With the New Year on its way, it’s that time once again to take a peek into the future and see what might be on the horizon.
As part of an annual series, we ask industry leaders what they see coming in the year ahead while also looking at the year just passed.
Next up with some insight is Urooj Hussain, Planning and Strategy Director at Brainchild Communications.
Looking Ahead
What are three trends to look for in the coming year?
1. Marketers will shift their focus away from Gen Z and towards Gen Alpha. However, this is a somewhat oversimplified approach to segmentation. According to the Pew Research Center, the differences we keep claiming to be some new and changing aspect of society are a more basic, recurring phenomenon: that of being young.
2. The Creator Economy and its inventory will finally be seen as avenues of paid media, instead of being propped as part of PR, an earned media art form mastered by few.
When you’re paying for placement, it’s advertising. When your story is too good to pass up and earns its placement, it’s called PR. In 2024, marketers will finally realize the truth. This won’t stop influencer marketing agencies from trying to claim themselves to be a subset of PR.
3. AI will be front and center of most trends. We should tread carefully, though; many products we use even now already have AI (Meta/Google) incorporated into their solutions, and we don’t realize it because it is taken for granted. There needs to be a balance between building up from our foundation and jumping on AI trends.
Looking Back
1. Your favorite trend of 2023?
Originally from India, the “Looking Like a Wow” meme is versatile, adaptable, and can be used by marketers for anything from fashion to food.
2. Your favorite campaign of 2023?
There were many ‘good” campaigns throughout the year, with a lot of effort and hard work behind them, so it would be hard to choose just one.
3. What was your 2023 New Year’s Resolution and did you keep it?
I am not really into the “New Year Resolution thing.” A new year is simply Earth’s rotation around the Sun, which is, in fact, an arbitrary point in space and has no intrinsic “meaning” other than what we give to it. If you intend to do something good, the best time to start is now. In the middle of 2023, I resolved to get back to reading more often, which I am glad I have done.
Check out our Three Trends series here.
