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Brand behaviour plays a game of cat and mouse with whatever is happening in the world around us. 

Most brands follow the zeitgeist. 

Some act in a way that shapes it.

Brand trends in 2024 are a mixed bag. Some trends will simply build on the momentum of trends that are already being shaped while others could surprise us.

One of the trends that will shape brand narratives as we roll into 2024 is brevity. In anticipation of that trend, this will be as concise as possible. If you want to dig deeper into any one of these trends, reach out and we’re happy to provide more context.

Trend 1: Authen-tick

What makes audiences tick? There is a sea of faceless brands and sterile products out there so the ones with a real story stand a better chance of engaging the curiosity of our audiences.

Brands that show authenticity and transparency will come across as human. As we recoil from the overwhelming wave of tech that is cresting, authenticity delivers a clear differentiating factor over brands that are so large that they inevitably collapse into a diffuse narrative of corporate speak and hollow promises.

As always, it is great to lead with benefits. We are, after all, selfish creatures. But we don’t form long-term relationships with benefits alone. For us to form an emotional relationship there needs to be authenticity and a narrative that we can identify with. This will be more important as we enter a period of uncertainty about what is human and what isn’t.

The great thing about this trend is that the majority of brands started with a great story. Sometimes, all it takes is to step back and turn to the original reason for the brand to exist, building an authentic narrative around this in a way that suits the audiences and channels of today.

Trend 2: Immersion 

We are finally entering the golden age of omnichannel brands. VR and AR are one consumer product away from changing the way we interact with the world around us again.

As the porosity of the wall between IRL and virtual experiences continues to increase, the possibilities for brands to be where the audiences are in a rich and immersive way are also in plentiful supply.

Omnichannel immersion is not the death knell for retail. We’ve seen the way consumers behave when a new channel is made available. Online retail did not kill IRL retail. On the contrary, the two channels are entirely complementary. For some, while the final purchase is online, in-store interaction is a decisive factor. Others prefer to browse online and then make a purchase IRL. 

This hybrid is a reflection of who we are as a species. Individually we might have defined preferences but as a whole we are beautifully messy and often unpredictable.

So, while I might want to use AR to see what a pair of Danish speakers will look like in my living room, I will most likely visit a brand store for the final purchase.

VR will add a significantly immersive layer to the spread of experiences available to consumers. With Apple making inroads and Meta stepping up their hardware game at consumer-friendly pricing, 2024 could be the year that sees VR finally become a mainstream reality. And the brands that are ready and waiting will be the ones with significant first-mover advantage.

Trend 3: Personal-AI-zation

As marketers, we have access to huge amounts of data. We also have unprecedented access to very, very intelligent machines. Together, they usher the era of hyper-personalised marketing.

This is not new. We have been progressing, in fits and starts, towards the hallowed audience-of-one. What we have at the output end is machines that can converse in language that approaches that of an average person. This brings conversational marketing for personal customer interaction to the masses. 

The AI-powered customer service rep that’s tuned to our specific personality could finally be the rep that we will actually like.

The gold rush of 2024 will be shaped by those who make the most creative use of the technologies that are flooding our landscape to harness the data that’s already available to us.

Trend 4: Diversity, Equity & Inclusiveness (DE&I)

We have been feeling our way around on these values. Most brands can be accused of missteps but we are finally making proper headway.

While many larger companies thought it was fine to pay lip service to DE&I, consumers are now demanding that these values be more than a marketing campaign. The thinking in the boardroom must wholly embrace a more equitable view of the world and this is the way beliefs are changed. This is the way beliefs lead to appropriate behaviour and communication. This is how everyone feels represented and respected.

Of course, there will be those that attempt to buck the trend – the right-wing  anti-woke will dig in and make their voice heard. And the stronger this faction digs in, the better for the trend in favour of DE&I because contrast is a powerful driver of perception.

Trend 5: Sustainability / Ethical practice

The idea of putting all the ‘doing good’ into one bucket and hoping for the best is slowly going out of the window. We are splitting environmental and ethical manufacture from social issues and, in the longer term, there will be even more fragmentation. 

This is a good thing.

We rebranded CSR to ESG when CSR was seen for what it truly is. CSR was a bolt-on set of activities that companies paid for to divert attention from the truth about their activity. And ESG will also see its day but it won’t be this year.

2024 will see even more demand for sustainable practices as consumers put their money where their mouth is. More and more consumers state that they are prepared to pay more for a product that is ethically manufactured. And once consumers put their hands in their pockets, brands will deliver on the demand.

