While our 2022 B2B Marketing trends post below is still extremely relevant (we’ve made sure to update it as the year has progressed), 2022 is nearly over, and we’re looking ahead to next year. If you’d like to get ahead and set your sites forward, download the PDF version of our Marketing Trends 2023: The Year of Endurance blog by clicking below! If you’d like to stick to the 2022 B2B Trends article, just keep scrolling.

Intro to B2B Trends 2022

At the beginning of 2022, we published our predictions for B2B marketing trends in 2022. 

Now we’re looking at them again to see what’s changed.

Every trend we put out at the beginning of the year undergoes a change. 

As industries hop onto the bandwagon and pick up where the other company left off, changing the trend becomes a matter of business necessity – and very few trends survive as they are once they become a trend. Some never change (these would be megratrends, the overarching umbrella that other trends fall under) while others last just a season, or until a bigger trend comes along. 

Remember planking? 

That’s what we mean when we talk about trends that just disappear after a while.

Trends in business follow the same patterns. There’s always megatrends, and from these megatrends, smaller trends appear. 

All trends come from your consumers: what they like, what they don’t like, how they express themselves, what needs they want answered, what service will make their lives easier. 

B2B marketing is no different. Your clients are just bigger. And you have a lot more of those decision-makers to satisfy. 

Here’s what we predicted for 2022, and how it’s playing out so far. 

B2B Marketing Megatrends

1. Don’t Be a Dick

What we said: “Don’t underestimate the power of good. People are willing to forgive a lot if they can see that you’re genuinely trying to be nice. And people are willing to punish you if you go against their values. Over and above, it’s no longer cool to work yourself and your people down to the bone. Gone are the days where you could boast about 80-hour weeks. If you’re stuck in this rut, get out of it. Stop boasting about it and stop making the hustle your brand. Nobody likes it.”

Is it still relevant? 

Absolutely. 

‘Don’t be a dick’ isn’t just a B2B marketing mantra: it’s a mantra for every big business that has a customer-facing side (so, every big business), and it’s more than just something to tack onto your goals for the year. 

The psychological toll of the pandemic, the rising cost of living, the climate crisis: none of these problems have gone away, and in 2022, they’re more than just something to table until the next shareholder discussion – and people are feeling the pressure. From B2B to B2C, companies are being held accountable for what they do that isn’t in line with personal consumer values. 

Those values? Be a better person. Be a better company. Do better work. 

Companies that do get a much better reception than the companies that don’t. 

This trend, in practice:

NVIDIA’s family-first leadership practice has placed it at the top of Glassdoor’s ‘best place to work’ list last year, and this year looks to be shaping up for more of the same: employees are reportedly 95% more likely to recommend their place of work than 57% of employees, and best of all, it has a rare talent to be simultaneously at the heart of several problematic industries (tech, AI, robotics) without actually drawing online ire – more than a small feat for a company that’s been in business as long as NVIDIA has.

Case Study: Rethink in Canada puts their people first. “People, Projects, Profit” has been their mantra from day one and they stick to it obsessively. They have gone as far as giving their employees days off to protest, and their offices are all empty by 5pm: “When Chris Staples, Tom Shepansky and Ian Grais founded the company, they wanted Rethink to be an alternative to the typical wheel-spinning, stressful agency culture,” And if you think that all of this has made them soft, think again (or dare we say, rethink). They’ve gone from strength to strength, growing by leaps and bounds and earning widespread recognition in the process: “For the third time in just as many years, Rethink nabbed three 2021 Agency of the Year medals.”

2. Experimentation

What we said: This is the time to experiment with all the methods you had been looking at but never found the time (or courage) to try out. This is the time to speak to your audiences using methods that you’d never thought you’d try out for B2B communications. 

Is it still relevant?

B2C thrives off of experimentation: from strange collabs to even stranger marketing tactics, the world of B2C has never been more alive with sheer possibility – and B2B can take a lot of good pointers away from the B2C camp to grow the volume and value of its  connections. 

Experimentation is a lifeline right now. There are – and will always be – organisations that do the same thing that you do, with the same methods, and with the same or better results. The only way you are going to communicate above that, and reach your clients, is to figure out a way of communicating that’s better for your message. 

And to do that, you need to experiment: with how you talk, how you get people to listen, and what you do when they respond to you.

Don’t underestimate the value of what a good experiment can teach you. And if that doesn’t convince you, remember: we used to only talk to the people in our community.

Then technology and progress gave us wings. For corporations, it’s the same thing: they went from advertising on one level to one audience to breaking into markets that there were no playbooks for, not in their industry. 

Now, we have the benefit of hindsight – but hindsight still doesn’t prepare you to speak to niche audiences on the other side of the globe. Think Starbucks trying to appeal to audiences in China or Africa. 

You need to experiment to know what to say. 

And how to say it.

Other companies have experienced the same two years that you have. All that’s left to see is who’s managed to build something better out of the pandemic, and who’s tried to turn back the clock. 

This trend, in practice:

Vaseline is 150 years old, and you have heard more about it now than you’ve had in your life. 

The reason? People are using it for skincare, and they’re showing the results on TikTok. 

Unilever reached out to influencer marketing agency Team Epiphany about getting on board with Tiktok, and what Team Epiphany delivered was a helpful boost to something that had actually been around since 2014, on a subreddit called SkincareAddiction. With Unilever amplifying the content, and Tiktok creators happy to hop onto another bandwagon, the results wrote themselves: a 357% increase in social media mentions, and over 300 million views on Tiktok for ‘slugging’.

