Most studies on social media usage and metrics tend to look at audiences present in much bigger countries, and some of those results can be difficult to apply to Maltese businesses, Maltese consumers, and Maltese behaviours. With the benefit of a much broader range of responses behind them, global studies predict behaviours that might take a longer time to get to Malta – and in this, the studies that we can use to predict local behaviour are limited. 

There’s a way around it, of course. 

You can create your own survey. 

Here’s one we prepared earlier, and what it means for your business. 

The survey

Our aim was to understand how consumers use social media. 

Social media plays an important role in businesses around the world: it’s become a significantly important e-commerce platform, brand building tool, and a communication method between businesses and consumers. It’s also become an early way to predict what’s going to happen in the future. 

People talk. Those conversations happen everywhere, but a lot of them happen online, and those online conversations are how we can tell what’s going to happen to businesses in the future, what trends will emerge as the year closes out and a new one begins, and how to work within what the early signs are telling you. 

For this survey, we had an additional aim: to produce a report that would highlight Malta’s unique perspective on social media. As a small island, finding statistics that apply to us specifically can be a struggle. 

So we ran a survey, and collected answers through Facebook. 

Now, we have our own report to look at. 

Here’s what we found out. 

Less than 40% of 13- to 17-year-olds use Facebook multiple times a day.

Ages 25 – 34 use Facebook most frequently, with 27.5% checking Facebook multiple times a day, followed by 35 – 44 at 20.83%. 

Facebook has a 93.1% penetration rate in Malta. This means that mostly everyone uses Facebook, and more than that: they use it to find out what their favourite businesses are doing, and they use it often.

Except if they’re younger. If they’re younger, Facebook usage in that age group is down. For 13-17 year olds, the most popular platforms to use constantly are Instagram (74.4%), Tiktok (69.2%), and Youtube (44.7%). 

What does this mean for your business?

If you’re not catering to this audience, not a lot – you can go ahead and keep doing what you’re doing if all you’re interested in is short-term sales. 

However, if you’re looking to build your brand, this is a statistic you want to keep an eye on. Facebook might be serving you well right now to attract consumers with the disposable cash to make purchasing decisions, but omitting the importance of the 13-17 age group is a mistake: they’re going to come into their own money eventually, and it’ll be a lot harder to build a connection with clients who don’t know you from their formative years. While it isn’t impossible, nostalgia is a huge connecting point for consumers – and it’s one you need to keep in mind. 

What should you do about it?

Start working on brand representation on other platforms as quickly as you can. This audience in particular needs time and dedication to address correctly – but they’re an audience with a high pay-off when you give them enough time to come to terms with who you are as a brand. 

7/10 13 – 17 year olds use Tiktok multiple times a day.

Tiktok’s hold on the younger generation is well-documented – and Malta hasn’t escaped the wave of Gen Z turning to Tiktok as their primary social media platform, but it goes beyond using Tiktok as a social media platform. From search engine to communication device to source of entertainment, Tiktok’s tiny communities have created real-world consequences for brands: Vaseline has become synonymous with good skincare, makeup brands are struggling to keep ‘Tiktok famous’ products in stock, and companies can build their reputation overnight with one well-memed video. 

What does this mean for your business?

It depends on how early you want to start building up your audience. For most brands, 13-17 is a segment of audience that has limited access to funds that will allow them to purchase your products, and therefore if your business objective is purely to turn a profit, creating a Tiktok profile might not be something that meets that business objective. However, building a brand connection to a younger generation is not necessarily a waste of your time: on the other hand, if that connection has already been put into place before the audience is ready to purchase, you’ll find that the nostalgia factor can prove useful in the long term. 

What should you do about it?

Creating a Tiktok account is not going to waste your time – but if you’re not ready to take that plunge, then you can look into the current trends on Tiktok instead, or consider Tiktok as another marketing platform to take advantage of. There are influencers who will market your products to their audiences, and it’s worth looking into if you’re interested in using Tiktok, but not quite ready to add another social media platform to your list.

⅔ of consumers trust brands more than influencers. 

How likely are you to trust communication about a brand/service from the brand itself?

Influencers were – and still are – a brand staple for a number of reasons: brands tend to struggle to communicate on a human level with consumers, and influencers put a relatable human face on a brand in a way that is difficult to emulate when it’s a corporation speaking. However, influencer burnout is real – and while megainfluencers have already felt the pinch in bigger markets, in Malta it’s only just started to take hold. 

Part of this is because Malta is a smaller country, and so we have far fewer influencers to use. Anyone who has reached the point where they are a recognisable face might already have become old news according to consumers, and consumers who have a specific dislike for that influencer may be repelled away from the brand that aligns itself to them. 

What does this mean for your business? 

If you’re already investing in influencer marketing, you need to take a look at who you’re using. If you have a tendency to choose the same influencers for your campaigns, it might be worth revisiting if those influencers are the right ones to align with your brand. 

What should you do about it? 

Influencer marketing can be effective, so you need to figure out how it’s going to be effective for you. Take a look at your audience: who’s most likely to resonate with them? Is the big-name influencer with a dedicated following that’s been in business for years, or would they relish seeing a fresh face on the scene, someone with a smaller audience but a lot more authenticity? This will depend between brands: there’s no one correct answer for everything, and it’ll depend a lot on the areas you’ve grown your audiences in. Younger audiences might prefer someone their own age; older generations might prefer someone that looks like them or a familiar face from their childhood. To find out, you need to go back to your brand. 

People who prefer watching short-form videos cite Instagram Reels and Tiktoks as their top choices twice as often as Youtube Shorts

Although Youtube has a decent user-base as a platform, its short-form video content hasn’t quite picked up to the same extent as Tiktoks and Instagram reels. Only 25.6% of consumers mention using Youtube Shorts, which can still be a usable audience segment, however it’s worth pointing out that the lower figures may be difficult to overcome given Youtube’s position as a social media platform. Youtube is well known for its longform videos, but Instagram and Tiktok have already claimed a significant share of the short-form audience, and so Shorts can take longer to pay off at the same rate of success. 

What does this mean for your business? 

If you want your content to stand out, creating material for Youtube Shorts is definitely an option, especially if you’re already in the habit of creating short-form video content already. 

What should you do about it?

Take a look at your content. 

Chances are, there’s some content that will serve better as shortform video, and that’s the content that you should consider putting up on Youtube shorts. Content that tends to speak to Youtube’s core nature – crafting, cooking, organising, tech: all those physical, handy things – might tend to do a little better than Instagram reels, which focus on beautiful aesthetics, or Tiktoks, which can tend to cycle through trends faster than other platforms. For content that’s meant to stay online for longer, content that’s explanatory, content that you can turn into a longform video, you might want to try Youtube Shorts. 

Over 50% of surveyed say that brand behaviour affects their purchase decisions.

What you do matters, and this is not new information. Consumers don’t like to support brands that go against their values, and they certainly know that their purchases will make a difference; annoy enough consumers, and your bottom line will suffer. 

That said, you won’t be able to please everyone. This is where you, as a brand, need to decide where your loyalties lie, and how best to meet those loyalties – but regardless of what position you choose, this doesn’t change the fact that the way you act matters to your consumers. 

What does this mean for your business?

Your brand is more than just the products it sells. It’s how it talks to its consumers. It’s what it supports as a movement. It’s how it addresses complaints. If these are aspects of your business that you’ve either neglected or have simply just not paid enough attention to, it’s time to start – and to make a public effort to showcase what your brand stands for. 

What should you do about it?

All of this goes back to brand. Do you know what your brand stands for? Is it something you can put into words? Remember: you can’t please everyone. Your brand is going to behave in ways that will annoy some people, and will please others, and the only thing you can do is decide which side of the conversation you’re going to stand on. This is one thing you can’t avoid: trying to please everyone means you won’t please anyone. Pick your side. 

3 out of 4 people would spend a little more if the brand acted responsibly.

This goes hand in hand with brand behaviour, but it bears a unique perspective in Malta. Maltese consumers are used to irresponsible behaviour – just hop onto any Facebook page and see how they react to the latest construction news – and while it’s true that most of those reactions are negative, what they’re reacting to is largely issues that the average Maltese consumer has already expressed dislike for. 

Brands acting responsibly, like brands choosing a side, means that they are at the heart of those conversations, and championing causes that people feel strongly about means that they’ll create lasting impressions of their brand. 

The monetary pay-off follows naturally then. 

What does this mean for your business?

