Then and Now - A Glimpse into the Future

Over the past 50 years, marketing and advertising have undergone remarkable transformations. Let’s take a brief journey through the decades and explore what lies ahead for 2024.

1970s: The TV Takeover

The ‘70s saw the rise of television advertising. Catchy jingles, memorable slogans, and captivating commercials captured audiences.

1980s: Direct & Personalized

The ‘80s introduced direct marketing and database marketing. Marketers used customer data for more personalized messaging.

1990s: The Digital Revolution

The ‘90s marked the dawn of digital marketing. Websites, emails, and banner ads opened new avenues to reach diverse audiences.

2000s: Social Media & Mobile 

Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter surged in the 2000s. Marketers leveraged these to engage consumers. Mobile marketing rose with smartphone adoption.

2010s: Data-Driven Personalization 

The 2010s brought data-driven marketing, powered by analytics, AI, and machine learning. Personalized experiences and targeted campaigns became standard.

2020s: Omnichannel & Consumer Experiences 

In the current decade, marketers aim for seamless, omnichannel experiences. Customer engagement and personalized interactions take center stage. 

2024: Upcoming Trends

Now, what can we expect in 2024?

• First-Party Data: Privacy concerns make first-party data essential for personalized campaigns. 

• AI-Powered Marketing: AI continues to transform marketing, automating tasks, analyzing data, and enhancing personalized experiences. 

• Video Dominance: Video marketing remains strong, especially live streaming for immersive content. 

• Social commerce: Shopping via social media becomes even more streamlined. 

• Brand Purpose: Consumers seek brands with social responsibility and authenticity. 

• Privacy-Centric: Privacy protection becomes crucial with transparent data practices. 

• Streaming and CTV: The shift to streaming and Connected TV advertising continues offering new opportunities.

The marketing landscape keeps evolving, and staying ahead means adapting to new technologies, strategies, and customer expectations. Embrace these trends to build stronger brand connections, drive growth, and continue to stay competitive in 2024 and beyond!

Spotify Wrapped: What Marketers can Learn From the Viral Campaign

The end of the year is a time of reflection. The time when people buy planners, get gym memberships, and write holiday letters recapping the year. This is the backdrop that makes Spotify Wrapped so successful. Spotify is able to provide users with the soundtrack that got them through the year. For users, Spotify wrapped is another way to share who they are and what they like with their friends and followers while also giving Spotify global viral marketing in exchange. Every year it gets bigger and bigger with massive engagement online. For instance there were 425,000,000 tweets about Spotify wrapped in the first 3 days after the launch this year. Their unique combination of personalization, share-ability, and seasonality is hitting the right spot with their audience. 

What Marketers Can Learn From Spotify Wrapped:

1. Sharing is caring - Spotify Wrapped is extremely easy to share with friends and on your socials. Creating personalized content that your audience wants to share is a winning strategy. Give your audience a conversation to join and the engagement will follow.

2. Rinse and repeat - Although Spotify wrapped generally stays the same every year. The annual campaign at the end of the year creates a sense of ritual. Everyone looks forward to when it will be coming out and seeing who their top artists and songs were for the year. Give your audience something to look forward to with ritualized content. 

3. Join in on the fun - Creating brand specific versions of popular content is a great way to join the conversation. Guinness Beer built out brand specific content using the Wrapped format to engage with their audience.

IMOS Annual Ritual:

Here at IMOS every year around the holidays we create IMOS themed gift boxes. They have become a big hit and those who have received them in the past have always expressed excitement to see what we come up with for the next year. Looking forward we want to try to emulate Spotify Wrapped and create an end of year stylized report with catchy graphics and music to show our performance from the year!