Case study: 3300% increase in ROI in 6 weeks

This performance marketing case study might not be a B2B example, but it shows how, by setting a series of hypotheses out and testing them aggressively we got our client’s return on investment from €1.30 in return for every Euro spent to €44 for every Euro spent, all in the space of a few weeks. Testing like this takes courage, and we outlined the methods we used to get to the results we needed.

3. First-Party Data

What we said: As it becomes harder and harder to track your audiences, the one consistent piece of gold that you can own is your audience’s data. While it is critical that you should be extremely respectful of this data, you should also see it as one of the major goals for next year.

Is it still relevant?

Earlier this year, Europe went after Google and Google’s third-party data habits. The results have yet to be fully estimated, however one thing is already very clear: GDPR is a much bigger force to be reckoned with than many brands are prepared to handle. One way around the GDPR violations of third-party data is to move exclusively to first-party data, but that’s not just why we recommend first party data. 

First party data is data tailored to what you need. With third-party data, you run the risk of getting so much data that you can’t really make any proper use out of it: there’s just too much of it to go through, too much of it to think about, and too much of it to properly protect. First-party data, on the other hand, is data that you own, and that people are happy for you to own. 

Third-party data is going nowhere yet. But the cost of using it is rising, and leaving it until the last minute to change over to first-party data is just going to make it harder to adapt once you have to make the change – and that change is coming. 

People are still angry about Cambridge Analytica. The most recent GDPR problems are the cherry on top of something that has been on its way for years. 

This trend, in practice: 

Our Beewits mailer goes out to 40,000 people and counting, and we’ve been curating it for years. Everything that goes out from us through to the Beewits mailer is content that has value: blogs we’ve written that we worked hard on, content that we think is worth sharing. Through it, we get traffic to the website, Beewits’ reputation for good content is maintained, and we also get a decent bump in high-quality traffic. Everyone wins. 

B2B Marketing Trends To Watch

1. Human-first marketing

What we said: While it is critical for your brand to have a unified tone of voice, the people working for your brand should be encouraged to show up when speaking on behalf of your brand, to infuse your brand voice with their personality while respecting its core tenets.

Is it still relevant?

The way you communicate as a brand has never been so fundamentally important. Tying in to the first overarching trend we mentioned, this isn’t just a case of hyping up your products and putting your best foot forward in the face of a potential client meeting; it goes deeper than that. It’s about building a base communication practice that keeps your reputation going: through the big decision makers you speak through all the way down to their employees to the people who those big decision makers recommend you to. 

The people you’re speaking to in B2B are human. It’s time to make that the underlying principle of all your B2B communication.

Your brand, as our Head of Brand likes to say, is more than a logo. Your brand is your principles: your brand is how you treat people, your brand is whether your employees are happy, your brand is how you talk to clients and competitors. When you relegate your B2B contacts to automated responses, you’re not doing justice by your brand.

This is not a trend. This is how you need to be moving forward. The world, and the businesses in it, is getting smaller and smaller. 

The least you can do for your brand is talk to your clients like people. 

This trend, in practice: 

SEMRush’s 2017 Easter Egg hunt is an early, but excellent, example of what you can reap when you talk to people on their level – and in this case, that level was explaining their product through gamification. The campaign saw over 9000 users taking part, an engagement increase of 25% and a total conversion of 71 new users. 

2. The Great Resignation/Reshuffle

What we said: All your marketing efforts reflect who you are, the way you talk about your team reflects who you are, the way you deal with your public reflects who you are. And who you are defines what talent you can recruit and retain.

Is it relevant?

The ongoing unionisation efforts in the United States alone show that this trend is still gaining momentum, and is poised to be one of those things that just keeps going. Similar to what we’ve said before, the theme for 2022 is to do better – and this has ramifications client-side, too. 

Your B2B buyers are in the same situations as you were: overworked, overtired, underpaid. The things you worry about are the same things your clients worry about, and what it means is that you’re not going to be able to hold any lasting conversations with them without keeping that in mind. 

You need to build lasting relationships. Part of it is knowing how to communicate. 

Part of it is understanding that B2B business is changing, and that you’ll need to put in a greater amount of effort into creating the kind of brand that people want to work with; the kind of brand that’s active on socials, the kind of brand that shares its knowledge free of charge, the kind of brand that understands. The kind of brand that makes things easier, not harder, on your client to do what they want. 

You will lose your first point of contact. The trick is to build the same great relationship with the person that replaces them. 

You can read more about this trend in The Great Resignation and You: How To Retain your employees.

This trend, in practice: 

SketchUp led their latest campaign after an extensive research period. Using segmented data and audience analysis on their social platforms, they built a persona that guided their social ads to providing the right content at the right time. By personalising their approach, and allowing the people they were communicating with a say in what they could see, SketchUp saw a 7% conversion rate and a 366% increase in signup to trial and purchases.

3. High Quality Content

What we said: From fantastic explainer videos to resource centres, reports, guides and in-depth blogs, B2B customers are going to be spending much more of their time (and money) with businesses that offer them excellent content marketing.

Is it relevant?

Content has always been gold. What has changed now is how important it is to get that kind of content right. 

First of all, you’re not going to get the first party data you need to market, putting you in violation of the third overarching megatrend. Secondly, you’re not going to get the right kind of background information on your client that will help you market to them in a way that appears, violating overarching trend number one. And lastly, you can’t really experiment with content without knowing what’s working for you, putting you in violation of trend number 3. 

