Four key trends shaping 2024

With 2023 wrapping up, it’s the perfect time to review trends in the digital landscape that will shape the coming year. By keeping on top of these trends, you can evolve your digital strategy to meet the changing needs of the modern consumer and get ahead of the curve.

Much of 2023 was characterised by tough global economic conditions that have been felt in Europe throughout the year. Despite these conditions, global ad spend is growing. In 2024, global ad spend is forecast to rise 8.2% to reach $1trn (£788bn), and in the UK, the ad market will grow by 4% to a value of £37.1bn.

According to eMarketer, retail brands spent the most on digital advertising in the UK in 2023, followed by FMCG. Despite travel seeing the least investment, digital ad spending targeting travellers in the UK is expected to reach 20.9% growth by the end of the year.

In 2023, trends in ad channels also evolved. Programmatic channels like digital out-of-home (DOOH), connected TV (CTV), and in-game advertising saw notable growth in adoption and investment. For example, by the end of 2023, it’s predicted that revenue in the in-game advertising market will reach €2.86bn, then rise at a compound annual growth rate of 12.62% resulting in a projected market volume of €4.60bn by 2027.

One of the biggest trends of the year was the growing move toward integrating newer channels with traditional media to drive impactful marketing strategies. For example, UK spend on CTV grew 9.5% in 2023, and investment in this channel, which can be run alongside linear TV efforts, is expected to grow by 16.7% in 2024.

These trends in spend and channels are all considerations for marketers to consider as they build their 2024 strategy. Alongside these, there are broader trends in the

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The Advertising Club collaborates with MICA to introduce online programme on performance marketing, ET BrandEquity

<p>The Advertising Club </p>
The Advertising Club

The Advertising Club has announced a partnership with India’s marketing and communication management institute, MICA – The School of Ideas, for an online programme on performance marketing.

Kickstarting in January 2024, the collaborative initiative is aimed towards empowering individuals with industry-relevant skills and knowledge through a specially curated leadership and management development module on performance marketing, the club stated in a press release.

The programme is designed to help experienced professionals as well as freshers develop contemporary need of the hour capabilities that employers are seeking in order to maintain their competitive advantage, it added.

The 36 hours intense live online programme is curated in a workshop format by the industry and academic experts and will include a significant level of self-study. Designed for advertising and marketing professionals, creative specialists, digital marketing experts, and learning enthusiasts, the performance marketing programme will include live teaching sessions, self-learning, group-learning and will culminate with an evaluation which will include assessments, presentations and quizzes, the club stated.

Spanning nine weeks, the programme will cover the basics and advanced technicalities of performance marketing, social media marketing, display advertising, email and affiliate marketing, SEO and SEM, targeting and audience segmentation, Generative AI, machine learning and much more, ensuring a holistic learning experience, it added.

Speaking on the partnership with MICA, Rana Barua, president, The Advertising Club said, “The landscape of the MarTech industry is constantly evolving. With this programme, we aim to provide a platform for freshers and experienced professionals, and empower them to upskill their knowledge, thereby becoming industry ready. We believe this collaboration will foster learning, transform careers, inspire creativity, and ultimately elevate standards within our industry.”

Mayank Kumar, professor at MICA, further said, “At MICA, we unravel the intricate layers of Performance Marketing, offering a panoramic view of its evolution

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Recap: 2023 ANA Annual Advertising and Marketing Law Conference | Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP

If artificial intelligence is so great, why can’t it reliably predict the weather?

The weekend has just closed on another very rainy Floridian ANA Masters of Advertising Law Conference (Last year we had a hurricane, so this would qualify as an uninspiring upgrade). The Masters Conference is the largest advertising, marketing and promotion law conference in the nation, bringing together major brands, storied advertising agencies, and prominent regulators to discuss cutting-edge topics impacting the industry. Each year – not by design but by happenstance – a different theme is featured. This year, to no one’s surprise, the focus was on AI.

While not every session discussed AI in depth, most speakers devoted some time to the subject throughout the 3-day event.  Panelists confronted questions like: does algorithmic bias, increasingly employed in various industries, constitute an unfair trade practice?  How will regulators view advertising claims based on next gen tech?  What copyright traps exist for the unwary utilizing AI to generate advertising content?  Are US and international privacy laws evolving fast enough to keep up with new challenges posed by AI?  And while it had nearly zero to do with AI, the conference would have felt incomplete without a discussion of what drag queens can teach advertising lawyers about intellectual property protection.  Many learned more about Cardi B’s album covers during that session than they could have imagined in their wildest dreams.

There is no doubt that AI will affect the advertising and marketing landscape for years to come.  Like the metaverse (last year’s theme) and crypto assets (the year before that), these issues are not new.  But despite AI having been around for some time, the leaps forward that generative AI applications have made this year appear poised to significantly transform the landscape of advertising content creation and delivery.  President

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How to Target Millennials, Gen X, & Boomers

As marketers, we know it’s hard to acquire customers. We get their attention with content marketing and nurture them through cycles of emails, hoping that they’ll bite and commit to our product. It’s even harder when you’re trying to market a product to so many different demographics—a 50-something who is unfamiliar with digital marketing is going to react very differently to a Facebook ad than a 20-something who is well-versed in digital marketing tactics.

timeline comparing boomers with gen x, millennials, gen z

As a millennial, I know when brands are targeting me online—I see your cute branding and slightly-sarcastic lingo!