It’s time to take a look at what causes you’re championing – and if you’re championing none of them, it’s time to start thinking about which ones to add. In today’s world, every brand has to stand for something, and yours needs to as well.

What should you do about it?

Find a cause to support. State that support loudly, and with pride. Consumers aren’t stupid – far from it – and the way that you support initiatives will say a lot about who you are as a company, and conversely, the people who choose to purchase your products. 

Almost 40% tend to choose a local retailer over a global brand.

There’s one great thing about local retailers: the shipping. 

The global shipping industry has been through a couple of rough years – and while it’s starting to ease back into pre-COVID functionality, we’re still a long way off from regaining the same levels as before, and so it’s not surprising that consumers are mindful of where they’re shopping from. Add to that the steep prices that Maltese consumers often have to pay for shipping, and the fact that not every website ships to the island, and the popularity of local retailers makes sense. 

What does this mean for your business?

If there’s a retail aspect to your business, you need to look at how it works. If your biggest competitors on the island are local businesses, that could mean revamping the way that you advertise, the way that you use your e-commerce, the way that you communicate. Local stores can have a big advantage over much larger global storefronts, so it’s important to see where, and what, you can do to make the most of your local consumers. 

What should you do about it?

If you’re struggling to make an impact with local consumers, it might be time to look at what you’re doing to connect with them. Do you post on social media only and leave it at that, or do you also do events? How do people buy your products? If you have repeat consumers, what keeps them coming back? 

Most importantly: do you offer any benefit to your customers that makes you a more appealing option than the bigger stores available online? If you can’t compete on variety, then can you compete on shipping? Once you have those answers, you can start recreating the way your brand exists to locals. 

Every third person follows a brand because of their value alignment within the brand.

This isn’t new information, but people tend to use the brands they support as a larger extension of their own personality, ideals, and character, and so they seek out brands that will align with them on values. This is especially true for younger audiences, and only grows more significant as brands continue to communicate on social media. 

What does this mean for your business?

Similar to championing a cause, this means you need to know your business well enough to understand why consumers follow you, and why they pick your products over any other. There is a reason why your primary consumers are drawn to you, and understanding that reason is the first step to helping your business grow bigger and better. 

What should you do about it?

Take a look at your brand values. Are they still values that you agree with?

If your brand has changed in the intervening years, and you no longer feel as though your brand values represent the brand, it might be time for a change. Whatever adjustment you do make, though, remember this: consumers pick the brands they like for a number of reasons, and it’s not all based on price. Making your brand values clear to your consumers can surprise you. 

34% of all interviewed shop both online and in-store.

We’re a small island. It’s understandable that online shopping is part and parcel of living on that small island: sometimes, the brands that we do want to use don’t come to local stores, or we’re looking for something that no retailer in Malta carries.

What’s interesting to note is that there doesn’t seem to be a big preference for one or the other among the younger generation, the split between shopping online and shopping in-store is about 50/50, and that tapers off as you go up in the age-groups. 

However: the older generation has a tendency to prefer online shopping above shopping in-store, with almost 42% of 35 – 44 year old respondents preferring to shop mostly online.  

What does this mean for your business? 

It doesn’t mean shut down your e-commerce store, but it does suggest that e-commerce is only a small part of the main driver behind which brands local consumers tend to pick. If you’re putting a lot of effort into your online store, but neglecting other aspects of your brand, it might be time to put some of that effort in other areas. 

What should you do about it?

Convenience is still a very important factor to keep in mind, but it can take a lot more forms than just allowing for online purchasing. See if there’s pain points in your business that’s driving people away from purchasing from your brands: you might be surprised at what you find. 

95% of all interviewed are interested in giveaways/competitions if they like the brand.

Say you want to drum up support for an initiative. What kind of prize do you offer?

Overwhelmingly, the answer seems to be this: something that’s related to your own brand, merchandise that they either can’t get through a normal store, or something that’s created specifically for this contest. It’s interesting because brand merchandise has become a status symbol in its own right – we all remember LIDL bringing out its own range of clothing, and how quickly it all sold out. 

What does this mean for your business?

If you’re in the habit of running giveaways, your brand is your biggest asset, and creating products that showcase your own brand is more likely to get you responses that provide some meaningful interactions. 

What should you do about it? 

Brand merchandise. Your brand is followed for a reason, and humans are collectors of the things that they like: give them something to collect.

Why should I know all this?

Whether you’re a local business or not, it highlights a microcosm of the world. Consumer demand changes, and it changes rapidly. 

Brands need to be able to pivot to keep up with what’s going on: this means understanding your values, understanding your brand, and understanding how the combination you work with can influence the audiences you connect with. 

It also means that you need to keep a regular eye on the way that your brand is, and anticipate how it’ll need to change. 

And your brand will need to change. 

The world is getting confusing. Brands need to make their voices heard, but this way forward is pitted with places where they can stumble. 

Understanding your audience is part of the way forward. 

And if you need help figuring out how, we’re always happy to lend a hand.

The post Social Media Use in Malta: A Switch Survey appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

As a business owner, you already know who that someone is, even if you haven’t put it into words yet. The reason your brand exists, the purpose that carries it, has to do with that someone that it’s speaking to, no matter who that someone is – whether it’s communicating with a younger audience and waiting for them to come into their own enough to purchase, or attracting the specific kind of niche that the products and services you offer deal with, your brand speaks for a reason. 

The people that listen are your audience, your potential customer, the people that keep your brand in business. 

Understanding who these people are is vital. A mismatch between your brand or product and the way your brand speaks is a problem; a mismatch between your brand and who it’s speaking to is an even bigger problem. Without someone listening at the end of your marketing, you’ll be speaking to no one. With no one listening, your brand’s in stasis. When your brand is in stasis, it doesn’t adapt or grow. 

And when your brand doesn’t grow, your brand doesn’t survive. 

When you create marketing personas, you’re creating who your brand is speaking to so it can survive and grow. These personas are your audience: the people that frequent your brand the most. 

Here’s how to build personas that you can market to. 

1. Talk to people. 

Your brand already has the audience in mind. Now you need to talk to them so you can see what they’re really like. Surveys, studies, product research, reaching out to members of your audience to find out what they’re like – it’s all information you can use, and more importantly, information you can adapt. If you have a dedicated audience already, great: use it. If not, it’s time to go digging into where your brand lives to see who’s using your products or services most often. 

2. Examine who reaches out to you first. 

Chances are, there have been people who’ve reached out to you before you’ve reached out to them, and that kind of cold outreach is critical to understanding both who’s most interested in your products and what led them to reach out to you in the first place. Talk to your sales team, go through your inbox, find out where the leads are coming from. Are they finding you on Google? Do they just see your ads on billboards? Where are they going when they do? Once you have those answers, you’ll have an idea of where your brand exists relative to your audience’s lives. 

3. Know what kind of persona won’t go for your services. 

Just as there’s a perfect persona that will reach out to you and be happy with your products, there’s audiences out there who will never use your business, and that’s fine – but you still need to know who those audiences are. Knowing what doesn’t, and who isn’t, interested in your products works the same as knowing who is: it’ll give you the context that your brand exists in. 

Your brand exists because it talks to other people and it listens. Knowing who those people are, and being able to adapt to the changing audiences as you go, is critical to growing and adapting your brand to new challenges, and if you need help figuring out the how and why, we’re happy to guide you through it.

The post 3 Tips for Building Great Personas to Market To appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

When you start any business, you need an audience to speak to, and that audience is determined partially by your product and partially by who you, as a business, decide to address. Understanding that audience is fundamental when it comes to getting your business off the ground. It’s also essential to maintaining a steady state of growth that will keep pushing your business forward. 

We have access to heaps of tools that allow us to know a lot about the kind of audiences that suit our business.

However, collecting that data isn’t always as easy. Ongoing data privacy laws have critically reduced the utility of third-party data, which means that brands have to look elsewhere to obtain valuable information about their customers. 

And, increasingly, the data that does exist online is data that customers don’t want to share with you. Over 66% of consumers believe tech companies have too much information on them – and might be more reluctant to share information that matters.

There is a way around that. 

Here’s how first party data works. 

What is first-party data?

First party data is data you collect yourself, through newsletters, a form on your website, a subscription service, a sign-up page, etc. It’s data that the consumer is willing to give you in exchange for a service, such as access to more content. 

What are the benefits of first party data?