Trend 6: Less is again more

This has more to do with brand expression, with a particular emphasis on visual identity and brand communication. Historically, we have gone in cycles that broadly swing from maximal to minimal. The excesses of Art Deco gave way to a pared back Art Nouveau. The gradients of the nineties were replaced by flat vector illustration when we’d had enough of it. 

It appears as though we’re diving right back into the minimal end of the cycle. This means a search for memorability through symbolism and meaning rather than maximalism, with strong colour palettes to keep the excitement going.

This ties in with the overall fatigue that could very well be afflicting our audiences. With so much going on all the time, a minimal approach to visual expression could present itself as a soothing break from the constant visual stimulation.

Trend 7: Get shorty

One more expression of the trends that are in favour of brevity and minimalism is the rise of the micro-moment – short videos, memes, tiny brand experiences, and other snack-sized pieces of content that serve as a little distraction.

To be more specific, microinteractions give a little dose of instant gratification – they deliver a tiny shot of dopamine that keeps audiences’ attention focused. 

Micro-moments can take the form of a clever or unusual CTA, cute error messages, unusual UI behaviours, or any form of little reward that is at least mildly surprising or unexpected.

Trend 8: Purpose-full

More than ever before, purpose-driven brands will be the ones that emerge victorious in 2024. This is a trend that’s adjacent to authenticity but it is not the same thing. Brands that are led by purpose more than anything else are visibly committed to their reason for existence.

This drives a clear sense of focus in the minds of its audiences. A brand that digs deep into its reason for existence and acts purely in accordance with this purpose is one that is evidently out for more than profit. 

Of course, without profit a brand cannot exist. 

But that cannot be its only goal.

Too many brands lose their way after a while. These are the ones we vaguely remember but don’t consider as part of our lives any more. 

A few brands keep their purpose alive. Think of Toms, Lego, The Body Shop, GoPro, and other brands that have been unwavering over decades. These are the ones we have a continued relationship with. They are the brands we think of as having a clear space in our minds. They benefit from the almighty one-two combo of focus and differentiation. We know their place in our lives and we know what makes them different from every other brand in their space. These are purpose-driven brands.

Why do brand trends matter so much going into 2024?

While it is always important for brands to be fully in tune with their purpose at all times, it counts more when the going gets tough. 

The spectre of an economic downturn is looming. 

We’d be reckless to ignore the metrics and hope for the best. In times of strife, our audiences are more cautious with their purchases and will limit these to those entities they feel they can have a personal connection with – the entities that have a clear resolve.

The Wildcard

This is not really a trend for 2024. It is more a hopeful speculation based on the way we see the world around us.

Take this with a bucket of salt. 

But if you are responsible for a brand that has clout, think about it as a possibility.

Never has there been so much technological and economic advancement. And yet, all this plenty isn’t having the impact it should on our environment, on economic equanimity, and on social justice.

In the absence of the political will to address these issues, a handful of brands out there are taking matters into their own hands and driving the change they would like to see around them. We are privileged to work with a couple of clients that think this way and it drives us to do some of our best work. Even if this ‘trend’ is no more than a little stir, it is a start.

Brand Trends 2024: Wrapping it all up

2024 will see brands look inwards for a good look at their purpose and the truth behind the stories they tell. It will also see brands look outwards at the preferences of their audiences and put more focus on brevity and short-term gratification. 

Bringing these two viewpoints together will be the mighty and unstoppable force that emerging technologies are bringing with them – AI and A/V/XR giving us unprecedented granularity and immersion.

The post Brand Trends 2024 appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

If you haven’t opened Twitter for a couple of days, we invite you to do so now: just log onto the webpage, and look in the upper left corner. If you’re seeing the new logo for the first time, sit with it for a moment. 

This is the new phase of Twitter, one that’s moving forward without its eponymous blue bird. 

For twelve years, Twitter has been the place where people went to talk. Then Jack Dorsey left, Elon Musk took over, and the new vision for Twitter has been in play since then. A little over one year into his tenure as Twitter CEO, the first of some massive, divisive changes have rolled out – and it started before the blue bird’s departure. 

Here’s what it means for your business, and what we’re looking at for the future. 

Twitter: A Timeline

Let’s go back to the beginning. 

2006: Twitter launches and CEO Jack Dorsey sends the first tweet. 

2007: The South by Southwest conference sees a ballooning of Tweets from 20,000 per day to 60,000 per day, starting a period of cascading growth. 

