offer consumers ‘hacks’ that are both good for the environment and for one’s finances, such as Philips’s campaign “Better Than New” focused on refurbished products.
- Inclusion and Representation – in an authentic manner: To be able to serve more communities more deeply, brands have already concluded that, in a changing society, stereotypical portraits of consumers can be unrecognizable and detrimental. This balance will likely be further explored in 2024, when brands will be faced with their own ability to stay authentic to the role they can uniquely play to support a more equal and inclusive society.
- Back to Basics: After many years of elevating and laddering up benefits to a higher purpose, in 2024, brands will be looking at what they can concretely deliver and what they are about in terms of core promise to the people they serve. Brand purpose needs to be more authentic and connected than ever because consumers appreciate a brand that is rooted in real life and can help solve consumers’ daily problems.”
Lynn Lucas, CMO, Pure Storage
“Sustainability is top of mind for me, and I see it becoming a central tenet of every successful marketing strategy. As customers push to meet their own sustainability goals while complying with external mandates, they want to partner with companies who not only can help them grow their bottom line, but who also share their vision and can help advance their ESG goals.In fact, a recent study found that 99% of IT buyers face pressures to use providers that are committed to sustainability. In 2024, I believe we’ll see successful companies continue the trend of greater transparency on their environmental impact as customers increasingly are driven by regulation and consumer pressure. I believe this means that most marketeers will put some form of sustainability messaging in their campaigns in 2024, and consumers will need to be wary of green washing.”
Gaurav Chand, CMO, Cognizant
“As GenAI becomes more universally available, it will become integrated into our daily work, dismantling traditional hierarchies as we know them and placing more value on the right mix of skills over employee seniority. Marketing professionals are beginning to embrace Gen AI to optimize creative workflows and improve customer engagement, and we’ll start to see their time freed up to focus on higher level strategic work as they apply their own human intuition against machine intelligence. This transition will spark a new talent showdown across the marketing sector where problem-finding over problem-solving will become the most sought-after skill, demanding a new level of cognitive diversity among talent. Simultaneously, fostering a culture of continuous learning in the workplace will be really important for business success as tech advancements continue to evolve teams into being fit for purpose. For marketing leaders, we’ll see more of a focus on soft leadership skills like empathy to support employees with reassurance and motivation as they embrace new skills and navigate new positions in the workforce.”
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