First party data is owned by you and it’s directly taken from your audience. This means it offers far more significant insights into your audience. Which also means it’s easier to understand what you can offer your consumers. With first party data, you can personalise your customer experience and optimise your campaigns for higher efficacy. First party data that you collect yourself also might fill in the data gaps that could be hard to get in the form of third-party data. 

Is first party data important for SMBs?

First party data is crucial for SMBs. 

With first party data, SMBs have data that is invaluable to their business, because it comes from the audiences that matter the most to them – an audience that is ready to purchase or otherwise use their services. 

But say they’re not ready to purchase yet. Say they’re interested in your content or in your business, but they’re still weighing their options.

SMBs that use first-party data can tailor their content to appeal to their audience regardless at what stage of the buyer’s journey they’re at. They can personalise their content to create a marketing campaign that feels organic, approachable, and more likely to result in conversions. For businesses that are still on the lower end of their growth, this is an invaluable opportunity to create a communication strategy that benefits your business from the outset. 

This is important for a couple of different reasons. 

SMBs need every advantage that they can get as quickly as possible, especially if they’re competing against much bigger businesses with much more to offer consumers than they do or that simply leverage significantly larger resources. Creating a communication strategy that connects with audiences quickly is one level where SMBs can compete, regardless of their size. 

Secondly, first party data can help SMBs cater to their current consumers, and make sure that their satisfaction doesn’t waver. First party data can help you retarget or address the current concerns for your consumers and find new touchpoints you can work on. 

Do I need first party data as an SMB?

It’s very difficult to get by without any kind of data, whether it’s third party or first party – and the more intricate data privacy laws become, the harder it is to find usable third-party data that will speak to your specific case. 

Data in general is necessary if you want to navigate the internet as it is – the way the online sphere is growing, and changing, means that finding the right consumers to talk to at the right time has become harder, even as it’s given companies a bigger audience to speak to.  

If you’re struggling to understand how first party data works for you, drop us a line – we’ll be happy to talk about first party data for your business.  

The post The importance of first-party data for SMBs appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

Within an hour, Rik responded: go for it, Maria. People from ICOM are saying it’s a must if you’re in Brazil. 

That settled it, then. I was going. 

Getting there was a different matter altogether. This was the first event I was attending representing my company, and I didn’t know what to expect: marketing, sales, Metaverse, all of these are not my area, but I was pleasantly surprised. 

First of all, I was expecting to be very lost, but after I saw three or four speakers I realised that it was not the case: regardless of your background, the speakers were really knowledgeable about all the subjects, so I was never lost. Another thing I really liked was about how much it focused on emotions – everything, from the talk on Google to the talk on the Metaverse, was based on peoples’ emotions, people’s feelings, and how to make your work environment healthier than it is at the moment. It was so much about how to take care of your people, and about how you can’t be the best agency if you don’t start looking for your well-being. 

There was so much to focus on, you could get overwhelmed very easily, but here are a few highlights of my favourites. 

What makes up the brands that we love?

This talk was held by Beatriz, a writer and founder of a creative company called Bits to Brands, and it was all about how the brands we love are made. As Beatrice said, every company wants to create a brand that people love, but not every one will manage. She had this good analogy about a brand being like a marriage: ideally, they’ll stay with you for the rest of your life, and you can sell your product for the rest of their life. For example, brands that you remember from being young which have followed you into adulthood are brands that are loved: everything is connected to people’s feelings. 

She also paid a lot of attention to the idea of a community. Brazilian marketing thinks of communities as more important, almost, than a singular consumer in general. She also made it a point to say that brands needed to have a different target community on every social media in relation to that brand – so when you create something for a brand, you have to think about where it goes on which social media. 

What to do with good people

This was one of the speeches I chose to attend because another speech was all fully booked, but it was easily one of my favourites. The topic was sales through innovation, led by Rodrigo Galvão of Oracle Latin America, but the last thing that he spoke about was sales: he mostly spoke about people, and how improving the working environment in their company actually tripled sales in the process. 

What he said was that many people believe that if they don’t have good people working in the company, they would not manage to run a successful business. Oracle wanted to support their people and keep them working for them, so they made sure to give them all the support they needed to stay: they invested a lot in education and inclusion, focused on hiring people based on whether they fit in the company culture, and their recruitment process is entirely blind – the CV is only there as a guide. 

Some of those people even went on to open their own business under Oracle. 

What Google Doesn’t Tell You

Of all the speeches I attended, I think this one was the most different from what I know about marketing, so I was very interested to see what I could learn from it. Basically, the talk was about Google Analytics and how they’ve changed over the past two years, and about how every brand needs 3-5 main words only to be on top of Google Search. Additionally, he spoke about creating content specifically for mobile and to answer ‘why’, as most content should answer a question. 

I didn’t quite understand the whole point of this one, but it was interesting to see a different side of marketing that I was not really familiar with – and the speaker for this speech, Erich Casagrande, the marketing manager lead of SEMRush Brazil, was very knowledgeable about the topic and could explain it to people who were not. 

The Future Consumer 

This one was led by Mirela Dufrayer of WGSM, one of the leading marketing projection firms. I found this one extremely interesting for what we do at Switch, and what we’re all experiencing because of COVID-19. Basically, this talk was about the future consumer of 2024 and onwards, and talks about how the behaviour changes that we’ve been through in the past two years were originally anticipated to take 20 years to come around, but because of COVID-19, we’re now seeing changes that we had not thought of before. People are burned out and can’t really take the amount of work they have now, and multitasking is reaching the end  of the road. There is also too much information available for people to focus on, and all the time you spend trying to please everybody is going to become difficult to continue. 

The customer is going to be more direct in the future, and even technology might slow down a little bit because of it. I can see what they’re saying very well, as we definitely see it even at Switch. 

Product Trials before Marketing 

This was chaired by Luciana Teles, from AXUR Brazil, so it might have been Brazil-specific – however, I think the value is applicable to every country. Basically, this speech talked about client experience – but not client experience only when it comes to people buying your products, but also to trialling your product in a market. The idea is that you trial the product first before you actually market it, and this will lead to better customer experiences. 

Takeaways

At Switch, I am not really on the marketing side of things, and so going to a marketing summit was very nerve-wracking for me as a representative of the company – but I was really surprised how accessible and how interesting it was, and how much I learned from it. 

The post The RD Summit 2022 Experience appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

Fair warning, this is a relatively long read. If you don’t have the time to take it all in now, you can download the PDF version of Consumer Behaviour Trends 2023 for free by clicking below. Otherwise, just keep reading!

If you’re interested in other marketing trends, open our Marketing Trends 2023: The Year of Endurance article in another tab before you continue reading.

Intro to Consumer Trends 2023

Every trend we talk about happens because of people. 

We’ve said this before, but it always bears repeating: you can’t have trends without people. When we write about what’s happening in the world on social media, in advertising, in branding, in web design, we’re talking about the way that people have adapted to the year they’ve just been through and how that’s going to change. We’re talking about the way those people look for the future. 

We’re talking about the same people you know. The people you cater to as a business. 

The people you communicate to and with in order to build an audience for your brand. 

On the whole, seismic shifts in human trends and behaviour don’t happen often. It takes a worldwide event to really push the way that humans interact with themselves, and therefore with the companies that communicate to them. 

2020 had the pandemic. 

2021 was learning to live in the aftermath. 

2022 gave new challenges for consumers to contend with. 

For 2023, consumers have drawn a line in the sand. 

Brands will have to stick to it if they want to maintain their popularity. 

A Global Snapshot

Adapting to unfamiliar environments is something that we, as humans, do very well. 

And 2022 has given us several opportunities to test the limitations of that adaptation. 

Between the rising cost of living crisis, the war in Ukraine, and the riots that are taking place in several countries around the world, we’re living in times that are hard for everyone – and in times where communities band together around a shared cause or experience. The global nature of communication means that we know what’s happening on the other side of the globe more intimately than we know what’s happening in our own homes, and that has led to a world that’s split into extremes: for or against, good or bad, right or wrong. 

Brands will be on one side or the other. 

And it won’t be the products or services they provide that will determine what side they will be on, but the way they act. 

What’s here to stay?

Every trend we spoke about in 2022 has its place in 2023. 

People still want eco-friendly products. People want brands that tailor content to their liking. People want control: over their images, their data, their products, their ways of living. 

Here’s last year’s trends. 