2008: Hashtags are officially supported. 

2010: Twitter launches ‘promoted tweets’, kicking off its potential as an advertising platform, though it never quite catches on. 

2011: Twitter overhauls its design. 

2012: Twitter purchases Vine, a shortform video platform, bumping its rating up to 17+ in Apple’s app store. 

2013: Twitter launches Twitter Music, an app for the iPhone. 

2014: Twitter announces the release of new anti-harassment tools to combat one of its main growing issues – rampant abuse on the platform.

2015: Twitter showcases its new marketing platform partners, opening up the opportunity for marketers to target ads to specific audiences. Tweets are now seen in Google’s search results. 

2016: Vine discontinued and the Twitter Dashboard, its business app, is shut down. 

2017: Twitter launches the Explore tab, combining their trends, live video streams, search, and Moments, a way for people to get an overview of important tweets or threads. 

2018: Jack Dorsey testifies before the Senate about election meddling for the 2016 elections alongside current Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. 

2019: Twitter reveals that it has suspended 4,800 accounts linked to the Iran government. 

2022: Elon Musk takes over Twitter. 

That brings us to 2023. Here’s an overview of all the platform’s changes from the beginning of the year to now. 

January: 

• Third-party API access is revoked. This means apps and websites that relied on third-party APIs to share content to and from Twitter, such as WordPress, no longer function. (For WordPress, this was later fixed, but other third-party APIs are still inoperable). 

February: 

• Twitter aims to change its ad targeting to function like Google’s search ads. 
• Further layoffs were executed, continuing the trend from November 2022. 
• The Twitter algorithm is changed to boost Elon Musk’s personal tweets by a factor of 1000. 

March: 

• The Twitter press team stops responding to enquiries. Elon Musk announces that all press communications will be auto-responded with ?.
• Twitter releases its algorithm to the public on Github. 

April: 

• New labels are launched for state-affiliated media, which are applied to broadcasting companies such as NPR, BBC, and PBS – notably not state-affiliated. 
• Verification is now a paid service under Twitter Blue. 
• Cessation of the policy to label state-affiliated media, including for Chinese and Russian state media. 

June:

• Measures were implemented to limit the amount of tweets that could be seen per day. 

July: 

• Twitter is rebranded and renamed ‘X’.  

Is the Twitter rebrand that bad?

It’s too early to tell if it’ll be bad or good for Twitter. 

What we can say is this: 

In 2013, the Oxford English Dictionary expanded its definition of ‘tweet’ – a word in use since the 1800s – to specifically refer to posting on Twitter. When a brand has become so entrenched in daily life that it becomes part of daily conversation to the point where it introduces a new word into the lexicon, it’s powerful. Only a few brands have managed it successfully – we Google things, we retweet someone’s opinion, we check out someone’s Insta. 

We can also say this: Twitter’s recognisability as a brand is a poisoned chalice. Yes, it has the reputation of being the public town square – a place where you go to learn. A lot of historical events played out on Twitter, and people around the world had a front row seat to them via updates from verified sources. 

Think of the Ukrainian war. Think of the Black Lives Matters protests. Think of the January 6th riots on the Capitol. 

But here’s the other side of it: Twitter also has a notable reputation for being a place where content moderation is fast and loose, and harassment is particularly bad and something they’ve been struggling to control since 2015, to limited efficacy.

Rebranding to X will not necessarily remove that negative reputation – but if you’re playing the long game, it’s possible it could help. 

Now that the Twitter brand is dead, is it the end of the platform for good?

It’s possible, but it’s also unlikely. 

Social media platforms that have grown and grown to Twitter’s size and userbase have a unique selling point that other social media platforms just don’t have. The reason they’ve managed to grow so much is because of that unique selling point – and it’s what Twitter still has going for it, even with the rebrand, even with all the API changes, even with the declining interest by advertisers. 

Twitter is losing money. Twitter has always been losing money. It’s never managed to achieve the same advertising revenue as Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok, or Youtube – but it’s far from being the only social media platform that haemorrhages money. Tumblr and Reddit, two of the most popular platforms, also lose significant cash.  

Elon Musk’s divisive practices have hastened the dropping user numbers, but Twitter is still functioning, Twitter still has people using it as their primary platform, and Twitter is unlikely to go away overnight. 

And that unique selling point is why: no other site does microblogging quite as well. The new ones that have cropped up – Mastodon, Bluesky, Misskey – are still too new to see whether or not they’ll be any good. 

