2022 Marketing Predictions

January 5, 2022

What are predicted to be the major trends influencing marketing for 2022?

In today's evolving business landscape, trends come and go quicker than most people can even keep up with. However, marketers not only need to understand and utilize trends, but literally be at the cutting edge of innovation and lead conversations.

For 2022, disruption and change is at the heart of the year's theme. This integral part of a marketer's job – to disrupt consumers' ideas, preferences, and lives – came dramatically into the forefront in 2020, but has now taken a new role through technology.

For instance, Forrester echoed this sentiment in its 2022 trends report, stating, "AI adoption and tech spending will accelerate," adding that "greenwashing will wash away as sustainability becomes a must-have."

With climate change becoming undeniable, companies and brands will need to make sustainability goals, missions, and products at the forefront of this change and adaptation. Forrester reported that "global spending on order management software will grow to over $1 billion in 2022, on its way to $1.5 billion in 2024." Strengthening security will be essential as Forrester also estimated that 60 percent of "security incidents will involve third parties" in 2022.

Of course, improving technology is nothing without being consumer-obsessed and placing the consumer at the center of all business decisions.

Deloitte, for example, reported that 57 percent of consumers globally are more loyal to brands that address social inequalities, and stated that "high-growth brands are 66 percent more likely to see purpose as a means to guiding employee decision-making" and 41 percent are more likely to have a corporate strategy.

Ultimately, improving technological resources and putting consumers first authentically (which starts internally to make real external change) is the rubric any successful brand needs to follow.

Enrique Lores, president and CEO of HP, said it best at an ANA event: "I believe all companies must continue to find new ways to lead with purpose, and positively impact the planet, people, and communities they serve."

Resources

Marketing Predictions 2022: Forging New Connections. Gartner, December 2021.
CMOs face a perfect storm of budget cuts, operational disruption, and social unrest. The ability to build new, vital connections with customers, employees, and business partners is central to thriving across a range of unpredictable scenarios. This Gartner report outlines critical marketing trends that will impact CMOs and marketing leaders. As the pandemic forced so many daily interactions online, the lines between customer and provider and between commercial and social interactions began to blur. There's no going back.

Strategic marketing leaders must now take the lead to advocate and deliver on strategies that embrace digital. To help you through the transition, this year's Gartner Marketing Predictions 2022 explores the consequences of marketing digital transformation on related themes such as the privacy movement, flexible workplace, employee advocacy, sales enhanced with artificial intelligence (AI), virtual influencers, and social commerce. Get predictions and new marketing trends, and action steps to prepare for the future of marketing.
New Frontiers for Marketers and Agencies. ANA/R3, December 2021.
As we head into 2022, the agency R3 considered the ways marketers are changing, the ways they are approaching the task of making their marketing materials, and how agencies are reacting. R3 identified four things today's marketers are looking for:

Collaboration, e.g., between in-house teams and agency partners.
Agile innovation that enables timely responses to culture, a wide partnership-network, and nimble production.
Data capability that builds first-party data and creates a unified view of the consumer.
Applied diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).

Global Consumer Trends: What Consumers Want and Why – Now, Next and in the Future. Mintel, December 2020.
As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded, impacting nearly every industry worldwide, Mintel's consumer expertise and prediction model made them well placed to analyze how it would impact markets and how changes would play out over the coming decade.

Looking ahead to 2022, the company's trend analysis and prediction research are grounded by observations of their seven Trend Drivers over the last 18 months and backed by Mintel's robust consumer and market data. The combination of consumer and market data, predictive analytics, action-oriented insights, and expert recommendations is an innovative approach. The company put everything into context to better understand what it means for – and how it could inspire – business decisions across industries, categories, demographics, and amid global themes and times of uncertainty.
2022 Marketing Predictions and Trends. ANA/APR, November 2021.
Each year, APR releases its annual trends and predictions to inform their clients and the industry of important developments around content creation. APR Founder and CEO Jillian Gibbs scored each of the 2021 predictions to analyze how well the industry adapted these trends and provided highlights on what to expect in 2022.