So, yes. Good content is key. Good content has always been the bricks on which a solid brand is build, and if you’re skimping on the content for yourself – blogs that aren’t SEO optimised, own-brand campaigns that just slide short of being good, lazy design – then you’re not really putting content out there that people want to see, and you’re not really giving them a reason to go with your brand over another. 

Create good content. Create good content for free, because it pays off in the long run. Create excellent content that is designed to teach people. 

Content is an investment. If you don’t really buy into it, wholesale, you’re not going to get the same results that a brand that goes full-throttle on their content will. And there are those brands that will put out excellent, free content knowing that it’s going to pay off in the long run. 

Be like them. 

This trend, in practice:

Another excellent win for audience segmentation, and another old case that is still reaping benefits today, Stanley Black & Decker’s 2018 campaign to reduce its sales cycle was so popular that it boosted follow-up by 34% and increased Stanley Black & Decker’s market share. By tailoring their content, training their sales staff on where to communicate with potential clients, and increasing sales effectiveness by sending customer-focused content to prospective clients, Stanley Black & Decker managed to achieve their goal of minimising the sales cycle length – by 30%!

Case Study: Omnipresent’s resource centre puts them at the forefront of their industry by offering all the guides you might need when hiring someone in another country. They took the time to research the subject in most countries and they present the data in ways that makes it a breeze to find and understand. The subject matter is incredibly complicated, so in seeing the work they did you can’t help but think that you can trust these guys implicitly. If they took all this time to put all this data out there publicly, can you just imagine how much knowledge there is in the company itself?

4. Snackable Content

What we said: If you want to stand out you have to fit in. That might sound counterintuitive, but it’s just how it is. To stand out in the B2B area, you need to fit in with how other brands are talking to your audiences.

Is it relevant?

Yes. 

But also, no. 

You do need to make content that stands out. You do need to talk to your audience in the same way that they’re talking to you. 

But you also need to keep in mind that the audiences you are communicating with have the same problems, and the same time-constraints, you have. It isn’t just a case of making excellent content: it’s making sure that the content you make can be distilled into three main points, and consumed in as short a time as possible.

That said, longform content has a value that’s hard to replace with snackable content. Our advice? A blend of both will serve your purposes: you’ll respect your audience’s time with short content, but for those among them who can take the time to read a longer article, they’ll find some value in the longform content you write along the way. 

Do that, and you’re golden – and hey, you can drop the formalities too. 

5. SEO

What we said: 2022 is the year in which SEO will become more important than ever, purely because it is going to become so much harder to rank as Google updates its algorithms to kill off the hard work that SEO experts have been putting into their sites over the past few years.

Is it relevant?

Yes – though it depends on how you think SEO works. 

SEO that is written for humans, but designed to work for a machine, is absolutely necessary. Google is changing its algorithm, and the way it parses results is far, far different from when it started, to the point where we can now do away with some of the older, more annoying parts of writing for SEO, such as making sure every paragraph has a few mentions of the main keyword, just in case. Writing SEO content that is readable, shareable, and sounds like something a human being would write is in. 

Writing any other kind of content for SEO is out because it just isn’t enjoyable to read for anyone, except the code behind Google’s search engine rankings. And it definitely isn’t enjoyable for your audience.

This trend, in practice: 

Ranking second for ‘SEO agency’ isn’t an easy feat, and especially now that SEO is rising in popularity again – but Session Media managed to push their website into the second position of AhRefs by writing their SEO content for humans, which is working wonders on Google’s algorithm.

Case Study: Another one of ours here, with the results just coming in so we don’t have a case study up yet. We put some effort into SEO for switch.com.mt over 2021, but it was never the primary focus of our work. We planned content around good SEO practice, and we created quality content around subjects that we excel at (like this piece, incidentally). 

In the space of a year we dominated local SEO traffic, basically climbing up over 50 positions in our most valuable keywords, all without putting too much effort into the SEO side of things. All our effort went into creating high quality content on a regular basis, and this kept being picked up by search engines (and third parties, including Hubspot’s blog at one point). By the end of the year, monthly SEO traffic had increased by 419%.

B2B Marketing: How is it going to change

The good thing is B2B marketing hasn’t changed. 

Much. 

The bad thing is, if you haven’t started putting some of these trends into practice already, where were you this time last year?

Your brand needs help. The way you do business needs to change. 

And how you talk to, and market, your own brand is a big part of it. How your brand communicates with its clients is a part of it. 

How you see your brand is a part of it. 

Your brand is adaptable, and your consumers are forgiving, especially after the pandemic, which really puts into perspective the kind of environment that we’re living in. Kindness, empathy, and making a better community for yourself and for others aren’t new ways of doing business, but they’re fast becoming the only ways of doing business. 

Look after your employees. Talk about your brand on social media. Create amazing content for yourself, for your clients, and just because. 

And don’t be a dick. 

Let’s do this. 

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

Brand Trends 2022

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

The post B2B Marketing Trends 2022 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.

Want to read more 2022 marketing trends?

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

Intro to Social Media Trends 2022

In 2020, the average internet user spent over two hours online. 

Daily. 

Since then, the line between our digital lives and our real ones has blurred even further. 

We’re in the age where you can spot a product on Tiktok, source it off of Facebook or Instagram, and have it delivered to your exact location by an app that’s tied into your Snapchat. The age where you can get your answers crowd-sourced through an app that sets it to music and dances. The age where the world has shrunk to fit into a 9.7 inch screen. 

We’re in the age of the social-media-ification of the internet. Over the next 6,000 words, we’ll be going through which social media trends will be taking this a step further in 2022.

