5 Marketing Trends to Expect in 2021

Our predictions for brands in a post-pandemic, cookie-less world.

After the year we just had, predicting the future feels particularly overwhelming. However, there are some trends that will significantly affect the marketing practices in 2021. Here are the five major trends we are expecting:

 

A Cookie-less Future

A massive change is to come for online advertising. Google’s industry-leading browser will stop supporting third-party cookies by early 2022, which will significantly affect how digital ads are targeted and tracked. Yet, even among well-established, knowledgeable marketers, there is an ample confusion about how exactly digital campaigns will be affected.

This year we have a final chance to educate ourselves on what will be the impact of cookie-less future and how to prepare for it. The most important actions we need to take include improving the access to valuable first-party data and effectively utilising it, along with ensuring that a clear plan on how to successfully place and measure campaigns is created.

 

Post-pandemic world

Many experts have outlined that we are not going back to the economy we used to have – we are recovering but to a different one. Therefore, the key question for all businesses is: which of the new customer behaviours and expectation will remain for long time and which will fade? Answering this correctly allows any business to effectively allocate its resources.

We have clues to act on. A rising number of restaurants brands believe that the increased demand for home delivery services will stick and therefore, thus are investing more in operations like ghost kitchens where they offer only delivery or pickup. Post-pandemic, business leaders need to develop clear vision about their companies’ future and to decide whether to continue doing business as normally with related priorities or adapt to unexpected realities.

 

Ecommerce spike and Ad spend

The Covid-19 pandemic had driven a huge spike in ecommerce while also impacting the advertising budget allocation. Both of these changes are projected to continue in 2021. Big companies like Amazon have managed to attract more shoppers and significantly increase their ad sales. According to eMarketer, advertising on ecommerce platforms has increased with 39% in 2020 and is projected to grow with further 30% in 2021.

The main drive of this change is the effective measurement of advertisement campaigns. According to a spring study from Kantar and Catalyst, advertisers argue that leading ecommerce sites provide much better measurement of ad ROI than many other digital channels, including social media. Furthermore, ecommerce sites know a lot about their customer audience, which is key for ad targeting when not relying on third-party cookies.

 

Brand collaborations

The success of McDonald’s partnership with Travis Scott encouraged marketing teams with big budgets to renew their focus on celebrity collaborations in 2021. Additionally, we are expecting to see more brand-to-brand collaboration like Adidas’ partnership with Lego and Allbirds. Unexpected collaboration between brands capture media attention, generate social buzz and allow cross marketing to customer bases while avoiding the high fees of celebrity endorsement. This is crucial benefit for brands with tightened budgets in era where it is hard to capture customers’ attention.

 

Increased demand for brands to take a stand on social issues

During 2020 a new trend emerged – the increased desire of people to see brands take a stand on social issues. This interest crosses generations but it is mostly propelled by Gen Z. Considering that this generation is the future workforce we expect their voice to be louder than ever from both perspectives – employees and consumers. We have never seen a generation to be so demanding of their employers to demonstrate not only corporate social responsibility but also corporate social conscience. Hence, brand marketers are likely to feel inspired and compelled to push their companies to take meaningful stand on social issues.

 

We cannot stop the change, but we can take the most of it if we focus on the new opportunities offered withing the change. Now is the time to make sure we take full advantage of what’s to come in 2021.

 

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