1. Master of my Own Fate 

Consumers have little control outside of their own lives, and that’s become readily apparent through 2022. From the massive uptick in streaming and pay-to-use over pay-to-own services, consumers are feeling the reality of an environment of constant purchasing and microtransactions. As more and more brands hop onto the bandwagon of leasing their products over selling them ready to use, this trend is going to gain traction as a defining component of the brands they choose to support. 

2. Money on my mind

You don’t need us to tell you that people are worried about money – and that this trend from last year has taken on new life for 2023. 

Wages have stagnated for years as product prices skyrocketed. 2022’s biggest worries came on the heels of a slowdown period brought around by the pandemic: businesses were in recovery, and profits low. Now that we’ve moved into the later half of the year, that no longer applies – but there are other concerns that have developed to give this trend new nuance in 2023. 

3. Accessible eco-conscious 

Consumers want to help their planet. 

They also need to be able to afford to. 

A lot has come around in 2022 about how the sacrifices they made to save the planet might have been overstated. Greenwashing accusations about some of the most eco-friendly brands have shaken the foundation of green support. 

However, environmental concern endures. 

And consumers will still opt for products that fit their values over products that fit their price-point – but only just. And only to a point. 

What changed in 2022?

Nothing much changed in 2022 that wasn’t already there before. Consumer behaviour and trends work slightly differently to other trends – but there has been a change. 

And that change is in trust. 

Consumers are trusting by nature. Over years, that trust has been eked away by black-box brands, accusations about unfair practices and poor products, and several global events that have pushed consumers into a corner. 2022 saw the sudden onset of a war no-one expected, the death of a long-reigning monarch, and the astronomical rising prices of daily goods. There’s more to come before it gets better. 

And consumers are bearing the brunt of it. There’s no surprise that their level of trust has been steadily decreasing for years, and that this has pushed it to a new low point – making them far more careful about their choices. 

Trends 2023

All Hands on Deck

Trend 1: Community-based strategy

One of the most interesting things that has come to light in 2022 is this: there is a tendency for consumers to band together. 

All they need is a cause. 

From memeing about Elon Musk’s failed Twitter takeover to sharing and resharing breaking news from around the world the second it drops, there’s been a significant uptick in the idea of community. This isn’t specifically a new trend for 2022: we’ve been seeing the rise in social-media-based communities since 2016 at the least – but it’s become very obvious that, at least online, when a conversation has taken centre everyone chimes in. 

The most recent example at the time of writing is the Queen’s death. 

But there’s more, smaller, less-noticeable events: the Twitter takeover, the ongoing Starbucks debates on unions, what’s happening in Iran, what’s happening in Russia. Whatever happens elsewhere, people come online to talk about it. 

It’s something brands need to learn to leverage. The idea of an individual hasn’t gone anywhere – but it’s become more obvious that the individual exists as a bigger conversation, and that they’re not only engaged in those conversations, but actively seeking out ways to bring them to the forefront. 

Brands that leverage the global community have to do so carefully, however. We said earlier that a big part of consumer behaviour in 2023 is driven by declining trust. We also said in marketing trends 2023 that brands have to move away from engaging in good behaviour publically, but not internally. Brands will be expected to walk the walk if they talk the talk.

We can also add this: brands that decide to go for global conversations have to back it up with global values, with an approach that doesn’t benefit just one person, but everyone in a community. 

Consumers band together. 2023 will show us just how much. 

Brands need to be alongside them. 

Statistics: 

• 76% of internet users engage in online communities. 
• 88% of community professionals see the online community as fundamental to its mission.
• 81% of consumers increased their use of online communities during COVID-19.

How do I use this trend?

Diversify, diversify, diversify. 

For years, the general idea behind marketing has always been to appeal to the individual, to the niche, to a singularity. That idea still holds water – but it’s getting harder, and harder, for brands to appeal to those individuals without the help of a community.

Creating your own community is hard. If you have a niche product, you might manage it more easily than some other companies, but you need to invest a significant amount of time into actually building your community – and that might be difficult to outsource, and even more difficult to maintain. 

There’s an alternative. 

Reach out to communities that already exist. There are fans for every conceivable product on the planet, and some that don’t exist, and they find each other far easier than you’re going to. Those communities won’t necessarily be just about your product, but that’s fine: that competition will exist even outside of your normal marketing, and it shouldn’t stop you from building a connection with that community.

Case study

Diamine Ink releases limited edition ink collections often, though usually, those collections come back a few times a year. One of those collections is dreamed up, from concept to naming, by the fountain pen fanatics at a subreddit called r/fountainpens. 

The community goes through the process of brainstorming, narrowing down, and presenting to Diamine options for a new limited edition ink that encompasses the entire community. It’s one of the most popular posts on the subreddit, and an annual event that brings Diamine an unprecedented amount of good publicity, not only because Diamine is somehow managing to communicate on a forum notoriously known for being hostile to any attempts at marketing, but because the fans of r/fountainpens waste no time in praising Diamine and its products to whoever will listen. 

Going Once, Going Twice…

Trend 2: Competitive pricing, affordability, and bargaining power between brands

Money is a growing concern for everyone, not just consumers. Recession. Cost of living crisis. Worsening supply chain issues. Stock shortages compounded by worsening supply chain issues. Economic downturn

From mega-corporations to small brands to the consumer in the street, money is a problem – and it is not a problem that is going to get any easier without some significant changes that are nowhere near appearing. 

For the moment. 

This is a trend that has been building for the past few years, but 2023 has the opportunity to offer a breakthrough – and not just for brands. 

Recession Worries

COVID-19 took a lot out of the global supply chain.

The effects have been significant. 

Banks around the world with their fingers on the pulse of where the money’s going have been raising their interest rates, mostly in an attempt to curb inflation: product prices have increased, supplies and materials have increased, and as a result, some central banks believe that by increasing interest rates they can curb demand, and therefore inflation. 

With the global supply chain a significant part of what’s pushing that inflation, the predictions that we’re going to see the start of another recession in 2023 are not unfounded. 

Larger corporations and well-known brands might be insulated from the majority of the fallout, however smaller brands, emerging economies, and new markets are especially vulnerable – and unlikely to be able to change much of the outcome of what we’re already seeing. 

But there is still hope. 

Controlling a recession has to come from on high: central banks, fiscal authorities, and economists. 

And brands. 

Brands are an immensely powerful force in today’s world, and they’re growing stronger. Our Marketing Trends Report for 2023 pinpoints them as one of the most trusted authorities in any country: above government, above local authorities. Smaller businesses are trusted further, but they might not have the power to shift the story by much – unless they partner up. 

How can brands deal with a recession?

Partner up, diversify, help other brands. The concerns about the global supply chain issues take precedence over competitiveness, at least temporarily. Brands that collaborate with other businesses in order to diversify and spread their supplies can make sure they futureproof a little of their offering by preparing to pivot at the right moment.

How will consumers deal with a recession?

As individuals, consumers are already in a recession. They’d made adjustments accordingly.

Wages have stagnated, prices have gone up, and for a lot, the barrier to entry for purchasing is getting further and further out of their reach.  The result: consumers are buying less, and making sure that the products they buy will last as long as possible so they can avoid repurchasing if possible. 

Cost of Living Crisis

You hear a lot about the cost of living crisis. 

It’s only going to get worse in the coming months. 

The cost of raw materials has increased. The cost of importing products has increased. The cost of those products, as a result, has increased, in some cases putting them out of the reach of the common consumer. Everywhere around the world, consumers have changed how they’re spending their hard-earned money – and what brands they choose to support in the process. 

And while the cost of living crisis takes different forms depending on the country you are living in, consumers are reacting in a similar way: constricting their purchases to necessity, and making the brands they choose to use an even greater part of their identity. Consumers aren’t necessarily cutting down on all their luxuries, but price point is a concern for many of them – and especially when compared to what that price will get them. 

How can brands deal with a cost of living crisis?

The cost-of-living crisis affects brands through their consumers. With consumers opting to eschew certain brands for better pricing, it can be difficult for brands to maintain the same level of volume as they were used to prior. Most consumers will drop brands that have raised their prices significantly, and to a certain extent, brand values have receded a little behind affordability in terms of consumer importance. 

Building a strong connection to the audience is always fundamental. One way of doing that is to create products people can afford, sales events that allow for greater access to your products, and to provide help to the consumers who need extra aid. 

How will consumers deal with a cost of living crisis?

Consumerism across the board has been slowing down though it won’t come to a complete halt even with the severity of the cost of living crisis: instead, we’re likely to see the pivot away from certain industries and pre-pandemic luxuries into multi-use products and services that can be enjoyed entirely from home. 

