While we were searching the internet the other day, we came across a super interesting article!
The article, published March 4 of 2015, is titled, “25 Predictions For What Marketing Will Look Like In 2020”.
Now, not only did we have a good chuckle because, well lets be honest, none of us could have predicted 2020 would be ANYTHING like this, but we also found it to be a time capsule of sorts. In March of 2015, StrategyNest was barely 6 months old and working with our clients, and some of our current employees hadn’t even graduated from high school yet!
For these reasons, we decided we had to go through some of the predictions and see how true, or completely off base, their guesses were as we currently round out the end of 2020.
Let’s take a look…
1. “Mobile will enable more personal interactions between brands and people.”
- Our Verdict: Yes! All digital marketing tools have been able to allow both customers to interact with brands and vice versa! This has helped each side learn more about one another.
2. “Most branded content will come from consumers.”
- Our Verdict: Kind of! While we agree that UGC has increased a great deal, but we wouldn’t go as far as to say it consumes “most” of the content. But it also depends on the company! We believe this will continue to grow in the coming years as well.
3. “Consumers expect more information from the brands they use and they expect brands to do good - doing good will be good for business.”
- Our Verdict: Yes! We have seen this grow tremendously in the past few years. With so much access to information nowadays, customers expect companies to be transparent with them. That includes doing good and standing up for what is right. Especially in 2020, this has been crucial. We have seen some companies fall for failing to do so.
4. “There will be a shift from talking at the world to making the world talk.”
- Our Verdict: Yes! This is very much true with media forms like social media, reviewing sites, etc. that give customers a voice – though nobody has to “make” the world talk, people are doing it now more than ever willingly!
5. “Rise of video and video sharing.”
- Our Verdict: YES! Does this need much of an explanation?
6. “Virtual reality has become real.”
- Our Verdict: Kind of! While we are aware that virtual reality is absolutely real right now, we have not seen it make its way into the marketing world as of yet. Lets say another 5 years?
7. “Connected everything: homes, TVs, cars, jet engines, locomotives, wearables, lights.”
- Our Verdict: Yes! Everything in our lives is connected – think apple watches to phones and phones to houses and cars. This has been something that has maybe grown the most on this list. Convenience is so important now!
8. “No more social.”
- Our Verdict: No way!!!! Again, does this need much of an explanation? Do we think social will ever go away? If so, when? We do not foresee this happening any time soon.
9. “Perfect end-to-end attribution (or knowing exactly what messages and actions led someone to buy a product) will remain an industry white whale.”
- Our Verdict: Kind of! With the growth of analytics and the platforms marketers have access to, along with good ole’ trial and error, we have been able to attribute a great deal more than we used to. But, with marketing, there may always be a bit of mystery when it comes to certain attributions. I guess you can say that’s what keeps things interesting!
10. “Measurement of campaign success will change.”
- Our Verdict: Yes! Everyone’s measurement of success is different. It used to be primarily how many likes you got, how many followers you have, etc – this has grown substantially! There are a great deal of ways to measure success – it all depends on your ending goals.
Now it’s your turn! What do you think about these predictions? And what do you think about our verdicts? Do you have an predictions for 5 years from now in 2025? Comment below!