But how can brands make sure they are targeting all the demographics effectively? Which generations respond best to telephone calls, who is most likely to shop in-store, or get hooked because your product is eco-friendly?

Don’t worry. I’ve done my research.

marketing to unique generations

In this post we’ll examine the best online marketing strategies for targeting three key generational demographics. But first, a quick definition.

Short on time? Get our (free!) All-Star Playbook to Online Advertising, to read later.

What Is Generational Marketing?

Generational marketing is a marketing approach that uses generational segmentation in marketing communication. According to Wikipedia, a generation is defined as “a cohort of people born within a similar span of time (15 years at the upper end) who share a comparable age and life stage and who were shaped by a particular span of time (events, trends and developments).”

Now, on to the generational marketing strategies.

Looking for Gen Z? We’ve got you covered with these Gen Z characteristics and stats and these Gen Z marketing strategies.

Marketing to Baby Boomers

Who are Baby Boomers?

The group who still leaves and listens to voicemails. Baby Boomers were born between 1946 and 1964 and grew up during the American-dream, white-picket-fence era of post WWII. As their

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Apple and Disney Halt Ads on X After Musk Endorses Antisemitic Post

Advertisers have been skittish about X since Mr. Musk bought the social media service last fall and said he wanted more free speech and would loosen content moderation rules. That meant the platform could theoretically place brands’ ads next to posts with offensive or hateful speech.

Many companies, including General Motors and Volkswagen, have balked at various points over the past year at having their promotions appear alongside a heavily documented surge in hate speech, misinformation and foreign propaganda on X. In April, Mr. Musk said nearly all advertisers had returned, without indicating whether they were spending at the same levels; he later noted that ad revenue had fallen 50 percent.

Mr. Musk also swung from threatening any advertisers that dared to pause their spending with a “thermonuclear name & shame” to wooing them by choosing Ms. Yaccarino, a former top ad executive at NBCUniversal, to replace him as chief executive. He picked public fights with major spenders like Apple and churned through sales executives given the task of maintaining relationships in the advertising industry. Top advertising companies, such as IPG, urged their clients to step back from X.

Advertising had long been about 90 percent of Twitter’s revenue before Mr. Musk bought the company. Last month, X told employees that the company was valued at $19 billion. That was down from the $44 billion that Mr. Musk paid.

The heightened sensitivity around antisemitism, Mr. Musk’s penchant for public squabbling and general fatigue after months of fuss over X left many advertising professionals hesitant to weigh in on Friday.

“Clients have always had to make decisions about content they will or will not be associated with,” Renee Miller, the founder of the Miller Group advertising agency in Los Angeles, said in an email. “We generally counsel our clients

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False advertising! These hilarious marketing fails should never have been signed off

When marketing is done well it can be a great way to convince customers to spend their hard-earned money and help a business take off.

But these marketing campaigns from around the world caught people’s attention for all the wrong reasons.

Snaps of the hilarious marketing fails, collated by Bored Panda, proved that businesses don’t always get it right.

The examples include UK toilet paper brand Andrex being sold in Tesco, that wanted to celebrate the King’s coronation in London with a (literal) royal flush.

Another store, based in the UK, advertised a ‘price cut’ on their Sangria, which went from £15 to £14.99 – hardly a huge saving. 

Royal flush! Snaps of some hilarious marketing fails, collated by Bored Panda, prove that businesses don't always get it right. Including a toilet paper brand who wanted to celebrate the King's coronation in London

Royal flush! Snaps of some hilarious marketing fails, collated by Bored Panda, prove that businesses don’t always get it right. Including a toilet paper brand who wanted to celebrate the King’s coronation in London

Elsewhere a confused passerby in the US saw a poster advertising Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, to be eaten in comfortable pyjamas – but the unfortunate slogan ‘BJs in your PJs’ made it sound like something very different altogether. 

While a pretzel brand, in the US, claimed to be able to ‘cure anxiety’ with the salty snack – which might be a bit of a stretch.  

Here FEMAIL takes a look at some of the funniest marketing fails that certainly made an impression – but perhaps not for the right reasons… 

Bargain! A store based in the UK advertised a 'price cut' on their Sangria, which went from £15 to £14.99

Bargain! A store based in the UK advertised a ‘price cut’ on their Sangria, which went from £15 to £14.99

Saucy! Elsewhere a community activity poster in the US advertised 'BJs in your PJs' - which gave a slightly different meaning to Ben and Jerry's in your pyjamas

Saucy! Elsewhere a community activity poster in the US advertised ‘BJs in your PJs’ – which gave a slightly different meaning to Ben and

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