Buy Now, Pay Later

There’s one more way consumers have found to have their monetary cake and eat it too.

Buy their products now.

Pay for them later.

Brands such as Klarna made headlines earlier in the year when it was found that buy-now-pay-later led to a significant increase in credit  issues with consumers who buy then and struggle to pay back at any point. 

That said, buy now pay later isn’t a bad trend by any means, or one that brands should avoid: for a lot of the consumers that are dealing with rising prices, being able to pay by installments is another way of attaining items that don’t necessarily fall under the category of need: new clothes, electronics, hobbies.

Brands that offer buy-now-pay-later services have to be careful that the microtransactions they’re supplying still carry the same value as paying outright. Although consumers will opt for a cheaper price, steep interest rates will turn their favour – not just for the product but for the brand as a whole.

Cheaper prices paid more often is an appealing prospect for consumers today, but as with everything to do with money in 2023, value has to be inherent: a bargain price that feels like a personal win.

Statistics: 

• 84% of holiday shoppers are looking to reduce the amount they will spend on their shopping.
• 53% of European shoppers cite rising prices as their number one concern.
• A third of consumers are switching to cheaper brands and reducing what they buy.

How do I use this trend?

This trend can look hard to use if your brand isn’t built for it. 

It’s not true. It just needs a little finessing in the way we think about it. 

What we can say with absolute certainty is this: your brand has to stand for more than profit. That was true years ago, and it is even more true now. If your brand hasn’t yet built itself up to support its consumers, it needs to. 

Put out information that helps. Talk to your audience and see what they need. Build a brand that cares about its community. Consumerism itself has slowed, so profit will slow – but the way to come out onto the other side isn’t raising prices, but helping to make your brand the one that’s purchased above the rest. 

And to do that, you need to be a brand that cares. 

That said, people aren’t going to stop purchasing from brands that they support – and brands that market themselves as mid-range or as more affordable luxuries are still going to see an increase in their purchasing power. Low-value brands that bring out more premium options are going to be popular – after all, if you can’t get a real luxury, something that is on the more affordable side will still feel like a treat without breaking the budget. 

Similarly, brands that go back to their base products and really make sure that they have the value customers pay for will see a significant increase in popularity. Brands that go back and revitalise their base products to last longer or to fit the values of their clients are not new, but their importance will be fundamental when customers start looking to see if the products they purchase are worth the money they’ve spent on them. 

Case study

Amazon has recently launched Amazon Access, an online hub that brings together all of Amazon’s price discounts and affordability programmes under one easy to shop section. Amazon Access is available to consumers who receive benefits from one of ten governmental programmes. Not only does it reduce the monthly fee for Prime shopping, it also adds the option to use valid SNAP and EBT cards as payment options, as well as a layaway feature that allows consumers to pay over time. 

Conclusion

Consumers will always dictate trends. 

2023 is no different. 

What is different is that the consumers that brands are speaking to have had a long couple of years of constant input: global events, new ways of living, a constantly changing world that is hard to keep up with, and a growing sense of dissatisfaction and the overwhelming realisation that there needs to be a change. 

We’re in the wings of a different time. Consumers are making even more stringent demands of the brands that they frequent. 

If you haven’t been listening to them before, you have to start listening now.

The post Consumer Behaviour Trends 2023 appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

Fair warning, this is a relatively long read. If you don’t have the time to take it all in now, you can download the PDF version of Marketing Trends 2023: The Year of Endurance for free by clicking below. Otherwise, just keep reading!

Looking back on 2023 Marketing Trends

A lot can change in a year. 

This time last year, we were working with a different set of trends, a different understanding of the industry around us, and the knowledge that the early predictions for 2023 had already delivered some interesting results – but there was still a whole year left ahead of us to see if we’d gotten the early predictions right on the money. 

Trendwatching is usually right. But human nature is unpredictable, and some of the trends that crop up early either pan out early, or something else happens that overtakes their previous momentum and turns what could have been a big splash into a little ripple in the pond. 

Here’s how we did for 2023, looking back in 2024. 

And if you’re looking for the latest in trends, our new set of predictions for 2024 is available right here in a handy ebook so that you can download and read wherever you want.

2023 in Context

Things change slowly on the global scale. The problems customers have endured since the end of the pandemic and into the beginning of the post-pandemic haven’t gone away. Housing is still expensive. Climate change is still a pervasive worry. Work is still underpaid and overabundant. The word ‘inflation’ is echoing around the planet.

The last few years have been hard on everyone. 

2023 was no different. 

The war on Ukraine and the rampant energy crisis are going to push a lot of people into corners they can’t back out from.

Add in the decreasing trust in formal institutions, and you have a consumer culture that is desperate for change. 

Prediction: Active(ism) Listening

Brands needing to support a cause is nothing new. 

But they absolutely have to support the right cause in the right ways. 

2023 is going to put brands that thrive on doing social responsibility and good governance in the spotlight, and really make them justify their behaviour and what their brand stands for. It’s no longer a case of CSR-for-the-good of the brand, where companies help out to hide the fact that their operations are almost certainly not in line with their brand values. 

It’s more than that. It’s ESG: environmental, social, governance responsibility. An internal metric for a brand to behave right: for the brand to look at its impact in society and to make itself stand up to what its consumers want to see. To be fair. To be responsible. To be good because it wants to be, rather than because it has to be to court the most profit. 

Customers are especially feeling the pinch in the coming year, so finding empathic brands who can support them now is going to be a lynchpin for brands who have slowly been dormant to regain their place in the global marketplace. 

Did it come true?

Definitely. In fact, it’s become increasingly important for brands to identify, and quickly, what their values are to their consumers, what side of a divisive conversation they stand on – and it’s become critical that if brands don’t have a side to stand on, they find one. Brands no longer have the opportunity to remain neutral and hope for the best – and while we can argue that the consumer obsession with pure brands has been taken to astronomical extremes by social media, there’s no denying that it works. 

Prediction: ‘Just-Like-Me’ Marketing

Marketing is never going to look the way it used to before 2022. 

A big part of brand relatability comes from seeing people who look the way you look in their ads, and from seeing customers with the same life experience showcased, the same problems spoken about, and the same ideals championed. Brands will keep diversifying their ads well into 2023 and beyond, and we’re poised to see this turn into one of the strongest marketing movements of the ‘20s. 

Did it come true?

This isn’t a movement that was going to start and end in 2023, so while the progress is slow, we’re seeing ads with a much higher percentage of diversity than before. Just look at Adidas Sweden’s first-ever Ramadan campaign. 

Prediction: IRL Online

One of the best things that came out of the last few years is the sudden realisation that technology has advanced far enough that we can hold events online and have them stand alongside real-life events with no drop in quality; in fact, online activations can go farther than real-life activations can, and are available to a lot more people. In 2023, we’re going to see a lot more of these activations taking place despite the fact that real life events are coming back into the fray. 

Did it come true?

Well – sort of. We have unprecedented capacity to hold online activations, but as it turns out, people still prefer the lure of the IRL to the convenience of online, so while online activations are still happening, they’re online versions of IRL events. 

Prediction: In(scent)ive 

Scent-based marketing

The rise of perfume accounts on social media and the greater uptick in home scent purchases is heralding a new opportunity for brands to dig deep into their identity and bring scent as another facet of communication for their audiences. The rise of niche and uncommon scents also promises new territory for brands looking to diversify their product offerings – and with a ready stream of perfume and scent fanatics ready to review any new item that comes their way, it’s a trend that promises to be very rewarding to the companies willing to invest in it. 

Did it come true?

Sort of! Recently, McDonalds went viral for an activation that fanned the scent of their freshly-cooked fries to passers-by. That said, scent remains a niche trend that brands have yet to pick up on, and it might never grow to the same heights as makeup or cleaning or other trends that appear on Tiktok. Is it still a trend worth watching? Yes, for an opportunity to stand out from the madding crowd – but it didn’t turn into the behemoth we were predicting it would. 

Prediction: Helping Brands

Brands helping their community

There are a lot of problems in the world that brands can help with. 

The burden of taking care of consumers shouldn’t have fallen to brands regardless, but with consumers trusting brands more than they do official authorities, brands can capitalise on the current situation to build a lasting impression on their audience. 

But they have to be genuine about it. 

And they have to mean it. 

