A DIVE INTO THE MARKETING TRENDS OF 2024: INSIGHTS TO UNLOCKING POTENTIAL

Abstract


Introduction
The marketing landscape of 2024 is transformative.As this may sound banal and constantly overused by business experts, marketers need to embrace the new challenges raised by Gen Alpha and AI, and negotiate through the tough terrain of achieving engagement while not sacrificing personal meaningfulness together with cultural relevance.Some scholars even underline that nowadays customers want to shine through the mass and own products that are marked with individual element (Charma et. al., 2022).While others accentuate on technologies to attempt to provide practical recommendations to companies with regards to search engine marketing and marketing trends in social media (SM) as the latter becomes a dominant medium in the process of interacting with customers (Nyagadza, 2020).While the power of AI shall not be underestimated, other marketing triggers deserve attention as well.One of the most cited ones by marketing consulting agencies is experience marketing (XM).Davey, Sung and Butcher (2024) outline the potence of XM in influencing customers by providing a framework with success determinants, limitations and effects.
Although there are a myriad of opinions, statements, reviews and forecasts of contemporary marketing trends, this paper attempts to cast a light on some of the most significant trends as seen through industry leading marketing agencies and consultants.On this ground, it aims to introduce an author stance about their limitations and positive acumen, and finally -to superimpose the reports' findings and provide managerial insights to marketing experts.Results and insights can be a valuable addition to the marketing agenda of brick-and-mortar and clicks only business model companies regardless of their scale and geographic scope of operation.

Literature review of marketing trends in 2024 and methodological underpinnings
A review of extant literature in the field reveals numerous diverse multistructural changes in 2024.Some of the most significant and most cited transformations are: (1) The impact of Covid-19 and marketing context changes (He&Harris, 2020; Sharma&Meena, 2024); (2) Machine learning and AI (incl.GenAI).They allow analysis of large data sets and aid in extracting patterns of user behavior for precise calibration of offers and personalization (Cooper& McCausland, 2024); Recently, authors have delved into predictive analytics and AI capabilities to reveal their potential to restructure marketing information systems so as data-driven decision are taken (Dominic et. al., 2024).Some sources conceptualize AI is (using science mapping) into: (1) AI for value co-creation; (2) AI for predictive analysis; (3) AI for customer service; (4) AI for marketing automation, among others (Anayat & Rasool, 2024).Figure 1 points out the growing popularity and exponential growth of searches of AI and marketing;

Fig. 2. What percentage of your marketing budget involves the use of any type of influencers?
Source: Deloitte the CMO Survey, 2023 (5) Influencer marketing (Fig. 2) is irrevocably linked with social media.Influencers are seen relatable personas with whom customers build closer relationships and under some circumstances the former can even become role models (Barta et. al., 2023;Dhun & Dangi, 2024); (6) The sustainability orientation of many companies both internally and externally has received significant attention in the marketing domain as it bears potential for changing customer perceptions, reinforcing brand image and thus improving competitive position of companies (Golob, Podnar & Zabkar, 2023;Kunz&Wirtz, 2024).
All mentioned factors and phenomena have a significant impact on various aspects of the marketing function of businesses by changing technological infrastructures, bringing forth the need for constant update and innovation, changing the social environment, creating new markets, etc.This inevitably challenges the classic approaches and methods of marketing management and sets an arena for new counter competitive actions.On the one hand, new technologies allow easy entry into new markets and on the other -intense competition deepens the pressure on firms regardless of their scale.As the development of organizations' competitiveness takes place in direct interaction with the marketing environment, companies must be able to react swiftly to changes in customer tastes, competitor actions and demands of public bodies.
To enable an understanding of the key factors that may affect firms' marketing competitiveness, this paper compares and evaluates 12 different reports on marketing trends and forecasts (see Table 1 below).The reports have been selected on the basis of few factors: (1) availability of evidence, (2) credibility of the source, (3) succession of existing reports, (4) access to data.The content analysis was performed by the author.Source: Own elaboration Overall, the abovestated reports cover multifaceted manifestations of marketing trends by combining expert forecasts, technological advancements, third party analyses, own studies with practitioners and customers, showcases of success stories and case studies, etc.All documents incorporate a plethora of covered markets and availability of strategic recommendations (by some of the sources).When reviewing such massive amount of information with multidimensional standpoints and pivotal technological developments that drive innovation in marketing approaches, it is very challenging for business readers to retrieve the most important trends (given that all of them are essential within certain market conditions and business models).Nevertheless, contrasting opinions and extracting visions can provide valueable starting point for sketching marketing strategies for companies in 2024.