Social Media Marketing Golden Rules for 2022

1. There are different personas for different socials. Use them. 
2. Any content above 15 minutes has to be visually compelling, informational, and ideally interactive. 
3. Bite-sized content is superior to long content in most cases – but not in all cases (this guide is a case in point).
4. Pick your influencers carefully and work with them for longer. 
5. If you don’t engage with your consumers, your consumers won’t engage with you. 
6. Talk. Post content. Use your social media. Having a beautiful feed you only update once in a blue moon is not a social media presence. 
7. If you’re going to jump onto a trending hashtag, research what it’s about, or risk getting raked over the coals. 

The Internet of Social Media

In the early days of the internet, before social media, there were forums: places on the web where people could create an account and talk. Forums are largely constrained to one topic, and with answers less rapid-fire than what you’d expect on social media – and with a lot less reach. 

In the greater scheme of things, social media was always going to happen. That it’s become such a powerhouse is understandable: as the internet got faster and faster, communication needed to keep up. 

And thus: social media. 

Up until 2019, social media was merely growing. 

Once the world went into lockdown, that growth exploded. 

The average penetration rate for social media in 2021 was 53.6%. 

It’s going to get bigger in 2022.  

Here’s what we’re predicting per platform. 

Social Media Trend 1: Social Commerce Boom

Statistics

• In 2020, social commerce generated about $475BN in revenue. 
• 1 in 3 consumers find new brands on social media. 
• Social commerce is set to grow at a CAGR of 28.4% from 2021 – 2028.

Overview

There is at least one product you bought because of social media. 

Whether it’s #tiktokmademebuyit, Facebook marketplace, or Instagram’s shop section, social media has gone hybrid. It’s no longer used just to advertise; as more people log onto the web from mobile devices, and the internet becomes increasingly inter-connected, the old ways of e-commerce just aren’t enough. 

For brands, opening a store-front on social media is another step towards being ever more accessible, ever more reachable, by their core audience. It opens up opportunities for connection. 

It makes marketing, with the right investment, easier. 

And it isn’t going to go away. In 2022, social media shopping is going to grow. 

Social eCommerce on Facebook

Facebook’s had a pretty rough year: from scandal to rebrand, the company’s been getting raked over the coals by the internet since the Cambridge Analytica scandal – and it’s still the number one most popular social media platform in use. That said, the cracks in Facebook are there, and they’re getting bigger. With companies like Tiktok introducing a whole new idea of bite-sized, high value content that anyone can feasibly put out, Facebook has needed to innovate its product offerings. 

With its biggest revenue coming from advertising, you can see where this is going. 

Brands thrive on Facebook. As one of the original social medias – the social media to kick off all social medias – brands have had time to figure out how to use Facebook to talk to their audiences, and how to make those audiences listen and engage. 

Now the next big step is to make them buy. 

Facebook and Instagram are both going to get in on the eCommerce ground next year, with Facebook already making moves to introduce their e-commerce set up into groups. With over 2 billion in e-commerce in 2020, digital shopping and e-commerce is poised to increase as people try and maintain the same level of post-pandemic convenience that they had during and after lockdown.

Which brands did Social eCommerce right on Facebook?

La Roche-Posay Vietnam launched a new sun care product using Facebook Creative Shop. By creating an ad that ran prior to the event, La Roche-Posay encouraged viewers interested in the product to RSVP and opt into a notification to alert them when the live shopping event started.

La Roche-Posay’s presenters also encouraged viewers to use a coded hashtag in the comments to trigger a conversation via Messenger that would allow them to purchase the product through messenger. 

Over 10,000 viewers tuned into the La Roche-Posay page during the Facebook Live event, and there was a 1.8X increase in return on ad spend and a 77% increase in add to cart. 

Social eCommerce on Instagram

Instagram is also heading into the eCommerce game, but it’s going to take a little bit longer than Facebook to really start seeing movement. That said, brands that can get in on the ground floor of selling on Instagram can control the conversation – but it has to be a conversion that people want to listen to.

Small business owners and brands with aesthetically-pleasing products are especially going to do well on Instagram. Audiences who are used to seeing beautiful product shots are especially susceptible for Instagram eCommerce, and while Reels are a relatively new addition to Instagram’s lineup, they’ve been slowly climbing in popularity. 

What Instagram does better than Facebook is in marketing. 

Facebook has the reach, the audiences, and the benefit of being the most popular site on the internet for social media. 

Instagram is overall better for brands who want to build a following. 

Who did Social Commerce right on Instagram?

GrowUs, a Korean haircare brand, is an online-only brand that needed to create an online shopping experience to encourage brand engagement and sales. It developed video ads that used product features, and created an online store on Instagram where they could learn more about the product before making the ultimate purchase. 

There were 3X more purchases per website visits from people who viewed video ads with the product ads, and over 1.7X more content views from website visitors who shopped via video ads. 

Social eCommerce on TikTok

2020’s breakout pandemic star, Tiktok is a brand dream for e-commerce – but you have to talk the talk. The brands that are going to make it on Tiktok and sell their products need to fold their brand identity into what is popular on Tiktok: catchy jingles, snappy editing, and tongue-in-cheek references. 

We’ve seen the effects of Tiktok virality before. Between cult-favourite brands and ‘discoveries’, products or small businesses that make it into #tiktokmademebuyit see their profits go sky-high. With 2022 coming up, and very few other ways for Tiktok to generate other income, we’re predicting that Tiktok is going to lean into its eCommerce and small-business-friendly aspects to create an eCommerce powerhouse for the digitally-savvy. 

