2017 - the year that follows the year the world went mad

I think people will start to look more inwards. A step further than conscious consumerism, this will be an increased in shopping local or buying local. Liking brands that support communities and make us feel part of something collective. Localisation over globalisation from both foreign policy to the brands we buy.

Social media platforms will increase responsibility

Algorithm-based platforms have a role to diversify content, give us alternative views, help us to discover new stuff – brands, opinions and news. Fine to collate our news feeds for us, but with that comes the responsibility of ensuring you aren’t controlling opinion. 2017 will see a shift in both platform responsibility and our desire for new content and different opinions in our news feeds.

Thinking outside traditional demographics

The next generation will find it so weird that people had to ‘come out' to their parents. To sit them down and talk about sexual orientation will be laughable. As labelling decreases so will demographics. Marketers will no longer talk about demographic age or income brackets but rather product needs, purchase frequency & opinions/ desires. Please let’s stop with the term millennials. Everyone is over that. Especially millennials.

Audacity

I am stealing this one straight from the fashion industry. 'Audacity' is the buzzword for fashion in '17 according to Vogue. Brands will need to be bold, confident, daring and try to stand for something beyond conventional thought. Interesting to see how this will be expressed through our brand creative next year.

Intelligent marketing

Social media listening, creative testing, programmatic ad buying will be the go-to for clever marketers when leaving it to chance just won’t wash anymore. Brands are starting to cotton on to the media plan inventory issues and will start to demand that bespoke and tailored creative is matched by targeted and intelligent media plans. Programmatic TV will be the new TV.

More immersive experiences

Each year it’s the same and each year consumers want and demand more. And it’s a race to see which platform can create the most immersive experience of the year. But it’s not just a race for tech’s sake. Consumers want to feel deeper connections and they want their technology to enable more personal interaction. An ironic rebellion against the lack of emotion of social media by erm using more social media. Interesting to see who wins that war – Facebook or Snapchat.

Long term planning given equal priority as short term success

This is a hopeful one but I would love to see the back of short-termism. Research from Cannes using effectiveness data from IPA Effectiveness Awards entries, and creativity data from the Gunn Report showed that short-termism is the biggest threat to brands. There is so much temptation with social and digital data available instantly to see success against short term KPIs that we have forgotten that marketing is about growing brands too.

Positivity

We need it. And brands will need to be part of the solution.

Sarah McManus is at head of strategy at Media Bounty