As we stated a year before, brand purpose doesn’t start and end at the financial quarter. Brands that opt to help their audiences with the struggles they’re facing – from higher prices in store to the increase in bills to the ongoing climate crisis – will benefit from the better world they help to build, provided that they find a cause they believe in and make the changes necessary in the ways they do business, whether it’s building a community around their product or making a sacrifice to profits and prices. 

Did it come true? 

There’s less news about brands helping out their communities, but it doesn’t mean that it’s a metric that has gone the way of the dodo. Brand news tends to make the, well, news nowadays if it’s something controversial or something that’s tied into a current event. For every BDS McDonalds movement, there’s a similar and equal movement to uphold brands that have value, so while we’re not hearing more about the brands that are helping, it doesn’t mean that this trend is no longer viable. 

In fact, we’d probably consider this one of the more important trends to come out of 2023 – so much so that community-led values are probably considered the bare minimum for brands. 

Prediction: You Are What You Eat 

Food-based collaborations

One of the greatest undisputed pleasures in life is food – and in 2023, we’re going to see a lot more of where food shouldn’t be with off-the-wall makeup, clothing, and home goods collaborations. This trend isn’t new to anyone: previously, UK brand Greggs and German supermarket brand LIDL launched clothing lines to critical acclaim and sold out in mere hours. 

Quirky products and unique styles are back on the market and stronger than ever. 

Part of it is in the innovation of it all: people have grown tired of the minimalist, samey approach that has dominated the personalisation landscape for the last few years, and are looking to stand out with what they purchase. Add in the current obsession with telegraphing which brands you support and why, and you have a perfect recipe for 2023 to bring out some very interesting product tie-ins. 

Did it come true?

Yes. Quirky, food-led activations are growing more proliferous across the industry, though it’s likely that we’ve yet to see the full scope of what these collaborations are capable of. 

Prediction: Elusive Inclusive 

Deaf and blind inclusivity 

In 2023, we’re going to see a far deeper form of inclusivity in the way that brands address their consumers: from sign language and braille included in product packaging to a greater focus on creating products that everyone can use regardless of capability. While it’s likely to take a little longer to become a mainstream addition, 2022 has shown us that people want to see people like them in advertising, and that there are marked spaces that have yet to be filled. 

Did it come true?

It falls underneath the larger category of increased inclusivity across the board, but it has taken a step back in terms of where it was at the beginning of 2023. With so many other diversity issues rising to the fore, this one’s been subsumed in other approaches, but it’s still worth keeping in mind when creating ads. 

Prediction: Gaming the System

Gamified advertising

Interactive ads are memorable. Add in gaming elements and that memorability becomes even more potent.

Your consumers are inundated with information every second of the day. Brands compete for their attention, and it becomes second nature to ignore those messages and therefore the brand that is communicating with them. This is especially true when it comes to attracting new consumers. 

Did it come true?

The metaverse never quite picked up the way it was promised, but the rise of online gamified advertising increased exponentially throughout 2023, and keeps growing. As the technology becomes more commonplace, we’ll likely see more of this – and 2024 has already shown that they’re some of the most interesting activations for consumers to engage with and brands to build on. 

Prediction: CEO, Entrepreneur

Rise of the Public CEO

When governments can’t support people, people find a new place to turn to.

For many, that place is brands and the CEOs that lead them.

The idea of a celebrity CEO or an influencer CEO isn’t new: Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, even Steve Jobs all had elements of celebrity CEO. What is different in 2023 is that we’re going to see more small and medium enterprises make their mark on their audience using their CEO as an identifier for their entire brand, and using their words to boost brand recognition. 

The last few years have been an investment in building brands that align with what consumers believe in. In 2023, your brand is your CEO – and what they can do fix the problems most consumers are facing. 

Did it come true?

Yes – and it’s going to keep growing.

In 2024, the public CEO is an asset that no business can put aside. As consumers become more selective about which brands they support, they’ll dig deeper to find reasons to or reasons for supporting the same brands. By making your CEO the public face of your organisation, you’re running the risk of isolating the segment of your audience that might not agree what he says – or attracting a larger potential audience of people who have never heard of your business, but have heard of your CEO before.

Prediction: You Had to Be There

Limited pop-up activations

Real-life events have come back – and in 2023, we’re going to see a lot more people seeking out experiences that take them out of the house and make them a set of new memories. 

Limited-run activations help brands connect. Brands that put their all into small events created specifically for their consumers, their fans, and their would-be consumers are going to see the benefits of what it means to have a community in a year that is going to thrive on building connections.

Did it come true?

Yes. Like online activations, this is a segment that might be growing slowly, but it’s growing nonetheless, and every year it evolves a little more. 

Prediction: Macro, mini, micro, meta?

Macroinfluencers are on the way out. 

They’ve been in steady decline since before the pandemic, but COVID-19 and the months after really put a stop to a lot of influencers’ climb. Additionally, the ongoing problems of Instagram mean that a lot of the original macroinfluencers have to find other ways of creating connection with their audiences – either by moving to a new social media, or by working in a different niche. 

For 2023, we’re going to see less macroinfluencers around, and more virtual influencers and micro-influencers, though this hinges on the platforms they’re using to communicate. With Instagram’s changes making it that much harder to create a meaningful foundation for influence, it’s likely that we might see a stop to influencer marketing in general, but a big leap in virtual influencers where brands can hinge on the technology and innovation rather than the human connection. 

Did this come true?

Yes, and no. Macroinfluencers don’t hold the same brand-partnership lure as they did at the height of their rise, but influencer marketing as a whole is still considered one of the more effective ways of marketing, regardless of what industry you’re in. Additionally, the diversification of influencer markets into different niches and platforms means that influencing across the board is on the rise, so we’re seeing a new generation of macroinfluencers come into their own – some made specifically to take advantage of the interest in AI. 

Other 2023 Trends of Note

Sometimes the trends we see are relevant for that year only. Maybe their importance drops; maybe they just become a part of the world we live in; maybe they were only relevant that year because of mitigating circumstances. 

It’s still worth knowing about them. Trends are cyclical; trends can repeat themselves, if the right circumstances are met. 

Here’s trends from 2023 that aren’t as relevant yet in 2024 – but it doesn’t mean they’ve stopped being important.

We are the World

There isn’t a moment before climate change that people remember. 

Brands can help change that – but it requires deep-down change. Fundamental change. 

Change that lasts through the rest of the brand’s existence. 

It’s true that corporations create a significant amount of waste. It’s true that there are ways of combatting that waste – but a lot of what we know about the eco-friendly movement has been built on greenwashing, and there’s enough confusion around what actually helps that brands need to make a clean slate of it. 

And that starts with education. Educate yourself. Educate others. Educate consumers.

The more education there is going around, the easier it is to put measures in place that can help everyone.

Is this relevant in 2024?

This is one of those trends where it’s become the norm, and doesn’t really stand out as a trend any more. It was very relevant in 2023 with the shift away from CSR and into ESG; in 2024, it’s a given that corporations need to change. The writing is on the wall for the ones that don’t, and while it might take a while for them to fall, the tolerance that people have for brands that don’t change is decreasing year on year. 

I Am Woman

Women’s rights the world over remain a pillar of social change that brands have yet to completely catch up with. However, the recent global events that have pushed them back to the forefront means that brands wanting to capitalise on this trend have a thorny road ahead of them. 

It’s impossible to please everyone. Women’s rights are the kind of issues that will prove divisive to your audience, and if that matters to you, do your audience research first. 

If it doesn’t, put women forward. Crowdsource information from the women who use your products, and not just the ones in your community. As we’ve said about the diversity measures brands undertake, a key metric to avoid is marketing to the smallest segment possible and still calling it inclusivity. 

The world does not work in small segments. 

And your consumers will not appreciate the obfuscation, either. 

Is it relevant in 2024?

2023 had a lot to say about women’s rights. Not all of those things were equal or fair, and brands responded by working to highlight and draw awareness to those things. 

In 2024, women’s rights are still relevant, but there are other causes to be elevated and spoken about, and brands have to make a choice on which gets their attention. It isn’t that this has become less relevant; hand in hand with the next trend, it has just simply become part of established communication. 

I Know You 

Relatability. 

It’s the hardest attribute for brands to pull off. 

A lot of brands simply broadcast sales messages so they are, by definition, unable to listen. 

However, the people behind the brands need to learn to relate to their audiences. 

Your consumers are changing. Your consumers are always changing, in myriad ways: growing older, growing poorer, growing richer, growing more. A big part of your brand’s success is to understand those changes and to adapt to them, rather than waiting for your consumers to adapt to you. 

