2022 Global Marketing Trends

The past 18 months forever redefined customer engagement strategies—and with this change has come unprecedented complexity.
Consider just a few of the macro trends unfolding in the market: In a world where people continuously toggle between digital and physical channels, linear customer journeys are almost a relic of the past. Consumers expect more tailored and personalized experiences but, simultaneously, are more guarded in how their data is captured and deployed. Even the definition of convenience has changed as people expect items and services to be available at the push of a button. Beyond products and services, people are more attuned to what a brand stands for-and if it's only maximizing profit, many will walk away before the brand can even put an offer in front of them. These trends are creating just as much complexity within the four walls of the organization. As artificial intelligence becomes core to the entire customer experience, teams are scrambling to find the right mix of talent that elevates-and integrates—the creative and analytical. In parallel, brands are continuously looking to ensure their talent is just as representative and inclusive as the experiences they hope to deliver to market. And underscoring all of this is the reality that marketing budgets shrunk to record lows at a time when expectations are at an all-time high.

Given these trends, how can brands thrive in an increasingly complex world?
We believe the answer requires holistically rethinking the way brands engage with customers-and for good reason: When we surveyed over 1,000 global executives, we found the highest-growing brands (defined as those with 10% or higher annual growth) are moving beyond point solutions and comprehensively addressing the entire customer experience-encompassing everything from activating an enterprisewide purpose to overhauling entire customer data strategies. Taking the lead from these high-growth organizations, we took a multifaceted approach to the 2022 Global Marketing Trends report. In addition to surveying executives from five countries, we polled 11,500 consumers across the globe, as well as conducted 18 in-depth interviews with executives from leading global brands (see sidebar "Research methodology to learn more). In total, we identified seven trends that are customer-centric and take a -360degree view of the solution set.

1. Purpose – A beacon for growth

Challenge: The expectation that the purpose of businesses should go beyond maximising profits is becoming more common as organisations rethink everything from product delivery to employee and community engagement.

Opportunity:  High-growth brands that holistically commit to an integrated purpose that mirrors stakeholder needs are gaining a competitive advantage.

2. Authentically inclusive advertising:

Challenge: The expectation that the purpose of businesses should go beyond maximising profits is becoming more common as organisations rethink everything from product delivery to employee and community engagement.

Opportunity: High-growth brands that holistically commit to an integrated purpose that mirrors stakeholder needs are gaining a competitive advantage.

3. Building the intelligent creative engine:

Challenge: As the speed of customer messaging accelerates, the role of marketing becomes complicated. Within the organisation, this environment is changing the skills makeup and processes of the marketing function.

Opportunity: By rethinking internal team structures and external partnerships, brands can fuel intelligent creative and work at the speed of culture. This can range from standing up agile teams that marry creatives with data scientists to repositioning social influencers from product spokespeople to creative agents.

4. Meeting the customer in a cookieless world:

Challenge: As third-party cookies sunset, marketers should rethink their digital prospecting, customer outreach, and measurement strategies.

Opportunity: Growth leaders are rethinking customer marketing and data strategy in a rapidly changing digital world that will increasingly shift to first-party data strategies.

5. Designing a human-first data experience:

Challenge: There’s a fine line between helpful and creepy when it comes to deploying customer data. And for marketers looking to build these dynamic experiences, numerous considerations should be weighed to help ensure they are cultivating trust along the way.

Opportunity: Marketers can cultivate trust through better customer data practices. This means designing experiences to create value, doing so with transparency, and, ultimately, empowering the customer to control their own data journey.

6. Elevating the hybrid experience:

Challenge: With many businesses looking to invest in hybrid experiences to increase personalisation, innovation, and connection, they should consider how these strategies can be both coherent and cohesive as the proliferation of channels adds another layer of complexity to the process.

Opportunity: By putting human needs at the centre and rapidly innovating with customers as cocreators of the experience, brands can make their physical and digital experiences as agile and flexible as consumers have come to expect.

7. Supercharging customer service with AI:

Challenge: One of the primary methods of assisting customers that rose to importance during the pandemic was contact centres, as they became a primary conduit for customer interaction. Yet many contact centres are built on antiquated models.

Opportunity: Brands can implement and optimise AI within the customer experience to empower, rather than replace, the contact agents and, in tandem, elevate contact centres from cost centres to revenue drivers.