Comparison of trends
In order to make a clearer representation of the reviwed reports, the comparison has a structure in two parts: (1) most common elements in the trends section and (2) benefits and limitations of reports including the researcher's standpoint.

Most common trends
AI exhibits substantial growth according to most reports.It is a huge enabler of optimization, discovering important customer characteristics, deepening understanding of multi-layered customer behavior data, managing customer service and maintaining availability of up-to-date marketing information.Whereas all reports drive significant attention to AI, professionals place a special stress over generative AI.Specifically, generative AI is associated with: 1) image generation (Weber forecast); 2) marketing efficiency and personalization of customer interactions (Ogilvy, Yondr, Marketscale, Dept.); 3) management of recommendations (Capgemini); 4) creativity and personal meaningfulness (Kantar, Brandwatch).Overall, AI has huge transformational power for businesses and evolves into indispensable part of modern-day marketing.
Another key trend across the reviewed reports is sustainability.Marketing performance is unwaveringly influenced by manifestation of sustainability practices.Being a very salient catch phrase in marketing, it opens gates for triggering certain customer behavior in case it is appropriately presented.More precisely, sustainability is seen through the lens of: 1) internal marketing that can harness authenticy (Deloitte, Marketscale); 2) GenZ's demands for a good balance between purpose and price (Dept.);3) authentic content for external audiences that is human-generated (Brandwatch); 4) differentiation that customers are ready to pay a premium for (Capgemini); 5) environmental concerns (Colin Lewis); 6) corporate social responsibility through employee-driven content as well as demonstration of commitment to external stakeholders (Marketscale, Ogilvy).Overall, sustainability continues to rule the calendar of marketing executives and sees dimensions which are internal (an attempt to provide vision for meaningfulness via intra-company actions and thus establish competitive advantage) and external (cater to the rising demands of customers related to preserving environment and paving new ways of extending product lifecycles).
Microcommunities represent an important phenomenon in marketing in 2024.Given the hypercompetitive influencer marketing environment, microcommunities elicit stonger interpersonal relationship-building atmosphere and more tailored content sharing.In particular, experts from Ogilvy specify that online experience is strongly influenced by more narrow online communities, while Brandwatch specialists refer to those publics as niche communities.The other aforementioned reports touch on microcommunities from different perspectives: 1) seek for more privacy (Weber forecast); 2) reach out to gaming communities of yonger audiences (Yondr); 3) sharing real-life stories by microinfluencers (Capgemini).Overall, understanding how microcommunities interact and generate brand activism is essential for marketing experts given the fact that the former witness new forms of development whereby more tailored content is posted and more relational bonds are established.
Nowadays cognitive performance exhibits significant reduction as customers are bombarded by marketing stimuli in an attempt to capture customer attention.Personalization is likely to produce positive results for companies as customers are willing to make less purchasing effort given their increasing cognitive load.Although personalization is often associated with better returns, the reviewed reports shed some important light on its other functions.For instance, professionals at Ogilvy, Marketscale and Yondr state its horizon within GenAI's capability of designing custom-built context.Specifically, the Yondr report refers to a solution called "Heuritech" which uses custom-built methodology to forecast fashion trends by analyzing images on SM and thus allowing for optimization of marketing strategies of companies.At the same time, Brandwatch mentions individual relevance and memorability as domains of personalization by even presenting hyperpersonalization visions, while Dept.reveals the evolution of the term in view of guided shopping experiences and brand interactions thanks to GenAI and ML.Alternatively, Deloitte examines the advent of meta verse as platform for personalization.Essentially, personalization is a fundamental factor in marketing in 2024 as it allows redesign of customer strategies, adaptation of the marketing mix (one-to-one); managing customer expectations and overallmaximizing return on investment.
Influencer marketing activism calls for new opinion leaders as customers find it more personally relevant to relate to different categories of influential people online.Companies exploit influencer resources (including followers, networks, etc.) extensively nowadays.For example, Brandwatch points out the role of micro and nano-influencers as key drivers of growth as well as their unused potential.Capgemini highlight the role of influencers on perceived credibility.Contrary to this, at Ogilvy they believe that purchases will be less driven by influencers and based on rational arguments.Overall, influencers are a powerful marketing ploy and leveraging their reach, engagement, and personal relevance as well as brand interactions is essential for achieving growth merely because people collectively spend more time on social media.However, special attention shall be paid to the conditions of success (for example the type of influncermacro, mini, nanomust be observed as more authenticity and interconnectedness can be achieved) as branded content which is marketer denominated is losing grip to interpersonal stimuli.