That’s what builds community. It’s what builds relationships. 

Brands need to relate to their audiences. If you haven’t started by now, there’s still time until the end of the year to do so – but make it your priority. Consumers are quick to shift their loyalties to brands that relate to their experiences more. 

Is it relevant in 2024?

It’s still relevant in 2024. Brands still need to communicate to their consumers, and they still need to relate – but the cost-of-living crisis has set this back a little, and highlighted the importance of price alongside being able to relate to your consumers. As the cost-of-living crisis worsens, price and budget take priorities over whether consumers opt for that brand. 

Conclusion

Last year, we spoke about trends as the result of change. 

To a certain extent, that still holds water. 

But in 2022 and 2023, we predicted that the trends we’re seeing will be the catalyst of change. Brands and small businesses have more power over the consumer than ever before, and those that understand how to use that power will set the pace for the innovations we’ll see after. 

This is all true.

In 2024, we are in the heart of that changing landscape, and brands who haven’t yet found their footing are going to struggle with the way the world is working. 

But you don’t have to struggle alone. 

Our goal as an agency has always been to help, to push good causes, and to make your business work better. If you’re struggling to understand where your brand fits into all this, that’s why we’re here. 

Drop us a line: we’re always happy to help. 

And if you want to check out the trends we have for 2024, you can download them here. 

The post Marketing Trends 2023: The Year of Endurance appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

The last couple of years have been a rollercoaster for nearly every industry.

Now, it’s time to start looking forward to what’s coming.

How do people expect brands to communicate and act in a post-pandemic world? How has social media interaction between brands and consumers evolved? Is B2B marketing the same old lead-generation story, or has content marketing changed the game? What will the most cutting edge websites look like in the coming years?

All these questions are answered in our Big Book of Trends in 2022.

We put together all our experience, combined it with meticulous research, and put everything together into a number of deep-diving articles on each major area in the marketing industry.

We’ve linked them all at this end of this post, but we’ve put them together into one beautifully designed eBook for you to read at your own pace.

Just fill in the below form, check your email, and you’re all set!

Individual Articles

If you prefer to read the articles individually, just click on the one you want below.

Marketing Trends 2022: The Year of Conflict

Web Design Trends 2022

SEO Trends 2022: More Human

Social Media Trends 2022: The Year of More

Consumer Behaviour in 2022

Brand Trends 2022

B2B Marketing Trends 2022

The post The Big Book of Marketing Trends in 2022 appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

Click below for a free PDF version of our overall 2022 marketing trends report.

Intro to Consumer Behaviour 2022

When we talk about trends, we’re really talking about people. 

What did they like this year? What did they hate? What were the apps they spent the most time on? What did they buy when everywhere had to lock down? How did they spend their free time? Which brands did they buy from?

What changed?

Marketing and advertising is storytelling. 

But who you’re telling that story to changes dramatically, sometimes within the same stretch of a year, sometimes not for a long time – and keeping track of how people are changing is important. 

Your story has to hit the right mark. 

The key to that is knowing what marks have been left open for you. 

And to know that, you need to know people.

A Global Snapshot

To use everyone’s favourite lockdown email opener: we are living in unprecedented times. 

Technology has reached a point where those early sci-fi movies now look like a real possibility. We can connect with others in the time it takes to blink. There’s never been more ways of finding out the answer to a question you have, and that’s not taking into account the internet. The internet is alive, a bubbling forum of voices. We have entertainment on demand. 

The edges of everything have been smoothed down and softened for convenience and comfort. 

Also: there are a lot of angry people waiting for brands to make their lives better. 

Consumer Behaviour in 2022

People fundamentally don’t change.

What changes is how loud the conversations they’re having are. 

We’ve heard of cancel culture and ‘you can’t say anything anymore’ and big brands raked over the coals for ‘it was fine back in my day’. This isn’t something surprising: it’s the way the social-media-isation of the internet is supposed to work. Everyone’s voice, all at once, talking. 

2022 is not different. 

For the coming year, we’re set to see more talk, more voices, more conversations happening than anyone can track or analyse. We’re set to see a global population splitting the differences, combining and connecting with disparate people located all over. 

We’re set to see untrackable conversations, places where brands can’t follow, and a population that increasingly knows how to turn the marketing tables back onto the marketer. 

This is going to be the audience that’s hardest to connect to. 

After a global pandemic, when everything was online and ads were everywhere and all the conversations happening online were ringed around by ‘buy this’ or ‘this will fix your life’ or ‘here’s another string of bad news’, the same normal patterns of conversation and connection no longer apply. 

And that’s fine. This has happened before. 

What we do now is figure out a way to talk to these people, in this moment, with their history in mind, with what they want and what they like and what they crave to understand. 

Here’s the consumer behaviour trends for 2022. 

Trend 1: Master of My Own Fate

• 60% of consumers are interested in tailored shopping content¹.
• 72% of consumers will only respond to personalised marketing messages. 
• 91% of consumers will only purchase a product or service after reading at least one review.                                                                                                                                                                        

So much of 2021 was out of anyone’s control.  

Between the ongoing problems from the pandemic, a rising climate crisis, sham elections, skyrocketing prices and a complete overhaul of the way people live and work, it’s not surprising that the 2022 consumer needs stability and focus – and the way to give them that is to let them tailor their experiences. 

Trying to meet everyone on their own terms is impossible. Consumers who have spent most of the past year indoors or fluctuating in and out of lockdown are used to their own comforts and familiarities, and anything outside of their worldview is a hassle and an effort. 

It’s not worth the time. 

There is a global burnout. People are tired and don’t want to work for gratification or base-level comforts. Brands who can meet them on their level and allow them to tailor their experiences right down to how they choose to shop are going to see that change immediately.

Personalisation is on the rise. Personalisation has always been on the rise, but there’s been a global shift now towards ‘I know it can be done, so why aren’t you doing it?’. 

People who spent the previous year living in the fog of the pandemic are especially susceptible to tailored marketing campaigns. They spent so long on the sidelines of what was happening that any message that reaches out to them directly is bound to have an impact. 

Especially if it offers a way to customise their shopping experience.

2022 is going big on personalisation. From the way you view the app to the way that the product makes its way to you, to any freebies you get with it, consumers want brands to come down and talk to them on an individual level. Brands who give them that level of customisation will see a difference. 

Brands that don’t might have to find a different way of individualising the consumer, and a way of addressing them that emphasises their individuality. 

How to capitalise on this trend

Your audience categories aren’t what you should be talking to: they’re a guideline. Stop considering your consumers as members of a cohort, and think deeper about what they like, what pushes them to buy your service or your product, and what you can do to support them. 

Case Study

Spotify has personalised marketing down to an art-form. Their annual ‘Wrapped’ campaign takes over social media every year, but for 2019, Spotify went a step further. 

To celebrate the end of the decade, Spotify went back into its data and created a custom record for the decade tailored to each individual user. Besides analysing the change in their music taste over the past ten years, each user also received a link that would take them to a playlist that allowed them to relisten to their old favourites. 

They also released a ten episode podcast to go with it that examined one year of pop music from 2010 – 2019, with commentary from critics, comedians, and music journalists.  

In the first week of the campaign going live, almost 90 million users engaged with the in-app story feature. The Wrapped digital experience saw 60+ million visits, as well as 5+ billion views on Tik Tok.  

Trend 2: Money On My Mind

• 56% of global consumers consider themselves more price-conscious now⁴. 
• 68% of consumers worried about the rising prices⁵. 
• There was a 10% – 26% increase in savings for consumers in America and Western Europe⁶. 

The biggest worry for 2020 was financial. 

COVID-19 put a lot of pressure on businesses to shut their doors and mitigate the spread of the virus. As a consequence, some people lost their jobs, and their savings plummeted, and the measures implemented to tide them over weren’t always enough to make it to the next month. 

Things are better now but we’re not out of the woods. And economic recovery is still on a very uncertain timeline.

So, for the foreseeable future, consumers will still be money-conscious, price-oriented, and worried. 

And brick and mortar stores are the ones who are going to feel the pinch of this trend. With online stores offering discounts, free shipping, or other incentives to push for purchases, consumers are going to opt for the place that gives them the better bargain, regardless of quality or convenience. Consumers who live in areas that are still being battered by the pandemic are especially concerned about price, and more likely to try and save their money than splurge- no matter what the bargain is. 

