Trends and Technology

Ad agencies are starting to launch their own design practices, expanding the breadth of services they offer client-side marketers who have growing and unique demands.

As brands engage gen X, they must navigate the generation's complex mix of financial concerns, multigenerational caregiving, and an unconventional approach to retirement.

A skills-based recruitment strategy — rather than strictly relying on education level — is an increasingly popular ingredient for small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) that are eager to attract, retain, and grow marketing talent. SMBs can fill in any potential knowledge gaps through training programs that take a long-term approach.

Burnout is taking a serious toll throughout the workplace, leading to lower productivity and higher absenteeism, among other costs — marketing teams may be increasingly susceptible.

The rise of streaming TV is opening up new opportunities for product placement for marketers eager to distinguish their products with consumers. But the execution has become much more complex, as successful product placement efforts require a strategic collaboration among brands, vendors, and content creators to ensure the product fits seamlessly within the narrative.

Adding more budget for marketing training has seldom been more important, as nascent technologies upend traditional advertising practices and CMOs are increasingly held accountable for driving growth. Heightened training also plays into current hiring trends, with 83 percent of CMOs planning to hire this year, per a recent study.

As in-house agencies proliferate, training has become an increasingly important part of the remit. Marketing managers need to show their in-house staffers how to avoid groupthink, maintain an outsider's perspective, and build relationships with other departments throughout their organization.

Infographic: In a new report from the ANA and Scope3, the ad industry's contributions to carbon emissions are laid bare. How can the industry go greener, and can it improve its ROI in the process?

The rise of personalization presents growing challenges to marketers, with 51 percent of consumers saying that they have been frustrated by receiving irrelevant content or offers from brands they're not interested in, per a recent study. To deliver more relevant messaging, marketers must stop focusing so much on the tech tools enabling the personalization and put more emphasis on the user experience catering to individuals.

Stephanie McCarty, chief marketing and communications officer at Taylor Morrison, didn't intend to spark an industrywide debate when she dropped an article on LinkedIn detailing her frustrations with ad agencies. She received a mouthful in return from brand and agency reps alike and now has a much sharper sense of how both sides can enhance their relations and spark better outcomes.

Brand advertisers are scrambling to partner with the expanding number of women's sports leagues, including the WNBA, the Professional Women's Hockey League, and the National Women's Soccer League. The field presents growing opportunities for marketers, what with women's elite sports expected to generate more than $1 billion in revenue for the first time in 2024, a 300 percent spike from 2021.

A funny and inevitable thing happened on the way to streaming nirvana: the market quickly saturated, and now the narrative has shifted to the so-called "Great Re-Bundling," or merging, combining, and forming alliances among the various media providers — just like the cable era. As the industry sorts itself out, marketers need to deploy a platform-agnostic approach to their advertising spending.

As social media and the rise of artificial intelligence-driven content blur the lines between creators and advertisers, guerrilla marketing may become an increasingly viable marketing vehicle, though perhaps still as elusive to define as it is to spot a 6-foot-7 Sasquatch in the wilds of Central Park.

Advertisers are keeping close tabs on the TikTok saga, which will culminate by April 2025 when the Chinese-owned app must divest to a new owner or face a ban in the U.S. Despite the uncertainty, ad spending has continued (mostly) unabated, with a wide range of brands and nonprofits using the app to spark engagement and get into the conversation.

The number of retail media networks is proliferating rapidly, with companies ranging from Chase to United Airlines getting in on the act. Are there enough ad dollars to go around?

With consumers dining out less frequently due to prolonged inflation, fast-food chains find themselves at a crossroads. Brands that can successfully blend competitive pricing, technological innovation, and a comprehensive approach to defining value stand the best chance of thriving in a competitive business environment.

Kelly MacDonald, who took charge as CEO of Maserati North America in late 2023 after serving as CMO of the company for a short time, is bucking convention.

Despite some companies dialing back their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts and the gloomy narrative in the media about the prospects for DEI, companies that have embraced diversity are forging ahead, according to recent studies. Companies that downplay diversity may be at significant odds with younger demos such as millennials and gen Z, who put a premium on diversity and inclusion.

"Principal media," or when agencies purchase — or negotiate — inventory from media owners at bulk rates, then resell it to their clients at a markup, is taking off. In a recent ANA study, 41 percent of respondents expect to use principal media throughout the next year. But while offering myriad benefits to marketers, principal media is fraught with challenges, ranging from potential conflicts of interest to low-quality inventory.

Pickleball tops a growing roster of niche sports that are attracting legions of fans, with a smorgasbord of games for advertisers to tap into. The appeal to marketers is twofold: affordability and the opportunity to integrate a brand into the consumer experience.