That’s how Forrester summed up their 2024 B2C Marketing Predictions and, while we’re deep in writing our annual 2024 State of the Consumer report, this struck a chord. This report delves into the tension between value and values. While you’ll need to wait a few weeks to peruse it, the exploration resonates with the practicality versus purpose dichotomy, doesn’t it?
For the past several years, marketers have focused on aligning brands with values to meet a shift in consumer sentiment. People wanted to feel like they were voting with their wallets by supporting brands that aligned with the issues that drove them to the ballots. Consumers were willing to buy the more expensive shirt because it’s ethically made by a manufacturer that donates to one of their top causes. And they were quick to boycott brands that hadn’t spoken out on social justice issues.
But inflation, exhaustion and survival mode have set in. Forrester’s 2024 B2C Marketing Predictions report the first dip in U.S. adults purposely seeking out brands that align with their values, causing CMOs to adjust their focus to a more practical approach to growth. Here’s what Forrester predicts for the year ahead, and here’s how Resonate can help CMOs and their teams predict and capitalize on changing consumer behavior, intent and preferences using rAI, Resonate’s cutting-edge AI.
Most Brands are Muting Social Justice and ESG Comms
According to rAI, less than 10% of U.S. consumers indicate social policies are the top driver when making a purchasing decision. Only 12.9% are driven by environmental policies. Yet nearly 30% say price is the top factor.
So it’s no surprise that Forrester reports nine in 10 U.S. mainstream brands are giving up their campaigns highlighting social justice and ESG this year. In an increasingly polarized world, the risk isn’t worth the reward — just ask Bud Light.
Leveraging Generative AI is Going to Become a Critical Part of the Job
Forrester reports that 20% of CMO job descriptions are now requiring experience with generative AI. Most marketing teams have at least dabbled in AI copy and design, to varying degrees of success. And, while the human piece of marketing can’t be overstated, the ability to use generative AI is going to separate teams in terms of efficiency and process. We cosign that prediction, and we know that a critical component of using AI effectively is knowing how to write AI commands, which involves knowing your audience holistically. That’s where Resonate’s AI-driven data comes into play, and the ability to leverage recent insights on who your customers are beyond their interactions with your brand, what drives them, what their anticipated behaviors are, purchasing plans and more. When you have strong predictive AI, you can give generative AI the information it needs to provide better results.
Martech Ecosystem Integration is the New Goal
The ability to integrate multiple tech capabilities into one place, including data management, measurement, analytics and more, is going to become a top priority for CMOs and marketers. While we have many customers that bring our first-party data into their own data lake for modeling and analytics, the Resonate Ignite Platform brings together the predictive data created by rAI with the ability to analyze, launch and measure. You can learn more and act faster all in one place.
CMOs Will Fund Dedicated Privacy Resources
Google getting rid of cookies has felt a little bit like the boy who cried wolf. We’ve been talking about it for several years now, but the time has finally arrived. Four U.S. states have privacy laws going into effect in 2024, and Google’s privacy sandbox is being unrolled in Chrome. Now marketers need to put proactive privacy plans into place if they want to continue to target their audiences using recent and accurate data. Resonate has been working on this plan for several years and will have a seamless transition to privacy-focused, AI-powered data.
DTC-focused Brands Are Moving Toward Traditional Channels
DTC brands have been the sweetheart of the retail world for several years now, but they are realizing they need to reach beyond the DTC world to grow. For example, Peloton is now exploring retail stores and partner platforms. It makes sense when you look at those who have a Peloton or are considering purchasing one. These consumers are much more likely than the average consumer to go in-store for major appliance purchases.
Even long standing brands like Domino’s are coming to this realization. Forrester noted that they finally went beyond their app to enter an agreement with Uber Eats and Postmates, which makes sense given rAI shows people who have ordered Domino’s in the past 30 days are 64% more likely than the average consumer to have also ordered Postmates in the last 30 days.
What Does This Mean For You?
As a marketer, 2024 is going to look different — you’re going to have to abandon some of the sweetheart trends of the past several years, from focusing on social justice and ESG issues to following the siren call of DTC. You’re going to have to accept AI as a reality and figure out how to use it to your advantage. And we’ve got your back through it all.
