Even in a slowing economy, consumer behaviours in media evolve at pace. We’ve picked out three key trends we expect to see come to the forefront of the planning industry in the new year:
- First and foremost is Inclusivity. Although the advertising industry has evolved in its view on representation in creative over the past few years, this work now needs to extend to media planning too. With that comes responsibility, as it is not just important for people to see and hear people like them but crucially, it’s important to experience this in environments that are familiar to them. Brands can impact communities positively to make the world a better place. This can be done by amplifying existing actions into strong campaigns .(Dentsu 2023 trends report).
- Gaming is shifting the world of advertising, with more people increasingly spending more time gaming opening up brand new realms of possibility with audiences. According to Kantar, there has been almost '3.2bn people playing video games in 2022, spending a combined total of $196.8bn'. This brings a growing opportunity to add gaming to the media plan with a wide range of platforms and formats such as the live stream video service, Twitch. It can be difficult to find contextually relevant spaces for brands to advertise on, but gaming has a vast library ranging from just chatting communities like Reddit to Esports competitions. These areas offer an opportunity to explain innovations, sustainability, or other initiatives effectively. One area that will likely grow over the next few years will be the use of audio advertising in games. An exciting advancement to tackle attention problems that brands might encounter is overlaying audio ads in gaming, as several brands are currently working to develop audio adverts that, in effect, take away the distraction of on-screen graphics or messages (The Drum).
- Augmented reality is an innovation that is taking centre stage, especially in the online shopping space. With demand increasing for immersive experiences, it will become even more mainstream in 2023. For example, according to ThinkWithGoogle, ‘more than a third of Gen Z are predicted to be shopping with AR by 2025’. As a whole, AR is great for a lot of things: explaining complex concepts, visualising products in their natural habitats, and delivering greater personalisation at scale. However, where it adds true value is engagement. A call to action is crucial for the effectiveness of the activation as well and will really help drive key messaging in the new year.