How to capitalise on this trend

If you can’t lower your prices, you have to offer something more: free information, advice, user guides, a link to your consumers’ values. Consumers are going to want to know that what they’re paying for is what they’re going to be worth the money, in whatever way possible. 

Case Study 

Reformation is not a budget-conscious brand, and it’s not luxury. It sells limited edition clothing made out of deadstock fabric and repurposed vintage tailored to their individual consumers. 

The design team has to work with the fabrics they were capable of sourcing, with the materials they have available, and with a conscious effort to educate their clients on why they made those choices. Consistent pricing has also kept their stock selling out within 38 days. 

Trend 3: Digital Dreaming

• 62% of global shoppers are going to increase their use of digital shopping channels in the future⁷.
• 39% of global consumers will shop more online for things that they used to buy in store⁸. 
• Over 80% of global consumers shop online⁹.  

Since 2019, the digital landscape has changed completely. What was created out of necessity due to stores shutting down and consumers locked inside has now become a way of life that no one wants to leave behind.

Groceries online. Entertainment on demand. Consumption at scale and delivered in bite-sized portions to the people who need it most. Accessible, digital spaces that leave no-one out. 

When there was nowhere else to go during lockdown, the digital became a refuge for everyone, no matter what hobby or niche interests they had, and brands had to pivot to address them on their own terms. Now that the world is opening up, consumers don’t need to be online as often – but they still want all the perks that come with living digital-first.

Brands that can keep the way they worked during COVID-19 active while they are transitioning back to greeting customers in real life are likely to see the benefit in maintaining their digital presence and keeping the same rate of accessibility for their consumers. 

The fundamental importance of a digital presence cannot be understated. Brands who want to capitalise on conversations with their audience need a digital presence that can serve as a connecting point with their audience. Regardless of whether or not they sell online, digital has become the go-to way for consumers to learn about a brand – and brands can’t do anything but go online. 

How to capitalise on this trend

If you don’t want to set up an online storefront, you need a social media platform to use as your primary method of communication. We’ve covered some interesting social media trends for 2022 that can help you start to make sense of what you can do on social media. 

An important point to keep in mind is that your social media shouldn’t – and doesn’t – have to be corporate. The digital world is for having fun: that means connecting without necessarily having to adhere to strict guidelines, and working out what, and how, your brand should behave online.  

Case Study

Nutella wanted to increase their online traffic and increase their sales. They printed unique codes and placed them on their Nutella jars, pushing consumers to access exclusive content on the website, with 20 participants selected to win a prize every week for four months. 

The website also included a dedicated page full of recipes based all around Nutella. 

Trend 4: Accessible Eco-Conscious

• 80% of consumers say brands need to be transparent about their environmental impacts when it comes to producing their goods and services. 
• 44% consider sustainable products as too expensive. 
• 82% see climate change as one of the biggest challenges the world will face within the next 20 years. 

When it comes to the climate crisis and sustainability, consumers want their brands ready to put their money when their mouth is. 

And no, it doesn’t mean greenwashing your products to look better. 

Companies that want to commit to making a difference for sustainability also need to take the additional measure of making that sustainability accessible – especially now that people are worried about the ongoing post-pandemic financial crisis. 

People want to do better. 

They need help to be able to do better. 

And while brands can easily put down sustainability efforts as one of those subcategories that consumers want, but don’t really want, sustainability is a very real value for a lot of consumers who are willing to pay more for the peace of mind that comes with doing what little you can. 

This also extends into public awareness. Brands need to stand as educators on sustainability, not just the company that brings sustainability forward. The real value for consumers is not going to just be in purchasing the product, but in understanding why they’re purchasing what they’re purchasing, and how it makes a difference.

Information is power. And brands have information to spare. 

The brands that can capitalise on this trend stand to build more than revenue. 

They can become brands whose word has power.   

How to capitalise on this trend

Brands are well-positioned to lead in this area without cutting into profits, but they need to start talking to their consumers with transparency. Any effort to connect with their consumers on the level of what their products and services actually cost in terms of environmental impact will see brands develop a strong following, but there has to be total transparency. Obfuscating the truth behind claims is what leads to greenwashing in the first place – and as we can see now, that didn’t turn out well for the brands that pioneered it. 

Case Study

Abinbev, an Anheuser-Busch InBev product, was developed to be America’s first mass-market organic beer, addressing a gap in the market that should have been promising – but they fell at the first hurdle. Only 1% of US farmland is organic, which made finding the base products for their beer difficult. 

Michelob Ultra decided they wanted to help. 

They created a campaign where they offered in-depth training, over 25% premium for the transition period, and to become a farmer’s first customer once their training was complete. 

They saw 175 farmers sign up for the programme, an 18% increase in sales, and predicted that the amount of organic barley will triple by 2023. 

What happens now?

2022 will bring some of the biggest behavioural shifts. 

And it’s only partially because of a post-pandemic reality. 

Every trend that we’ve examined so far points to one thing: that the world we know now is on its way to becoming completely unrecognisable. Technology has already changed the way many of us work and the way we interact with each other, and the virtual has become the norm, not the exception. 

We were always headed this way.

The seismic shift that was the COVID-19 pandemic only shifted the goal posts forward a little bit, and now consumers are maintaining the pace. 

We’re looking at a new way of being: of connecting, to brands and to each other; of learning more than we had access to before; of being able to make a tangible difference. 

Of needing to make that difference. 

There was a period of time before 2019 when marketing and advertising didn’t address people; it addressed ideas. Generation gaps. Boomers, Gen Z, Gen X, vegans, digital natives. 

At the time, that thinking was necessary. Those labels are still useful. 

But they’re no longer useful to communicate to. 

Not now that we have the technology and the space to personalise our offerings, and not now that consumers are expecting more for their brands, trying to eke out a little more value for a little less money spent. 

Every brand wants to be seen as individual. 

Consumers are the same. 

How do I—?

Our consumer behaviour guide is only the surface. 

Trends appear differently in every facet of marketing, from web design to digital marketing to the way that consumers want to shop, everything in this blog is only really where it comes from. 

To see where these trends go, you have to dig deeper. 

Fortunately, we’ve written those articles, too. 

The shifts that we’re seeing into 2022 are shifts we’ve watched come into their own from before. They’re trends that were ‘eh, maybe’ at the beginning of 2019, taking greater shape in 2020, unmissable in 2021, and ones you can’t do without in 2022. 

Consumers want your brand to stand for something more. They want more sustainability. They want knowledge. They want to know the brands they frequent see them as one person, not a cohort. 

They want better. 

And while they’ve been wanting better since 2019 and the age of the ‘glass box’ brand, now it’s crucial. 

Now is when your brand has to make a decision on how it wants to keep going. 

Business as usual, lower profits, safer margins all around?

Or business out of the norm, deeper dives, more risk and more reward?

We can’t make that choice for you. 

What we can do is guide you – to tell better stories, make better choices, and be a better brand overall. 

Want to read more marketing trends for 2022?

Here are a few more resources we’ve put together, with more on the way:

Marketing Trends 2022: The Year of Conflict

SEO Trends 2022: More Human

Web Design Trends 2022

Social Media Trends 2022: The Year of More

Seven Regional Marketing Trends We Want To See More Of

B2B Marketing Trends 2022

Sources

Trend 1: Master of My Own Fate

1. ‘Industry Perspective: The Evolving Customer Experience’, Facebook IQ, 2021. 
2. ‘Privacy and Personalization Report’, SmarterHQ, 2020.
3. ‘The Impact of Customer Reviews on Decisions’, Bizrate Insights, 2021. 

Trend 2: Money on My Mind

4. ‘The Global Consumer: Changed for Good’, PWC, 2021. 
5. ‘Global State of the Consumer Tracker’, Deloitte, 2021.
6. ‘The consumer demand recovery and lasting effects of COVID-19’, McKinsey Global Institute, 2021. 

Trend 3: Digital Dreaming 

7. ‘The Future Shopper Report 2021’, Wunderman Thompson Commerce, 2021.  
8. ‘The Future Consumer Index’, EY, 2021. 
9. ‘Worldwide share of consumers that shop online’, Statista, 2021. 

Trend 4: Accessible Eco-Conscious

10. ‘The CEO Imperative: make sustainability accessible to the consumer’, EY, 2021.
11. ‘The Global Consumer: Changed for Good’, PWC, 2021. 
12. ‘McCann Worldgroup Report upends conventional wisdom about consumers’ environmental concerns’, Adweek, 2021. 

The post Consumer Behaviour in 2022 appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.