Who did Social Commerce right on TikTok?

Levi’s, one of the oldest American clothing brands, leveraged its advertising partnership with TikTok to elevate themselves above the COVID-19 lockdown. By using TikTok’s ‘Shop Now’ button, consumers could make purchases through the attached links. Levi’s also pulled in four mega-influencers on the platform to reach users. 

It more than doubled its product views, and its digital business is now worth 15% of its total revenue. 

Social cCommerce on Youtube

Youtube’s lacking popularity when it comes to marketing and advertising is going to pivot in 2022 as creators and advertisers try to find a platform to move away from Facebook and to personalise the shopping experience. With live streaming and e-selling set to see a boost in 2022, Youtube is poised to make the most of this category. More brands will adopt Youtube as a key platform, using Youtube’s superior video and live-streaming software to boost brand connections and create a persona that lives and breathes their values. 

And with Youtube as one of the original video-streaming platforms, it’s had the time to refine and create a platform that any creator can capitalise on. 

Who did Social Commerce right on Youtube?

Youtube is still in the testing phase of its integrated shopping experiences, however early tests are incredibly promising. Simply Nailogical, a Youtube nail influencer, debuted her new nail polish collection to 2.8 million fans, and generated over 170K views. 

This year, Youtube is also going to debut a week-long livestream shopping event. 

Social Media Trend 2: Oh, Hey, It’s Me! (Or User-Generated Content)

Statistics

• The global user-generated content market size is expected to reach $18.65BN by 2028 and to grow at a CAGR of 26.6% between 2021 and 2028. 
• 93% of marketers agree that consumers trust content created by customers more than content created by brands. 
• User-generated content tops marketing tactics by influencing over 90% of shoppers’ purchasing decisions. 

Overview

User-generated content is always a draw. 

In 2022, it’s going to be one of the strongest assets that brands can use – and it’s going to be necessary for most brands. 

We’ve talked a little bit about how important authenticity is to brand relationships. We’ve talked about the importance of having people talk about what you’re doing: free press, on the one hand, but also an unbiased opinion. 

Face it. Even with your own best intentions, a message from your brand is going to be biased. 

That’s not the case with user-generated content. In a year where authenticity and genuine content is king, user-generated content is especially important for brands who are struggling to build engagement and make people care about their product. 

The power of social is stronger, and far wider reaching, than any other message system at the moment. It’s coming off a year of unrivalled, staggering growth, where social media was everything from a way of connecting to each other to customer care, a help line, and a shopping channel. 

Real content, authenticity, and creators with credibility and the capacity to build lasting relationships are going to become a cornerstone of brand communication in 2022.

But it won’t look anything like the brand communication you’re used to. Memes, dances, songs, jokes: these are the things that carry on social media, and brands that can figure out a way of talking the social talk without compromising on their brand voice will see a definite uptick in how consumers relate to and engage with the brand. 

User-generated content on Facebook

Brand love on Facebook is always tricky, however user-generated content might manage to fill in the brand love gap. The only problem: user-generated content isn’t really the kind of thing that Facebook manages to do very well. 

If you’re interested in user-generated content on Facebook, our suggestion is to make use of the Groups. Brands who open up a Group can collect all their key consumers in one location, and build brand love within these pages. 

Who did user-generated content right on Facebook?

Toyota’s ‘Feeling the Street’ campaign is always a masterclass in UGC done right. Over a period of six weeks, Toyota collected the best user content created on Instagram and makes it into standout Facebook ads. 

An oldie but an excellent example, Toyoto’s 2016 campaign generated over 1.2 million likes, comments, and shares, and Toyoto also managed a 440% increase year-over-year in ad engagement. 

User-generated content on Instagram

Instagram’s built for UGC: the tag function makes it easy to trace all content underneath a particular brand or hashtag, and Instagram’s focus on high-quality images makes finding repostable brand content really easy. On Instagram, engagement can be a struggle, so finding a key content creator is fundamental to benefitting from the user-generated content trend.

Whatever content creator you opt for, make sure to think in terms of continuous content. Opt for a content creator you can see working with over a long period of time. 

Who did user-generated content right on Instagram?

Gymshark, a fitness brand, invited their fans to join in the #NHSSWeatySelfie challenge, where people who exercised and posted it on Instagram could raise £5 for every piece of Instagram user-generated content tagged. 

Over 35,000 pieces of content were generated, and Gymshark raised £180,000 for Birmingham Women’s and Children’s Hospital Charities.

User-generated content on Tiktok

The duet feature is excellent for user-generated content that puts your brand front and centre, but it’s not the only way to capitalise on user-generated content. Tiktok’s creators are always looking for a good hook or a joke; the problem is that brands that want to make it on Tiktok should be prepared for a change in the way that they’re perceived.

Who did user-generated content right on TikTok?

Chobani, a yogurt brand, wanted to advertise their new Chobani Flip yogurt. They started a hashtag on Tiktok and tagged in influencers to spread the word about their new yogurt, and kicked off a competition where 25 winners could win a case of their new yogurt. 

The campaign was a big success, generating over 8.2BN views for the #SwitchTheChobaniFlip challenge. 

@mattpeterson_

Only eating @Chobani Flip for an entire day! Join the #SwitchTheChobaniFlip challenge for a chance to win a limited edition product! #ad

♬ Work It – Missy Elliott

User-generated content on Youtube

For longer user-generated content, Youtube is unbeatable. 

