Marketing Briefing: Let’s end the year with a big recap of 2024’s marketing trends

As we wrap up the year, let’s unpack some of those expected and unexpected trends. 

(By the way, this will be the last Digiday+ Marketing Briefing of the year. We’ll be taking a break over the holidays and will be back in your inboxes on Jan. 8 with our 2025 preview.)

Generative AI

The application of generative AI in advertising continues apace. Marketers and agency executives continue to refer to generative AI as just another tool in their toolbox and one that they’re all trying to learn to integrate into their processes. Some marketers have spent the year touting alleged cost savings of using generative AI (see: Klarna’s claim that it reduced costs for the year), and others have started to roll out ads made with generative AI. While some agency execs and marketers believe people don’t care how their ads are made, the response that Coca-Cola received from its recent holiday ad would say otherwise.

Ad networks galore

In the first half of the year, it seemed like every brand was creating its own ad network. Ahead of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, in particular, it seemed like a glut of ad networks hit the scene — case in point: United Airlines, Costco and Chase, to name a few. During the second half of the year, though, there have been fewer new ad network launches. But marketers and agency execs expect there will still be a few new ad networks that trickle out next year. Few marketers have the kind of ad budget needed to test out the myriad ad networks that are currently available to find the few that work well for them. Georgia-Pacific is one of the few: The CPG giant previously told Digiday how it tested out 25 RMNs and consolidated its spend with seven of them. The question for marketers will be: Is it worth testing out this network?

Cookie confusion

There’s something comforting about the continued confusion surrounding third-party cookies. While it’s surely annoying to marketers and agency execs alike, wouldn’t it have been strange to finally have the cookie conundrum sorted out after all these years of Google kicking the can down the road? In a way, that can did get kicked again. While Google is getting ready to reveal how Chrome’s cookie opt-in will work, some uncertainty remains. And there’s always the chance that Google pulls the rug out from under marketers again.

Brand studios

It seems like we’re in a new wave of branded entertainment. It’s not just the brand IP obsession of 2023, but marketers are keen to ink deals to create their own brand studios that allow them to fully control their narratives. Rather than looking for ways to advertise around entertainment, marketers are keen to create content that people will actually watch and, hopefully, help sell their brand narrative. Starbucks, Chick-fil-a and LVMH, among others, were among the marketers to tell the world they were part of this new wave of branded entertainment this year. It’s still early days, but it will be something to keep a close eye on for next year as content starts to roll out (hopefully) in earnest.

Women’s sports

The importance of live sports has only continued to grow for marketers. With increasingly fewer monoculture moments, any time when a large amount of people are paying attention to the same thing at once is a golden opportunity for brands. Luckily for marketers, people are starting to pay attention not only to the traditional bread-and-butter men’s sports, but they’re finally giving women’s sports the viewership they deserve. That means that investment in the space is growing and continuing to grow. For early adopters, like, say, Ally Financial, that decision is paying off even more so.

Brands in culture — weird internet culture

Brands have been too online for years. Think back to the popularity of brand voice on Twitter. Few were able to find a way to make a brand voice pop like Wendy’s, but many tried. As internet culture has gotten weirder (it’s hard to quantify this but you know what I mean), so too has the content brands are putting out to try to hit it big online. Brands have been creating strange, unpolished content on social channels, trying to engage with people where they spend their time now and in the way they choose to spend it. Nutterbutter’s deranged online persona is one example of this. Duolingo, Dunkin’, Scrub Daddy and many others have all tried some version of weird to capture attention as well — and they’ve gotten it.

Brands in culture — culture wars

The extreme reaction to Jaguar’s rebrand wasn’t just due to what was perceived to be a poor rebrand, but because people were dissecting the rebrand as making a statement in an on-going culture war. It’s become commonplace for people on either side of the aisle (though mostly on one side) to pick apart anything advertisers put out to try to see if a brand is making a statement one way or another. It’s a new reality that marketers have to deal with when they put out any advertising. While some marketers and agency execs worry it will make fearful marketers even more fearful and lead to something worse (i.e., boring work), others recognize that attention is all that matters and if marketers are getting it with this culture war, well, so be it.

3 Questions with Kelly Olmstead, CMO at Allbirds

What channels have you been prioritizing over Q4?

Recently we’re heavy into paid social and search as [they’re] pretty efficient channels for us right now. Prior to that, streaming and YouTube were some good channels for us in Q3 to kind of push into some awareness levers.

What about search or streaming? Is Amazon a focus?

Not currently. We do sell on Amazon, and we primarily leverage on platform media for them. Our investment is largely focused on our dot com.

We have had some pretty focused efforts this year in terms of those investments. We’re heading into a brand relaunch in the in the middle of next year. With our new leadership team in place and a new product strategy, we do have some pretty aggressive plans to reintroduce our consumer to the to the future of Allbirds.

So, in the new year you’ll be taking stock of what channels have and haven’t worked?

Yeah. We’re right in the midst of finding the best partners to help tell a deeper story about the brand. We’re excited about some of the initiatives we have around storytelling — all upper funnel, of course.

We’ve been really focused in mid- to low-funnel, and certainly had some upper-funnel moments. [Next year], it’s about how we find ways to invest in longer-burn media for the brand. — Sam Bradley

By the numbers

Comcast Advertising’s latest report confirms the long-term shift of spending from traditional TV ads to streaming inventory will continue over the next year. The report combined 14 surveys and studies commissioned by Comcast over the last year.

• 43% of advertisers said they expect to increase spend on streaming video ads; those surveyed said they expected addressable TV (34%) and FAST inventory (32%) spending to rise as well.
• But only 20% said they expected to increase spending on traditional TV. 26% said they expected to cut spending on linear TV.
• Advertisers still want more in the way of measurement, attribution and optimization solutions, though. 56% of those surveyed said they’d spend more on digital video, if they had access to better capabilities across those points. — Sam Bradley

Quote of the week

“They’ve been acting as if it’s business as normal for pretty much all year, but it clearly isn’t. I believe behind the scenes they have been much more worried and scrambling than it might outwardly seem. It’s really not looking good for TikTok, right now.”

— said Jasmine Enberg, vp and principal analyst, social media and creator economy, at eMarketer, when asked about TikTok’s tentative future in the U.S.

What we’ve covered

• 2024 was the year Reddit made a play for social media’s organic sports crown
• Data licensing lawsuit adds a legal wrinkle to Omnicom’s planned acquisition of IPG
• X tries to win back advertisers with self-reported video stats