2024: The year humans will take back marketing
It’s time to put the bots back in their place.
Data-driven brands have used digital marketing and measurement tools to great success over the last year, integrating AI tools into processes far faster than many anticipated.. But we’ve all lost something in the process. Next year I think we going to see a revenge of the human.
This isn’t to discount the lessons we’ve all learnt from performance marketing. The levels of measurement we can now use for campaigns and content are invaluable and will not be forgotten. ?
But the marketing we end up with from measuring everything obsessively can miss out on the creative and emotional elements that makes great marketing really work.
While I do think humans will be taking back marketing in 2024, they can’t shut return us to the pre-digital era. Human-driven marketing needs to come back better.
Here’s three principles to get you started:
One: People are naturally drawn to other humans. Brands need to use their people and personal stories to do this. This is really important because brands need to establish trust, and the only way to do this is through real people and real stories. Businesses with passionate, knowledgeable, and approachable people will always win over a similar competitor which is faceless.
Principle two: People crave interconnected experiences.
At the centre of any human-centric brand is a deep understanding of their customers’ wants, needs, and motivators. Inevitably this is where hybrid physical and digital experiences come into play.?
The consumer hybrid experience utilises technology across all brand touchpoints – from customer service (and dare I say chatbots) to sponsorships.?
Implementation relies on a deep understanding of customers so that brands can offer a range of personalisation options and communications channels ?- including “non-virtual” experiences.
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Principle three: Brand Understanding, not Brand Awareness.
Brand awareness scrapes the surface of marketing. While some dedicate inordinate amount of budget on creating awareness, many overlook the fact that brands can no longer be one dimensional.? Consumers and B2B procurers demand a full understanding of a business – its people, its policies, its culture, and ESG approach, to name but a few elements of Brand Understanding. This is why 2024 will be so important for marketing budgets to go above and beyond the obvious and put more emphasis on Brand Understanding.
After all, people want this, not bots.
Joshua Van Raalte, CEO - Brazil
December 2023
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Anchor and Global Moderator and Communications Non-Executive Director
11 个月Excellent and great insight
Director at Black&Ginger creative studio. Founder of GoodMarket retail. LCR Creative & Digital Board Member.
11 个月Interesting. We pride ourselves on empathy and human insight, which has definitely not been on the menu this year for many businesses. Many of which have retracted into their shell. Even in context of good Christmas Ads, there’s nothing good out there. No one is even trying. Amazon’s tried to do something with the old lady sledge creative but even that feels forced. Those ladies, as lovely as they are don’t even look human! I think once people can discover fun again maybe they’ll be able to remember what life was like before the boys took over.
Corporate Communications Director | Strategic PR Leader | Brand Storyteller | LGBTQ+ Advocate
11 个月Agreed! Great insights Josh!
Building something new: Experienced hands-on CTO & Technical Director
11 个月Weren’t all three of these points true this year and every year before 2023 ? Why would these reasons suddenly result in a reversal of a trend in the opposite direction when they weren’t enough to stop it in the first place ? (genuine question)