Marketing Trends 2023: Amalgamation of Data, Digital, Technology, and Experience

Marketing Trends 2023: Amalgamation of Data, Digital, Technology, and Experience

As 2022 is counting the days to end, let’s look at the marketing trends that will help brands to get their marketing game a level up

Tanzila Shaikh | Mumbai | Dec 2, 2022

Every year brands are optimistic for a better year and expand their business through various tactics of marketing. Like 2022 was the year of normalcy coming back, brands who’ve shifted their ad and marketing spend on digital are returning to the traditional mediums of reaching people while still making noise on digital platforms.

We spoke to industry experts to understand how marketing is leveling up with the new year coming up. While it is clear that technology will lead the way and it will channel creativity to its full potential, experts also say that in-person experience will be appreciated more in the coming year.

2022 Wrapped 

Before moving towards the future, let's retrospect to recognize and acknowledge some of the popular trends of 2022 that ruled the world of marketing.

 For Shanshank Srivastava, Executive Director at Maruti Suzuki India Ltd, digital marketing was one of the trends that he saw and they have started investing more in it. While talking about the same he said, “For u, our efforts in the digital marketing front were at par. We were earlier using digital marketing for the lower funnel but now we have started doing doing for the upper funnel as well. It is working well when it comes to brand awareness and that has encouraged to invest more in it. It has created a great impact on the conversion rate with respect to the hyper-local programme that we’ve started.” He also said that they are majorly depending on first party data which will help them to personalize their services and this will continue in the coming year as well. 

One of the top marketers from a prominent edu-tech platform said on the topic of marketing trends in 2022 was data tracking. Analytical tools have been helping them in the last year to touch their target group. 

According to Ajay Maurya, Head of Marketing at Fastrack said that one of the leading trends that will catch up on 2023 is social commerce. Through social commerce as well as live commerce, it is easier for businesses to enable quick conversions. He said, “Tech nology has enabled us to perform direct marketing and direct selling easily. These terms were similar to myth earlier but now because of the developing technology, this is possible.”

While wooed by the technological advancement, Sanjeev Jasani, COO, Cheil India. said, “2022 saw the impact of AI in advertising in a big way. We saw a number of MarTech & AdTech solutions using AI to help brands connect better with their audiences. We even saw the impact of AI on content making it simpler for brands to develop and distribute digital video content. Speaking of Content, this was another successful trend that took off. We saw a lot of brands shifting to video content and focusing on their video marketing strategies. And finally I feel e-Commerce took off. With a lot of brands focusing on building a D2C strategy and also trying to leverage social commerce this place has started to heat up.”

Marketers also said that celebration of diversity and inclusivity is one of the big thing in today’s time. Having a sense of community is what people look out for. In context to the topic, Umashan Naidoo, Head Of Customer at; Beauty At Trent Ltd (Parent company of retail fashion chain Westside, said “In 2022, we launched initiatives such as NUON X, One Size Fits All, and Limitless – all of which celebrate women and their curves. We are really proud of building a community through this and we look forward to developing similar campaigns that motivate consumers to be outspoken and feel good about themselves in the future. We often have pop-ups at our stores or collaborate with Taj for our campaigns. Westside is not just a space to sell but to engage and build a community.”

The way forward

During 2022, after two years of being in the pandemic, the world was slowly stating to come back to normal while embracing the new-normal. Many industries that were struggling to function during the pandemic, were again seen crawled back to pre-pandemic business numbers. While 2023 has promising year for business as they are hopeful to recover fully from the losses they incurred during the two years of lockdown.

Contomer-centric Approach 

Sharing his though on the coming year, what it will be like for marketers, Sambit Dash, Partner, RPSG, said, “Some interesting trends are already emerging that’ll pick up in 2023, such as emerging brands moving from online only to an omni-channel approach. The approach is customer-centric, by making the brand available wherever the customer shops - online or offline. Whether it is a social media platform, a multi-brand outlet, Amazon or the brand’s own website or even WhatsApp, everything is going to serve as a retail outlet. The biggest drivers for ecommerce growth will be the Tier 2 and 3 cities. These places are home to aspirational millennials aware of brands, trends and needs, but under-served by physical retail. They will feature prominently on the horizon of online brands.”

He further said, “The third trend and a potentially impactful differentiator for those brands that can build it up, will be the growth of communities. We are already witnessing how enterprises, D2C startups, influencers and SMEs are building communities based on hobbies, preferences or other sentiments. These communities are thriving with two-way communication betweenbrands and buyers. That’s going to become bigger in 2023.  Lastly, brands are already experimenting with ultra-short format videos, and I expect that there will be a much wider use of short 6-, 10-, and 15 second videos that’ll do brand story-telling instead of just display an offer, to tease customers and draw them into connecting with the brands.”