Social (media) listening prompts companies to monitor customer sentiment and actions in real time.Effectively, social media listening allows observing and analysis of public communication across different communication channels.The whole process is facilitated by fully automated solutions and could be essential for improving marketing campaign effectiveness.Brandwatch entirely support the thesis of social listening as a starting point of every communication campaign (specifying that major part of their portfolio includes such services).Ogilvy and Weber draw attention to the usage of customer behavioral statistics to design more personalized interactions and achieve better user understanding, while Collin Lewis' report observes different publisher partnerships with SM (e.g.Meta, Pinterest, TikTok, etc.) as pivots for clearer measurement of the media mix modelling (MMM) of retailers.Marketscale does not explicitly comment on social (media) listening but puts a remark on AI-driven tracking of customer behavior and preferences to customize content.Two other reports (Kantar and Yondr) briefly mention the testing prowess of SM without openly stating social media listening.Overall, in the process of design of marketing strategies, social listening can play a key role in determining communication objectives based on real-time data of customer sentiment.
Voice search and social media search are the assistive technologies that transform major parts of customer purchasing behavior.In particular, voice search empowers companies to outwit their competitors by allowing users to limit their search time.For example, Dept.Trends outline that SERP is already outdated and stepping down to zero-click searches.Thus, AI-powered solutions redefine both speed of delivery and ranking of information (based on distinctive and unique content as opposed to generic ones).Marketscale also views voice search as an opportunity to answer enquiries successfully by improving website content.On the other hand, Brandwatch similarly envisons customers to seek for information on social media (as opposed to Google) which does not exclude voice searches.Overall, smart devices that customers use enable companies to explore new ways of "making them seen".In particular, voice searches are quicker and more convenient which expectedly shifts the patterns of customer-brand interactions.
Finally, two reports warn of challenges of economic nature that affect both marketing priorities and customer behavior.Capgemini accentuates on the outburst of cost of living expenses and the respective effects on purchases.Namely, according to their own study conducted in October-November 2023, customers have reported less impulse purchases and holding non-essential buys down, while over 60% of respondents also showed preference towards private labels and low cost brands.Viewed from another perspective, Deloitte acknowledge the impacts of the economic downturn after the pandemic and indicate the concerns of companies for the year ahead.Yet, despite the expected degree of attrition, experts propose measures to counterreact such as increased use of digital technologies, expansion into new markets, enhancing customer personalization, among others.
In view of the markets covered -Clothing is the most cited one across the reviewed reports (7 of the 12 documents).Streaming services occupy second place in the most referred to markets (Weber forecast, Collin Lewis, Ogilvy and Brandwatch).Furniture and furnishings, healthcare and gaming take the third place (Capgemi and both reports of Ogilvy for the former; Colin Lewis, Capgemini, Deloitte for healthcare).Gaming appears in three of the reports (Weber forecast, Ogilvy and Yondr).The appearance and the showcase examples from these markets is somewhat expected as they belong to the fastest growing sectors of the world's economy.
Nevertheless, observing best practices from these markets can produce important insights for marketers from other industries who can create points of reference and benchmarks for their businesses.
As exhibited by all twelve reports, there are multiple similarities in experts' opinions and forecasts of the future of marketing in 2024.Most notably, there is a certain degree of positivism stemming from all reviewed sources as to the transformational opportunities that AI and LLMs offer into the hands of marketing executives.It is also observable that sustainability and creativity coupled with immersive technologies can play a key role in differentiation, while influencer marketing and personalization can lead to higher perceived credibility and authenticity.2023) -prediction models in marketing campaigns.Although these papers examine exhibits of marketing trends in detail about certain industries, they do not cover the marketing landscape in entirety.This paper attempts to cast a light on more holistic tendencies that need to be observed and taken into account by marketing decision-makers.Most of the reports do reflect on the multi-structural changes that have been examined earlier in this paper (most notably AI, influencer marketing and sustainability).Yet, some of the reports do present limited insights on marketing trends and they will be listed subsequently in the next paragraph.