Twitter was a very good platform for artists to advertise their products. It was a platform where journalists crowdsourced information that would otherwise be difficult to obtain. We watched elections play out on Twitter, coordinated information from countries where obtaining information was difficult. 

Twitter’s reputation was never great, but it was never any worse than other social media platforms. 

And what it had in spades was brand equity. 

With the rebrand, that recognition is gone. 

But the general consensus on the platform itself is this: whatever it’s going to be called, it’s still Twitter in their minds. 

Facebook went through something similar – although officially it’s now called Meta, people still use Facebook to refer to the company at large, and the scandals that plagued Facebook to begin with followed them through. If it is an attempt to wipe the slate clean of Twitter’s previous issues and start anew, it’s not a gambit that works well when the issues are big enough. 

What about the idea of an everything app?

Allegedly, part of the rebrand is because Twitter wants to move into becoming the Western equivalent of an everything app – similar to WeChat, in China. 

The theory is sound. Several apps do more than one thing: Tiktok, for example, allows you to show their products within the app. 

Where it might falter is in practice. 

Forget the difficulties of creating a secure payment service that will work with X. Forget the server impacts of turning Twitter into an app where you can do everything – hosting images, videos, longform content, mini apps. 

Regulators don’t want Western tech companies to know so much of your information. European privacy laws alone would slice Twitter’s everything app to ribbons. WeChat in China is a case study that might not be possible to repeat outside of China, and it’s all because of the legal ramifications of data privacy and breaking up tech monopolies. 

Beyond that, Twitter’s reputation comes back into play for this – consumers just don’t trust the app itself in its current state. To launch an everything app that can do, well, everything, there needs to be a baseline belief in the app to perform those functions well, and for Twitter, that doesn’t seem to exist. 

Twitter was the place where academics could talk about their research, journalists could speak freely, and internet users could go somewhere that wasn’t bloated down with ads and sponsors the way Meta apps were.

It has also been the place you go to to vent about small things, things that were on your mind but didn’t merit the effort of a Facebook post, things that you could complain about in peace to the global public.

That opinion hasn’t shifted, even under the Musk leadership. 

What else could happen with the rebrand?

Here’s the thing: it’s so early to tell what could happen with the rebrand that opinions vary greatly.

Let’s see what the team has to say: 

Ed

It is too early. One thing we have learned in the world of tech is to never say never. Of course, the regulatory hurdles in the way of achieving the new vision for X are significant, driven by a slumbering bureaucratic giant that the EU keeps ballooning into. Do I agree with wiping out billions in brand equity by killing the Twitter name? I find that a hard one to swallow in these early days. Will the brand X ever rebuild that equity? It really depends on how users take to the platform if they steadily increase the time spent in-app. That’s up to the unpredictable misfiring of Musk’s brain and the team he appoints to steward the brand and the product as it boldly goes where other apps have gone before. And knowing who is behind it, the outcome will either be a catastrophic failure we’d enjoy watching from a distance or a success we couldn’t possibly have predicted. As always, it’s up to us to keep an open mind and a watchful eye. This way we retain the agility to make the best of either situation.

Lisa

This really doesn’t affect me, I’ve never really paid attention to Twitter. But, looking at both logos side by side, the new one looks much less welcoming. I’m wondering if that’s a reflection of a new policy. As a completely unbiased outsider I’m interested to see how this is going to pan out, changing the brand at this stage after you’ve built so much equity could go either way, and it’s probably going to be wildly entertaining whichever way it goes.

Kim

I think we need diversity online as much as we need it in the real world. With Elon Musk taking over so many organisations that we use frequently and practically live on, I feel like that has the effect of flattening out the overall feel of these brands and our online experience. I think Twitter as a brand, with its cute blue bird, represented something that still had some form of diversity in it. With the ‘X’ rebrand and its echoing of so many other tech-obsessed brand imagery and ethos, I feel like it’s taken what Twitter might stand for for a lot of people, and chucked it out the window. With any kind of monopoly, we run the risk of homogenising the type of messaging and voices we’re exposed to, and instead of providing a platform for diversity it becomes one where only those opinions that fit within the brand’s idea will be favoured. Think of Disney and its hold on the media we consume; it has shaped a lot of our thinking in a way that’s probably more vanilla, conservative, and binary than it is (or should be) in real life.