Increasing tactics to create credibility 

On a different note, Ajeeta Bharadwaj, Chief Strategy Officer, Wondrlab, said, “The past few years have seen many categories explode with choices. New brands have launched and quickly scaled up, old brands have launched new lines. Now the battle is for the consumer’s mind, not just his wallet. That’s why I think that 2023 will see a returning focus on brand building. Brand trust will also become an important currency. A lot of new studies are showing the direct role that brand trust plays in positive consumer behaviors ranging from purchase to advocacy to defending the brand. Building brand trust means that the brand’s core purpose and working, needs to be communicated through everything that it says and does. So while brands continue to use different consumer engagement platforms, the focus will no more be on saliency at any cost, it will be on generating brand trust and brand love.”

“The second trend that will gather force in 2023, is that the so-called ‘back-stage of the brand’ will come more and more into the limelight. It won’t be just the product, but the company behind the product, the founders, the product philosophy, the way the employees are treated; that will influence consumer behavior. The fact that we are already seeing more and more founders feature in their brand’s communication or come before their consumers in some other capacity, is evidence to the fact that personal credibility will rub off on the brand’s credibility.”

At recently held, e4m-INCA Influencer Marketing Conference Finance Influencer Sharan Hegde also spoke about company’s stakeholder’s being the face of the company which help them to create more credibility amongst the consumers.

Leveraging Technology

Talking about the trends, Vivek Nair, Head - Brand Strategy & Marketing, Log9 Materials gave a very elaborated response. He said, “Voice-driven marketing coupled with data-driven personalization will prove to be a game changer in 2023 and beyond. With increased data getting accumulated, personalization will prove to be a make or break factor across various product categories.Thanks to Alexa, Siri and Google, from household widgets to luxury cars, everything awaits your voice command. The second trend is seamless integration between physical and digital touchpoints to continue to evolve in order to ensure the customer stays on from the point of discovery to the point of purchase. The third trend that I see is Mark Zuckerberg introduced the Metaverse in 2021, but the new-found universe wasn’t just about a glam experience. From product concept testing to larger than life experiences, brands will continue to explore the Metaverse in 2023, as it stands at the crossroads of multiple online and offline customer experience touchpoints.”

Purpose-Driven Marketing

Nair also said that purpose driven-marketing is the way forward. He said, “Purpose will continue to trump everything. With the GenZs proving to be the loudest influencers, brands will continue to look to their north-star and make their reason of existence the fulcrum of every story narrated. The brand purpose will manifest across each touch point encompassing communication, experience and transaction. Climate change will find its due space amidst pitch decks and brand briefs. Though an overused word, sustainability will ncreasingly prove to be a differentiator between the ‘brand I like’ and ‘brand I will buy from’. From business strategy to the way products are manufactured, consumers today do not just flip the package to look for price but to also see how the product was manufactured and brought to them.”

From Mahi way to Meme-way 

Meme marketing has becoming an integral part of brand communication as it relates majorly with the younger generation. Talking about meme-marketing becoming an evolving trend in 2023, Piali Dasgupta, Senior Vice President – Marketing, Columbia Pacific Communities, “Meme marketing, led by food delivery apps such as Swiggy and Zomato along with Netflix, creator-led marketing initiatives, causevertising (ie, brands backing an important social cause, such as Dove’s #StopTheBeautyTest, the Cadbury Diwali ad or the recent Bournvita #forcedpacks campaign), testimonial-led performance ads by D2C brands”

She further The Gen-Z is an extremely smart lot. We don’t give them enough credit. They can sniff out bullsh** in minutes and have no interest in brands that don’t stand for the larger good of society. So, be authentic, have the right intent. Believe in doing good for the earth instead of just chasing profits and walk the talk - and you will win over the Gen-Z customer. Also, don’t be preachy. That never sits well with the under-25 audience.”

As the world is evolving and people are more connected through the advancement of technology, still there are some legacy brands who are not able to keep with this fast-paced changing tech-environment. Advicing brands to catch up with this, Shobha Vasudevan, Head - Enterprise Communications and PR, Dell said, “Devising a strong strategy is the most efficient way to not only communicate the brand’s overall messaging, but also ensure that these messages reach the people in the most interesting, relatable, and easy-to-understand formats. Currently, communication technologies are enabling out-of-the-box ideas for brands to reach their target audiences. Be it AI, VR, or a metaverse event - with audiences responding well to impactful campaigns, technology-driven communication is set to become competitive. For brands who want to see success for their campaigns, leveraging new trends would be critical. While conventional tactics are helping, they do have their limitations in the current age of communications.”