Benefits and limitations of reports
Some of the reports are very technologically and product-oriented.This makes them confined to the bounds of the covered markets.On the contrary, some of the reports are bound to provision of tips and tricks with no specific market / industry covered, and others explicitly encapsulate the trends within social media.On the upside, some of the reports give practical insights and recommendations to practitioners: 1) Brandwatchtips for marketers pertaining to every identified trend; 2) Collin Lewis presents two-fold directions: for brands and retailers; 3) Dept makes few remarks about future pathways titled "looking ahead"; 4) Deloitte offers guidelines for responding to trends at the end of every chapter; 5) Kantar provides a comprehensive guide on how to innovate with abundance of successful examples; 6) Marketscale's report is entirely based on tips for improving marketing efficiency on B2B markets; 7) Ogilvy's SM Trends report briefly exposes the future marketing agenda in respect to the trends.The other reports are mostly descriptive (albeit including interviews and expert opinions on the stated trends).Some of the general limitations of all reviewed reports relate to the lack of structure.Specifically, some of them proceed desultorily to presentation of trends with no organization in terms of: internal vs. external influence, type of market (B2B vs B2C), type of industry (product vs. service), etc.Another limitation is the feeling of leaning towards own products (most of the reports are designed by companies that have broad porfolios of solutions and an army of well-skilled consultants.As a final point, the reviewed reports apparently leave offline marketing aside from any discussion.This coupled with the absence of other marketing tactics (such as guerilla marketing, word-of-mouth, proximity marketing, stealth marketing, etc.) may impede the thinking of companies and drive them into the lands of severe completion (social media, search engines, etc.).Offline marketing can complement any from of online marketing and thus enhance the results of campaigns.

Conclusions and managerial implications
The synthesized comparison of reports draws insights to practitioners who would like to read succinctly some of the most recent changes in the marketing landscape.Additionally, the paper offers alternative standpoints on aspects of building marketing / brand value and achieving differentiation.Some of the most feasible managerial implications for marketers are the following: -Zoom into the comparatively inexpensive AI tools for your business (some of them are in the reports); -Allocate resources to social listening to cater to the demands of customers in a more precise manner; -Design a scorecard for selection of relevant influencers per customer segment and update regularly; -Train and delop skills related to practicing sustainability internally as it has the potential to reflect on the corporate/individual brands' image (outward sustainability communication space is too cluttered); -Harness the power of microcommunities by approaching these exclusive online domains with tailored content with high personal relevance to the members (also via appointing nano influencers); -Do not prioritize data analytics over creativity.Studies show that authenticity and meaningfulness can boost the credibility of your business; -Capitalize on TikTok (albeit competitive, it offers tremendous opportunities given the shortening attention span of viewers and the rising demands for short video content.Despite the limited scope of this paper, residing to the fact that it covers narrow views on contemporary marketing trends, it attempts to cast a light on important developments to watch out for in 2024.Further potential avenues of research may target: 1) studying the long-term impacts of AI on decision-making of companies (by market); 2) identification of marketing trends by types of markets in a longitudinal manner; 3) inclusion of further sources with better empirical evidence (surveys, interviews) on emerging marketing trends; 4) examining the dynamic role of influencers (well established as a pivot of 2024 marketing in this paper).
Finally, provided the limited pieces of similar reviews on the topic, it is expected that this paper will expand into a new area of study which is more holistic and less SM-centric.

Fig. 1 .
Fig. 1.Google search and social mentions of AI and marketing Source: Brandwatch, 2024 (3) Augmented reality and Meta verse allow adding interactivity, credibility and foster building closer relationships between customers themselves and with brands (Rauschnabel et.al., 2024; Dekhili&Ertz, 2024); (4) Social media -a large part of the known players rely on the analysis of user behavior in real time and are increasingly becoming marketing platforms with exceptionally rich opportunities for boosting brand equity (Li, Larimo & Leonidou, 2023; Abbasi et.al., 2024); Previous research in recent years has covered trends in marketing in view of personalization(Chandra et. al, 2022), digital marketing strategies (Özoğlu and Topal, 2020), SEM and SM predictive trends(Nyagadza,  2022), marketing innovations (Purchase and Volery, 2020), among others.Further conceptualizations have been offered by by Jung and Kim (2023) -sustainability in marketing; Kopalle et.al. (2022) -AI in marketing and Xiao et.al. (