2022 Marketing Industry Trends Report: Data from 1,000+ Global Marketers. HubSpot, November 2021.
The only constant in the world of marketing is that things are always changing. And, if you're a marketer, business leader, or entrepreneur aiming to plan an effective 2022 strategy that puts you far ahead of your competitors, you probably want to know which trends are marketers leveraging today, and which do they plan to start leveraging in 2022?

HubSpot launched their Marketing Industry Survey to help answer the questions above -- and gain further industry insights into 2022 planning. The company surveyed 1,067 global marketers from across B2B and B2C companies from small to large employee sizes. The sample included professionals at varying experience levels from seven countries: the U.S., Australia, Canada, Germany, U.K., France, and Japan. Some key findings:

Influencer marketing is the top marketing trend.
Social media is the number one channel marketers are leveraging.
Instagram is the most-used social media platform, just ahead of YouTube and Facebook.
The top trends marketers plan to leverage for the first time in 2022 are short-form video, social responsibility, and inbound marketing.
Marketers could see budget increases in 2022.

Media Trends and Predictions 2022. Kantar, November 2020.
As restrictions have loosened in many parts of the world, and the early stages of economic recovery have begun, the world has seen some rebalancing of media investment across channels and growth is forecast. Yet the future for our industry contains many uncertainties.

Kantar's report seeks to identify both risks and opportunities for your business in 2022, in full expectation that it will be a critical year for most. In it you'll get a clear view on some of the biggest trends in the media world to help guide you through a period of recovery and innovation. The report highlights five key themes emerging in the media sphere:

Video streaming: a complex, ever-evolving market.
Re-modelling the commercial internet.
A different approach to data.
Performance media and marketing: an expanding playground for brands.
Life in a pandemic – and what it means now for brands and media.

2022 Global Marketing Trends: Thriving through Customer Centricity. Deloitte, October 2021.
Marketers are constantly evolving with the world around them. If last year was about responding to an unprecedented shock, this year is about recovering and, for those best positioned, thriving in this customer-centric world. Macro trends, from the integration of digital and physical channels to the sunsetting of third-party cookies, are upending the marketing function.

What can brands learn from their highest-growth counterparts to thrive? Deloitte examines the following trends that will be vital for marketers in 2022:

Purpose, a beacon for growth.
Authentically inclusive marketing.
Building the intelligent creative engine.
Meeting customers in a cookie-less world.
Designing a human-first data experience.
Elevating the hybrid experience.
Supercharging customer service with AI.

Predictions 2022: Disruptive Forces Necessitate Bold Decisions. Forrester, October 2021.
Disruption has ensued since the dawn of the digital era — but it exploded in intensity and breadth starting in 2020. Meanwhile, customers and employees are demanding more: seamless cross-channel experiences, convenience, reassurance, and commitment to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) values.

The list keeps growing, as does the list of harsh realities that challenge progress: the pandemic, supply chain disruptions, and the "Great Resignation." As a result, the need to act quickly and intelligently in the moment has never been so critical.

In 2022, business leaders will invest in technology and refocus business strategies. AI adoption and tech spending will accelerate. Tech companies will jump into adjacent markets, equally capitalizing on opportunity and sowing confusion. Greenwashing will wash away as sustainability becomes a must-have. 2022 is a year to be bold. The old ways of working no longer work. The future is up for grabs. Leading firms will use the crucibles of 2020 and 2021 to forge a path to an agile, creative, and resilient tomorrow. In their report, Forrester includes:

Consumers see the world as all digital.
Tech execs leap from digital to human-centered technology transformations.
Brands dance and spar with marketplaces.
Third-party risks escalate as just-in-case supply chains gain ground.
Creative AI becomes a focus for innovators.
B2B marketers accelerate technology investments, with uneven results.
Brands take bold actions to advance ESG goals.
Accessibility becomes a major business priority.
Companies fail at anywhere work, and it isn't the COVID-19's fault.
Cloud-native takes center stage in enterprise cloud.
Bias bounties become bountiful.
Smart infrastructure growth accelerates.
In a time of crisis, every decision counts.

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