2023 is knocking: Marketing TrendZzZzz

Let's be honest… Every year it is the same thing in December, multiple releases of the top marketing trends for next year. And most of us, who are part of marketing market, just mentally saying "this is bullshit", "oh, come on…", "this is so 2010", "who's gonna use that shit?" and maybe for some of the trends we say "hummm this is interesting, hard, but interesting".

I decided to curate my very own list of the top marketing trends for 2023 I am seeing around and be very honest about them. Foreseeing the future is fun, but also not an exact thing, before adopting any trend and putting a lot of effort on that path we should be aware of the risks and benefits, that's why I think it is important to have a more realistic view on these trends. Every year people try to kill the banner, the email, the TV, newspapers and yet they are still there with their very own roles in every ad campaign.

I hope you will enjoy the text. If you don't, I hope you at least reflect about these and avoid using cursing words in the comments. Have a real 2023!??

Influencers' Marketing

I have been working with influencers since 2009, when the term didn't really exist - ok, that was extremely embrionary and amateur let's not count that. Already in 2016, for the Olympic Torch Relay campaign by Ogilvy Brazil, with Coca-Cola, I have built a framework for working with different types of influencers (led by the iconic polar bear) that supported the implementation and the choice of influencers, mixing big and "small" yet niched ones. The campaign was a success with the core target of the brand. Currently a hot topic within this area is the use of micro-influencers in campaigns - do you know how time-consuming.

Since these years I try to find reliable data to show how the investment in influencers somehow revert back to the brand, both as sales or in brand image - with the so called influence, you know? Even after working closely to some solid research companies and amazing agencies, I still couldn't see a clear and solid ROI of influencers. If you want high reach, using TV is probably much cheaper, if you want target reach probably Facebook is better, if you want to sell Adwords is there for you, if you want to have huge ROI even email marketing is there - and if you want to build brand you should be consistent throughout time with enough reach (check recent Les Binet's posts). Big question stays, what is the role of an influencer in the campaign that a TV star do not deliver?

I do believe that influencers get more from the brand than the brand get from them in the long term, but, this is just my opinion about it as I still didn't see solid data on it. What do you think about it?

?Metaverse

This is that project that made Facebook change name and brought the stock prices down? This is also another project that has been there for years and years - remember when people used to build stuff in Second Life, buy land, sell land, sell items, have branded events - that was one of the many possible metaverses! I hope you have it clear that there's no ONE metaverse to rule them all not an owner of the Metaverse - think about the internet and www itself.

Don't get me wrong, I do trust Virtual Reality gadgets will be popular at some point and Meta did a great job in raising awareness to it (love my OculusTM), but I think it's just a too long shot with bad timing. This whole topic reminds me of a point in trend adoption, the "leapfroggers", or a generation that somehow takes a leap from a technology to another one. For example, in many countries Boomers might not have used cellphones that much, but now they are the most engaged people with Voice Assistants. Virtual Reality has a long path to go, to be more comfortable, to be more synesthesic and to find their relevant targets.

?Corporate Digital Events

Let's be honest, we like to socialize in events, meet people, exchange experience, eat good food and have good drinks - we like to have experiences. The actual content of the event normally adds a little to us, but the relationships and the chats during the event is what really makes a difference.

Not saying that all digital events are a waste of time, far from that. I just hoping it is a dying, not a raising, trend for 2023. During the pandemic all digital events were more than necessary to keep people connected and we have learnt how to collaborate and connect (in all levels) more effectively with remote teams.

Let's agree on having only extremely necessary corporate digital events? And if we need to do it, we will give very good experiences to people and find ways to make the connection meaningful and impactful. #handshake

?Super Apps

I remember one of the first things I learnt in my Computer Science degree was "Divide and Conquer", a maxim said and used by Julius Caesar and Machiavelli. Even with the Lord of The Rings, in the Silmarillion, we know that there's a huge risk with a "one ring to rule them all". Where in all lessons throughout history and fiction we decided to create the concept of Super App? My comment is mainly for never having seen a 5 start amazing super app, there are always issues (even if small) or avoidable complexities for customers' journeys. I am still pretty much in favor of modularizing core capabilities and splitting into different apps, rather than having one big and heavy monster that will have only a few functionalities used by customers. Oh, and don't forget to have a good web-based version of it :)

?Machine Learning

"Droids will enslave humanity if we keep building these AI!" We are in 2022, year of the technology, year of the world cup, not in a parallel universe of the Terminator - AI will not take over. But AI can definitely worsen relationships in the material world - read about "racist algorithms", there's a quite good piece of content from Harvard about it. If you want to go deeper in the topic, look for AI Ethics, very interesting.

Ans what about Machine Learning for Marketing? I don't even want to spend time speaking about it, this is an enabler for improving efficiency and efficacy - AI, ML and DL should be seen from the optics of process improvement, not a buzz word.

?SEO

I have a slightly controversial point of view on this topic. Whenever it comes to big global brands, SEO is not that important. WAIT. Think with me, Google (and any other alternative search engine) wants to show useful links to a certain search, right? If a person searches for a brand/product name the expected first occurrence is the main page for that, right? I assume that naturally Google will rank higher the branded page if you do the bare minimum, why would they show something different?

Now, if you work for an ecommerce, you really should invest in that, there's a lot of competition out there, you compete even with the brand/product itself if they have an ecommerce (hopefully for you they will read this post and invest only the bare minimum in SEO).

?ESG

"Environmental, Social and Governance". Every business is, and so is society, impacted by concerns relating to these three core areas and this is a very important and meaningful trend. Companies should invest in platforms with focus in some of these issues not only to create a better world for this and future generation, but also because there are clear studies showing the good ROI from investing in it - not just me saying: check here.

But you know, marketers are good into turning anything into BS, so be mindful with your campaigns to avoid greenwashing and any other washing that is not related to your clothes or hands (covid is still out there, kids).

?Thanks for reading!

I hope you didn't get too bored or too annoyed, but if you got to this point, thank you for reading it all. Looking forward to reading your comment and discussing anything!

?Have a great 2023!