Advertising is all about trends. Marketers strive to keep their fingers on the pulse of what consumers want, and where they are going to find it. Marketing messages are shaped by this demand, with new platforms and stylistic trends constantly popping up to shape the marketing conversation. Ads are getting more advanced and accurate.
The last several years—thanks largely to all of the negative recent events—have been particularly impactful for how people by things, and, by extension, how these things are marketed. In this article, we take a look at 7 new advertising trends in the new economy.
TikTok
Since its advent, the world hasn’t known exactly what to do with TikTok. Having its genesis in China, the social media application and its parent company ByteDance have come under fire numerous times for how it handles private information. Controversial or not, however, TikTok is one of the most influential applications currently in circulation.
In fact, TikTok was the top-earning non-game application of 2021 and early 2022, which is a statistic that seems to have piqued the interest of marketers all around the world.
Influencers are one of the most significant ways that Tik Tok has been used in advertising in recent years, with popular accounts bringing in millions of dollars in advertising revenue for spotlighting products. TikTok ads and TikToker content are getting more influential each month.
As TikTok continues to hold its ironclad spot on the charts, marketers will look for more and more ways to utilize the platform as a way of connecting consumers with products in 2023.
Social Commerce
The pandemic saw many brick-and-mortar shops go online. While some businesses got creative on their own websites, many others began to sell directly on social media. Social commerce, as is sometimes called, has been extremely popular among millennials, who make up approximately 60% of the social commerce buying demographic.
Social commerce leverages the convenience of taking care of all the consumer's shopping needs without ever leaving their social media app to attract a wide demographic of buyers. In 2023 and beyond, marketers will look to continue engaging with this segment of the buying population.
YouTube
YouTube has always been an important resource for marketers, providing them with a platform through which they can create and launch highly targeted ad campaigns. After all, given the very specific nature of how YouTube videos are marketed, it is uniquely easy to reach an audience that will naturally be interested in your product.
YouTube's popularity is only expected to grow in the next several years as companies take a step backward from television. Cable subscriptions have plummeted to an all-time low in recent years. As more and more people make the move toward streaming, an enormous marketing vacuum is created in their wake.
Many in marketing see YouTube as a natural successor to traditional cable advertising. Currently, YouTube’s revenue numbers rival Netflix’s making them a significant presence in the world of online entertainment.
Speaking of video ads…
Shorter Run Times
Maybe it’s the waning attention span of Generation Z we have to thank for this, but it looks like video ad times are expected to plummet in the next several years. Adults just don’t have the patience for long ads anymore.
The majority of adult viewers self-report that they exit out of an advertising video if it is longer than ten seconds. Right now, the general marketing consensus is that advertising messages should hover around 30 seconds, with Facebook ads receiving a slightly longer time allotment of approximately one minute.
Even with these pared-down numbers, the average video will still lose a significant number of viewers simply by virtue of its length. Doubtlessly, marketers will continue to whittle down their runtimes in order to have the highest impact with the largest number of people.
Mobile Gaming
Advertisers are also beginning to hone in on the booming mobile gaming industry. Approximately three- quarters of marketers say that they would give up streaming and social media outlets before they would sacrifice their mobile gaming marketing opportunities.
Why? The main reason is that business is booming. Mobile gaming has been a force to be reckoned with ever since smartphones hit the scene but engagement numbers skyrocketed during the height of the pandemic.
Not only are people playing games at record rates, but they are also more engaged with the advertisements that appear on them. Game-based ads feature higher engagements for several reasons, not the least of which is that the advertisements often take up their entire screen. The player can’t move on to a different tab or scroll down the way they might on their computer. They are forced to watch for the duration.
Mobile game-based ads are also often targeted to the playing experience. For example, players playing a blackjack game on their phone might receive more chips for watching the ads on the game. The majority of players actually report appreciating these advertisements and recognize them as their preferred way to pay for mobile gaming.
AI
AI is also projected to play a prominent role in marketing in the next several years—most significantly in the way that large quantities of data are sorted and analyzed. AI is already being used to formulate projections on the efficacy of advertising campaigns.
In fact, the eCommerce site RedBalloon recently made news for using AI to increase their ad conversion rate by a staggering 3000%. While most success stories won’t be nearly so dramatic, it is safe to say that the marketing industry has collectively come to agree upon the significant value AI has in shaping future advertising efforts.
Ads Will Become More Personal
Finally, consumers in 2022 will be looking for a more personalized advertising experience, and marketers will try their best to give it to them. Consumers have grown increasingly wary of ads that are centered around celebrity endorsements, or abstract marketing scenarios that are designed to draw the eye rather than provide substantive information.
The buckshot approach is out after years of wasted ad spend. Marketers are now looking to create highly personalized ads, connecting legitimately interested people with products they want or need.
Top Trends In Advanced Advertising Conclusion
We hope you learned something from these 7 top new advertising trends affecting ad spend and advertisers everywhere!
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