First of all, before talking about trends in anything, it’s important to understand that you can’t put much faith in predictions. What happened today, especially in innovation and technology, can easily look completely different in two or three months. Even so, many of today’s marketing trends can help us think about possible future scenarios and prepare for each of them. Fortunately, what we have been seeing is marketing moving toward more conscious actions, taking responsibility for their implications for society and the environment. From virtual reality to artificial intelligence, multiscreens, sensors, and other tools, what matters is not necessarily the technological advances themselves, but how they are increasingly being used. As always, the evil lies not in the medium, but in what we do with it. And this time, it seems we are using the media for good.
Breaking taboos and old norms At last, the familiar traditional marketing of slogans and margarine commercials is opening its eyes to broader concepts, embracing all genders, races, interests, and desires. This is even more visible in campaigns for products or services aimed at women, moving away from the idea of feminine/masculine toward a language that goes beyond the ordinary and uses humor, irony, and satire in a new way. A way that, thankfully, works in everyone’s favor. From the attention economy to the engagement economy Reach, clicks, and visits mean nothing next to engagement and conversions. Increasingly, websites and social media accounts with lots of visitors or followers but no engagement will be penalized by algorithms, becoming passive and irrelevant. This means you need to generate interaction and engage people actively and consciously. The value lies not in buying these numbers, but in earning them organically, and one of the best ways to do that is through involvement in social causes. From individualism to co-creation This cultural shift is just beginning and will continue for decades, in politics, in the economy, in art, and in business. In marketing, it means moving from the need for individual validation on social media to an awareness of the power of participating in and belonging to a network, a community. The next step of the collaborative economy will be marketing that connects with tribes rather than individuals. Brands will increasingly focus on actions that contribute to groups and make them aware of the impact they have on the world.
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