The year 2022 has been a turning point for India's marketing sector, full of innovative ideas like vernacular content, partnerships, celebrity collaborations, OTT commercials, live streaming, personalised ads, etc. We have seen how digital has developed into a crucial channel for customer engagement and conversion and new customer acquisition.
The aim of a brand can be smoothly communicated through advertising. For brand teams that must navigate from creativity, a significant problem is a requirement to strike a balance between the objective and impactful execution in a way that is appropriate for culture and society.
When it comes to marketing trends in 2023, the market is all set for a significant change. Here are some trends to watch out for this year—
Influencer marketing—
With the advent of 2023, media is getting fragmented along with the shorter attention span which arises the need of creating short-video content. Influencer marketing is getting big and digital spreads even more. Now is the time when the consumer wants to hear from alike people with some categories more susceptible to influencer marketing than others, for example, personal care.
“2022 has been a game changer in the influencer and content marketing ecosystem, with more influencers getting added each day and creating content regardless of regions in India. We also saw the evolution of influencers/creators turning entrepreneurs through building brands that align with their ethos and personality and it is only expected to grow multifold hereon. While ASCI guidelines were in place with regards to influencer mandates, the recent rollout on influencer tax has further legitimised the monetisation through brand collaborations,” explained Ramya Ramachandran, Founder & CEO, Whoppl.
She added that reflecting on the exponential growth trajectory of the influencer marketing industry-live commerce, one-on-one selling, virtual shopping etc is only expected to grow exponentially moving forward, with content fronting it all. The Creator economy will see more investments with more creators wanting to curate their own brands.
Short videos—
Amitek Sinha, Co-founder & COO, ET Medialabs on being asked how has the marketing trends evolved, said that in 2022, Video ads saw a drastic rise. There are several reasons why video advertisements might perform better than static creative. One of them is, it is easier to convey a message to your TG with help of a video, there is more you can show to make your idea come across more effectively.
Vernacular creatives also took an important place. Brands realised there was no better language to employ than their own if they needed to address various audiences and cultures.
The post-pandemic time saw a huge rise in Influencer marketing. Because of the increased popularity of content creation, marketers tried to employ influencer marketing to the fullest extent possible. Brands used this chance to connect with their TG because influencers frequently have large followings and a direct impact on their audiences.
Not only that, but after the pandemic, the content shared on Instagram also observed a drastic shift, with the introduction of Reels.
Within a few months of its launch, most users started creating reels and even brands started showing a preference for reels. Over the past year, search interest for Instagram Reels has eclipsed that of Instagram Stories, reaching peak popularity around the first week of 2022. Every day there are around 6 million reels being uploaded. Further, with the constant changes in Instagram algorithm, content creators observed how Instagram was only pushing reels, and static images were no longer getting the reach they previously got. Moving forward reels will definitely continue to perform well.
MarTech—
The integration of marketing and technology, often known as "MarTech," is projected to experience rapid expansion as India's digital economy grows stronger. Data integration, analytics, and process automation are all seen to play a far more major part in MarTech, which also helps to boost marketing productivity.
“With the advances made on anvils like 5G penetration and the rise of more immersive and interactive experiences like AR(Augmented Reality) & VR (Virtual Reality), I strongly believe Marketing data warehousing, Immersive content, Hyper personalised innovation and AI-based chatbot interactions will get a lot of user acceptance due to their fairly robust ecosystem,” stated Shashank Sharma, Co-founder & CEO, Expedify.
Artificial intelligence (AI) and Machine language (ML) based marketing will become more seamless as they will able to analyse deep learning algorithms and be able to integrate key data into their strategies and craft personalised messages for customers.
Metaverse—
One of the most discussed trends in digital marketing is the metaverse. The term "metaverse" is used to refer to a wide range of immersive virtual experiences that take place online, typically in social settings. Numerous well-known corporations, including Starbucks and Nike, have announced metaverse experiences. Even though there is a lot of excitement about the metaverse, the majority of enterprises do not yet have use cases or returns on their investments that are real-world.
Experiments with Metaverse, virtual reality and avatars of existing celebrities and influencers are seen carried out at a nastage stage in India.
Web3.0—
Web 3.0, sometimes known as Web3, is the most recent version of the World Wide Web. Web 3.0 includes both semantic web technology and artificial intelligence.
The idea of "Web 3 Marketing" looks at the web by concentrating on new trends and technological developments. Not only is the Internet evolving, but it is also changing. Websites and SEO are only a small portion of web 3.0 marketing. The better user experience capabilities of Web 3.0 marketing enable advertisers to explore a completely new area of creative advertising and marketing. Web3 gives content creators full ownership by giving them total control over their output. As a result, advertisers will use new and improved methods to promote goods and services on well-known social media websites like Meta, YouTube, Instagram, etc.
Are the trends same In global market?
Many of these trends are global like there are big investments made in Metaverse globally.
On this, Gunjan Khetan, CMO, Perfetti Van Melle India, opined, “One big distinction between developed markets and India has been the critical role of digital. In India, you still need to use TV to deliver reach while in some of these global markets, a good digital-first strategy is sometimes more powerful than a TV-first strategy.”