NEW YEAR. NEW STRATEGY.

2024 offers the opportunity to re-evaluate the previous year’s programs, analyze what worked, what could’ve performed better, and most importantly, how the data can influence this year’s strategies.

In our shop, we’re looking at the following as the main opportunities to help grow our clients’ business.

HUMAN INTELLIGENCE:

AI AI AI AI AI AI. There seems to be an echo chamber in the marketing & advertising world these days. Everyone wants to seem like they’re on the forefront of Artificial Intelligence, but the reality is that while it’s a wonderful tool to supplement marketing plans, it’s still very much dependent on prompts written by human beings, and in most cases, the AI is lagging as it is still in the programming stages. Coca Cola has done a wonderful job of utilizing and crowd sourcing AI to develop work, but they have the scale to do so.

To truly harness the power of AI, brands will have to have the HUMAN INTELLIGENCE to create the proper programs and prompts, while partnering with agencies that can come up with the big ideas (Both media and creative) and also have an intrinsic understanding of the cross-functional nature of marketing programs. This HUMAN INTELLIGENCE will turbo charge efficiency, cut down on timelines, and create work that helps generate sales.

RETAIL/COMMERCE MEDIA:

For years, consumers have been providing retailers with vast amounts of data about their purchasing habits. In recently, retailers such as Walmart and Amazon have begun monetizing that data by offering ads on their network for brands looking to leverage that data. It’s a win-win for both parties, providing revenue for the retailers, and highly targeted media inventory for the advertisers. Many have jumped on board, and retail networks are a ubiquitous part of any media strategy for 2024.

CREATIVE SEGMENTATION:

Remember the days when we had four major networks? Remember when the Friends finale drew 52.5 million people? No? Well that’s because it was in 2004. 20 years ago. Twenty. Like…it can almost buy a glass of whiskey.

Since that time, the proliferation of cable networks begat a proliferation of streaming options, podcasts, and now, if you’re a niche fan of a niche subject, there’s something for you somewhere. It’s great for content. Not so great for the marketers and brands who are running catch-all creative across all of these unique audiences.

Instead of catch-all, create the basic idea or key visual that can then be extrapolated to multiple pieces of creative that speaks individually to multiple audience segments. NOTE – that doesn’t mean a small edit of a spot. It means BIG IDEA – multiple whole executions.

TIK TOK SHOP:

In previous years, Tik Tok would push folks to purchase items on retail partner sites (such as Amazon). Now, with Tik Tok Shop, customers can buy products directly on the social media app.

TikTok Shop lets businesses to manage their sales, inventory and promotions on the app. There’s a shop tab to configure and product tags to use in videos. You can hold shopping events on livestreams and run paid ad campaigns. An analytics dashboard is provided to track your efforts. Basically a perfect platform for small to mid-size businesses.

REAL-WORLD EXPERIENCES:

Although we are a generation raised on the internet and social media, there is a genuine hunger and thirst for real-world experiences. While living vicariously through other people’s experiences on social media is a great time filler while doom scrolling, creating events for your brand that people can participate in create more value and goodwill than any video, audio or visual ad can.

Captivating the consumer across all senses, versus just a visual or audio one provides a superior experience and increases brand perception.

If you’d like to have a conversation about any of these strategies, or just a basic media buy, give us a shout. We’d love to buy you a coffee.