It already has the history and the set-up to generate longer video, and the reach to make sure that audiences looking for a particular product or service can find what they’re looking for. 

The base for all Youtube communications needs to be information. With the possibility of longer content, brands who market on Youtube need to make sure that their content is worth watching – especially if you’re going to opt for longer content. Think behind the scenes and how it’s made, detailed product reviews and walk-throughs, and documentary-style videos that walk a potential customer through every part of the product or service.

Who did user-generated content right on Youtube?

GoPro’s Youtube channel has been active since 2013, and is largely credited for pioneering the user-generated content movement. 

GoPro has been incorporating videos from its fans into its marketing strategy since then, and its channel has since collected over 2,000 user generated videos and over 10.5 million subscribers. 

Social Media Trend 3: Creators Are King

Statistics

• 89% of viewers trust creators’ recommendations on Youtube. 
• The global influencing market value has more than doubled since 2019. 
• 42% of marketers consider influencer marketing one of their top revenue-generating tactics. 

Overview

You need to sell a product, a service, a lifestyle, or a brand. 

You need a story, one that’s relatable and funny, one that your audience will resonate with. 

To do that, you need to tap into creator culture. 

Creators are everywhere. According to SignalFire, over 50 million people globally consider themselves creators and it’s time to start using them – whether or not they have the reach or the followers to compete with some of the biggest influencers. 

We’ve spoken a little bit about micro-influencers before. 

But there’s another step further: you need to make sure that the creator you pick corresponds to the platform you want to advertise on. 

And you need to make sure the content you want advertised matches with your creator. 

Creators on Facebook

Facebook is one of the oldest social medias, but its credibility is on the low side, especially after the previous year. Brands who want to advertise on Facebook can’t rely on a single creator; they need a multitude. 

They need a community. 

That solves the problem of credibility. With multiple creators making the same claim, it’s harder to disprove – and much easier to get across the multiple viewpoints you need for truly authentic marketing. 

Who got it right with creators on Facebook?

Gymondo, an online subscription-based fitness and health coaching programme, wanted to increase its online subscription sales without increasing the cost per acquisition of its normal marketing activity on Facebook. 

By adding influencers to its direct response campaign, Gymondo decreased cost per acquisition by 28% and saw an increase in engagement when using macro influencers. 

Creators on Instagram

Think micro-niche. Think up-and-coming influencers with an unmatched style. 

Content on Instagram is rife with filters and editing. It can all blend into more of the same, and you want your content to stand out, so make sure the creator you pick stands out for you. 

This year, authenticity is key. Whatever micro-influencer you decide to work with, you need to have a deep understanding of the content that they already put out. You need to know where your product fits into it. 

Any age works for Instagram. Just avoid the big names. 

Who got it right with creators on Instagram?

To advertise their latest in-house perfume collection, Sephora, a makeup brand, launched a campaign with neuroscientist Jessica Herrington and Roman Bratschi, Instagram creators that could create digital, sensory experiences to help sell their products when stores were shut down and consumers were unable to shop in-store. 

They saw increased ad recall with the creator assets and a higher lift in purchase intent following the campaign. 

Creators on Tiktok

Here’s something for you: Tiktok is the opposite. 

When you advertise on Tiktok, you should absolutely look for the biggest name you can get. 

However, keep in mind that creator content on Tiktok looks different. Your brand needs to be bulletproof if you’re going to throw the gauntlet to the creators on Tiktok, since any little gap or weakness will be found and exploited. Small businesses, brands with a quirky customer-facing side, and companies who understand that marketing should be fun will do best here. 

On Tiktok, your biggest asset is going to be engaging with your creators. Tag, comment, and spread the message wide. The bigger the community connection, the more people will want to hop on the trend. 

Who got it right with creators on TikTok?

Dunkin Donuts saw an opportunity to capitalise on rising star Charli D’Amelo’s TikTok fame. D’Amelio, who was consistently seen in her videos holding a Dunkin Donuts coffee, posts videos on her TikTok of popular dancing and her Dunkin order. 

By hiring D’Amelio as a brand ambassador, Dunkin Donuts already saw a boost – but they wanted more. 

In the early fall of 2020, they released a limited edition ‘the Charli’ drink, created by D’Amelio herself, and immediately saw a massive boost in their third quarter sales, a 57% increase in app downloads ,and a 20% increase in cold brew sales. 

Creators on Youtube

Youtube is a little weird when it comes to creator content. Most people who go on Youtube to watch creators don’t necessarily do it for the products or services they talk about. 

To capitalise on the creator trend on Youtube, you need a creator whose editing style fits into what you want to say – and you’ll want to go unconventional. Don’t opt for the standard: branch out, see what collaborations you can come up with to give your brand an extra dimension. 

This doesn’t mean you should find a creator whose content is at odds with your product. 

But it does mean thinking deeper about what associations you can build for your brand that go beyond the standard audiences. 

Who got it right with creators on Youtube?

LG Electronics wanted to increase their Youtube reach for the launch of a new television, and partnered up with HYPR to find an influencer to collab with. HYPR suggested Lewis Hilsenteger, a Youtube influencer most known for his ‘Unbox Therapy’ channel where he gives product reviews and unboxes things. 

With Hilsenteger on board, they provided a television for him to giveaway on his channel and provided enough content for Hilsenteger to run through all of his social media, including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Youtube was the most popular platform, with 385,069 unique views, but the campaign attracted the attention of over four million people in total. 