Luke

This is definitely not how I pictured the Twitter brand meeting its downfall. Even though it had its struggles, it was an incredibly valuable resource and entertainment hub, especially with the improvements that were being made in recent years to the way misinformation was being handled. It formed part of a very select group of brands that had their name turned into a verb – I Xeroxed, Googled, Hoovered, Tweeted. I see this as the definitive end of this social media platform as we know it, and X is going to be a different beast altogether. But the beauty of the internet is that the real-estate is endless. The communities that inhabit it remain basically the same, and will flock from place to place like a cat fitting into different cardboard boxes. The question for businesses is, where will they flock to next if they don’t like the further inevitable changes that Musk is going to implement in the coming years?

Cam

Underneath the rebrand is a new direction for the social platform. Twitter has been a great resource for people needing to share info in situations where sharing information is throttled (like in the 2023 Turkish elections) – I’m afraid that the direction Musk is taking the platform in is diametrically opposite to this freedom of speech. 

Ernesta

The recent rebrand feels very hasty to me for a few reasons. One, it literally happened overnight without much warning. Nothing wrong with that, if it’s done well, though. Secondly, it doesn’t seem that the whole platform and processes were ready for it – the rollout of the brand seems to be lagging across platforms and devices. Three, the new logo. Using a single character from an existing font on a flat black background feels totally rushed, low-budget and quite disappointing, considering how much time, thought and effort it takes to develop a strong visual brand identity. And I have to agree with Lisa, it does not feel inviting at all. It gives that ‘taken over by the dark side’ vibe.

Andrea

I’ve followed very little at this point, and I can’t say i used twitter regularly. But, I think, we’re still looking at a logo and have not seen the overall impact of the changes that are coming to the platform. Personally, I think the biggest shock is coming from the shift from an approachable blue bird to a very ‘masculine’ X plastered on black. Can such a large platform make many drastic changes at one go? Probably not – so I think, or hope, that we are not seeing the full picture yet. For the sake of my homescreen, I hope that there’s more work to be done on the X though. 

Sam

I have never really been a Twitter user, so I don’t feel too strongly about this. I did notice that the new logo looks a lot more bland, cold, and doesn’t stand out compared to the old logo. The old logo was very distinguishable and easy to tell that it belonged to Twitter. If someone saw the new logo without knowing about the change, I don’t think they would know what brand it belongs to. I do think that rebranding is giving them a presence in the press and gets people’s attention because it will be talked about. Even though it might not be positive awareness, it is awareness, nonetheless. However, once the talk about this shift blows over, their equity might continue to decline, especially with the recent introduction of Threads. Ultimately, I think it might be too soon to forecast the direction of Twitter’s future. 

Thomas

I find it hard to believe Musk’s goal of making X the WeChat of the West will come to fruition. WeChat is notoriously used as a tool for spying on the Chinese by the government, something that will encounter a lot of resistance on our side of the world, especially with the EU’s stringent personal protection laws. Besides that, the conglomeration of all aspects of services offered by WeChat could never fly in the West with competition and anti-market-dominance laws.

Ranson

Look, Twitter has always been kind of THE place for a bit of craziness (Degeneracy is a strong word, although I wanted to use it), however, it has always been the place for news, whistleblowers, leakers and entertainment. I used to use it to get information about things before Youtube, Instagram and the news could report about it. I figure that that specific use will still not stop. 

Like Ed said, the change is ultimately unpredictable. The same person who made this decision made Paypal and Tesla into the giants they are today. So it could kind of make sense to wipe Twitter as a whole. But as Luke said, it became a verb, it’s a very exclusive and strong brand equity that’s hard to compete with. To say that they’re venturing into the deep is an understatement. My opinion is that the whole decision will be beneficial for reputation, however, it will bear fruit in the far future, which may be too late because of Tiktok and their increasing influence.

What does this mean for businesses?

At this not much. Could Twitter become the next hot thing in business advertising? Eh. Its purpose as an everything app sort of precludes the idea that you can use it for advertising, and while it’s trying to package something of LinkedIn in its new direction, Twitter is probably going to remain fundamentally Twitter. 

That doesn’t mean it’s bad for business. It just means you might need a different way of approaching how you use Twitter – and that’s fine. 

Twitter’s not going anywhere yet. We think it’s not going to go anywhere for a long time, rebrand notwithstanding. After that – who knows? The story’s changing quickly. 

But we’ll be keeping up with it. This kind of shift doesn’t happen often – and if Twitter really does succeed in changing to an everything app, it could definitely open up avenues for a new kind of marketing. 

For now, it’s time to watch and wait. 

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