Social Media Trend 4: I’m Listening

Statistics

• Digital customer service interactions are projected to increase by 40%. 
• 79% of consumers expect a response from a brand within 24 hours; 40% expect one within one hour. 
• There has been a 51% increase in customer service requests since the pandemic. 

Overview

Everyone needs connection, and everyone needs it immediately. 

Especially your customers. 

The early days of lockdown had stores shutting down wholesale and online web-stores springing up overnight to take over. That was good: the niche for online shopping has grown since, and the shopping experience in general has been streamlined. 

However, it also highlighted a particular eCommerce issue that companies struggled to fix. 

If your store is entirely online, and your team is working from home, who’s answering your customer support questions?

Brands that went digital in 2020 in a panic to turn a profit during the pandemic bit off more than they could chew, and they noticed it immediately. Customers who received products they were less than thrilled with couldn’t get into contact with the company fast enough. 

But the company sometimes took days to reply. 

We live in the age of immediate gratification. Shows are downloaded to our phones and play without a single ad break. If we have a question we want answered, food we’re craving, a particular song we want to listen to at that precise moment, we can get it immediately. 

Social media can’t just be for advertising anymore. 

In 2022, social media is going to pivot into use. Customer expectations are higher than ever, and the ‘reply within 48 hours/two business days/one week’ response doesn’t cut it anymore. 

You have a perfect customer connection vehicle already there.

Use it. 

Customer service on Facebook

With the majority of businesses using Facebook as their ‘corporate’ social media, it’s not surprising that this is one area where the trend really shines. Putting a chatbot on Facebook to answer customer questions is necessary, not just because people expect it: it’s also a good way of adding a much-needed depth to normal social media use. 

Facebook customer service has to be detailed. A good rule of thumb is to think of every possible question that a customer can have, and to programme a response that answers that question – even if it seems silly. 

This trend works best for more corporate brands, the ones whose following on Facebook is already substantial, or who are looking to break into a better way of using social media. It also works for brands who can’t have much in the way of user-generated content, or whose products and services aren’t photographable. 

Information-heavy, dedicated, and immediate: that’s what you should strive for for Facebook customer service.

Who got customer service right on Facebook?

Zappos, a clothing retailer, is so serious about fast and efficient customer service that they’ve made it a cornerstone of their business. Their Facebook page’s About section says: ‘we’re here for you 24/7’, and in 2019, they really lived up to their name. 

When they sent out the wrong size shoe for a bachelorette party by mistake, Zappos overnighted the right pair of shoes, added a wedding survival kit, and included a personal note from an employee, leaving one happy, satisfied customer, and a lot of generated goodwill. 

Customer service on Instagram

Instagram can go a little more personal with this trend. The darling of small businesses and best-friend brands, Instagram isn’t tied to the same formality that Facebook is, and you should use it to your advantage. 

Answers on Instagram should be informal, and should give a little more than just information. This is an excellent platform for brands that cater to the aesthetic: home, beauty, crafts, skincare, makeup. 

Give advice. Give more than you’re asked. Make sure each customer request feels personal. 

A bot can be programmed for this, but we also recommend a dedicated customer service agent for those requests that just can’t be anticipated. 

Who got customer service right on Instagram?

Erigo, an Indonesian menswear brand, wanted to increase sales and reach new customers during the COVID-19 pandemic, when most stores were shut. They also had to contend with Ramadan, as the campaign would run during April and May. 

Targeting men who had never interacted with Erigo before, they created an Instagram Direct campaign where clicking on the ad connected the consumers with a personal stylist, who could give them advice in real-time. Every person who clicked on the ad would also get a direct link to Erigo’s Shopee page, and a discount code.

Over six weeks, they saw 1.9X greater basket sizes from customers who clicked to Instagram Direct, managed to assist over 8,000 consumers, and increased brand awareness.

Customer service on Tiktok

Tiktok customer service is fun. 

And it’s a brand-building investment. 

The nature of Tiktok’s bite-sized content means that any customer service queries have to be taken at face value, and it’s hard to programme a bot to answer customer questions. That said, using Tiktok as your customer service platform gives you the opportunity to emphasize how your customers can relate to your brand. 

It’s going to be impossible to answer every customer question. We still recommend you have an alternative way of reaching out to your customers, otherwise you’re going to spend all your time crafting response videos. 

That said, for the ones you do answer, make sure you answer them well. Talk about your products. Show behind the scenes footage. Tiktok is the platform where that sort of content skyrockets your popularity. 

Don’t waste it. 

Who got customer service right on TikTok?

Pair Eyewear, a direct-to-consumer eyewear brand, uses Tiktok to answer customer service questions, from what type of lenses their glasses come with to how long it’s going to take to ship a particular product. 

Since joining Tiktok, they’ve seen at least 10% of its sales coming from Tiktok every month, and can attribute over $400,000 worth of sales from TikTok in a month due to organic posts. 

@paireyewear

We’ve got the secret to stylish eyewear. ? #TheLarkin #PairEyewear #WearPair #tiktokcomedy #tiktokmademebuyit

♬ original sound – George Jnr McKeon

Customer service on Youtube

We’ll be honest: answering customer questions on Youtube is not the best use of this platform. 

For one thing, Youtube is built for longer content. For another, the customer queries you’re going to get on Youtube might not be the ones you want to answer publicly. 

However, there is a way. 

Customer questions on Youtube where you can extract a sizeable amount of information can do well, especially for brands that focus on DIY, home improvement, gaming, and makeup. It doesn’t have to be a 30-minute video, but a ten or fifteen minute video that goes into how to use a product can help cut down the customer service questions you do get. 

Batch your customer service questions into groups. Figure out the ones that are asked most frequently, the ones that you will keep repeating over and over again. 

Make a step by step video explaining how to use the product. You’ll be surprised at how many people will appreciate the extra guidance – especially if your products can be a little confusing to figure out how to use. 

Who got customer service right on Youtube?

Skullcandy‘s Youtube, although in a niche category, is popular for the in-depth advice they offer to their consumers. With over 147K subscribers and views heading into the millions, Skullcandy’s Youtube channel serves more as a community hub than brand advertisement. 

Their troubleshoot and user guide categories are the most popular, each generating high viewing numbers. 

Social Media Trend 5: Into the [____]-Verse

Statistics

• 75% of consumers expect retailers to offer an augmented reality experience. 
• Conversion rates for AR engagement are up by 90% post-COVID. 
• Brand recall increased by up to 70% after using AR for engagement. 

Overview

Augmented reality. Virtual reality. Multiverse. Metaverse. 

Real life into virtual. 

Technology has come a long, long way since the first cellphone, the first webpage, the first email sent to the first internet user, to the point where the tech we use now and the tech (most) of us grew up with look like they’re from different universes. 

And that’s only going to get more prominent as technology improves. 

Augmented reality and virtual reality have already been used for other aspects of marketing. In 2022, they’re going to get bigger, especially for brands that can take advantage of ‘try before you by’ filters. From trying on lipsticks virtually to taking a walk through a custom-crafted brand park, experiential doesn’t have to be in real life anymore. 

Experiential lives in the virtual. 

AR & VR on Facebook

Facebook has rebranded as Meta. 

Their reason: to bring forward a different way of online experiences. Of living online. Of being. 

While the definition of the metaverse has yet to be understood, as an early pioneer, Facebook is going to be the platform to watch for the metaverse. We’re still a few years out from seeing the full extent of what can be done, and from seeing brands engage with it – but brands who start planning their metaverse expansion from now can be among the first. 

Think big. 

But until then: you can’t really go wrong with augmented reality filters. 

There’s already been some successful AR campaigns on Facebook that have really elevated the possibilities of what can be done with marketing. AR filters are also incredibly compelling: it allows consumers to experience a product or a service without the risk of purchasing, and usually results in higher conversions. 

Brands that sell experiences – travel, technology, food – will perform the best with AR filters. However, it doesn’t mean other brands won’t. If you can sell your product as an experience, AR filters can help you make that experience memorable. 

Who got AR right on Facebook?

Made.com, a UK-based online furniture retailer, wanted to use new technology to increase brand awareness and attract new customers – and also take advantage of the lockdown, which had prevented them from opening their stores. 

They added an augmented reality experience that allowed people with iOS devices to position furniture inside their homes. 

The AR filter increased ad recall by 40%, purchases by 2.5X, and also saw an added 63,000 visits to the website via the AR experience. 

AR & VR on Instagram

AR and VR on Instagram is sophisticated, but that’s not a surprise. It’s owned by Facebook, after all. 

However, AR and VR on Instagram is far more intensive than what Facebook has currently achieved. Brands that opt for VR and AR on filters can really share a product, service, or an experience at a deeper level than what’s currently achievable on Facebook – and it can bring a lot of nuance and depth to brands that have an Instagram, but struggle to engage with their consumers. 

Beauty brands and institutional brands can especially do well using this trend – particularly if they’re a little bit niche. Other brands can also benefit, but you have to take an angle that your website and other socials can’t fit, and the more beautifully done, the better. 

Who got AR right on Instagram?

Samsung wanted to increase awareness of its new Neo QLED 4K and 8K televisions in Jordan and Iraq during a time when COVID-19 had closed all retail stores. 

They created a series of interactive ads using an augmented reality filter which allowed consumers to place the television inside their own home. 

The campaign ran from July 5 – 21st and saw an increase in ad recall and brand favourability. 

AR & VR on Tiktok

There’s been some early adoption of AR for TikTok, but more is always better – especially for big, ‘older’ brands that want to attract a newer audience or the younger generation. The innovation and the experience of seeing a familiar brand engaging with AR and showing a different facet of the product can help widen the audience demographic and increase the brand’s reach. 

Who got AR right on TikTok?

Netflix Germany wanted to raise awareness for its new TV show: “Sing On! Germany” within the German market. 

It partnered up with Tiktok to release a branded hashtag challenge, inviting the TikTok community to send in Karaoke videos. To further incentivise people to take part, they used an augmented-reality filter to simulate a karaoke booth for deeper immersion. 

The campaign generated over 600 million views in ten days, and increased awareness for the show massively. 

@electra_pain

Anzeige | Ich liebe Karaoke ? Ob Gesangstalent oder nicht, der Effekt macht echt Spaß ?? Bin gespannt auf eure Videos! ? #NetflixDE #SingOnGermany

♬ Originalton – Electra Pain

AR & VR on Youtube

Youtube have had AR filters in ads since 2019, mostly circled around the ‘try it’ beauty feature that corporations such as MAC have also included on their website. 

There hasn’t been much more development in Youtube AR or VR ads since then. 

We predict that DIY and home improvement brands can definitely generate a buzz if they advertise using AR filters on Youtube, but given that Youtube’s ad policies have started to generate a negative buzz across the internet, consider advertising on Youtube very carefully.  

There is such a thing as bad press. 

Who got AR right on Youtube?

Youtube has come late to the augmented reality campaign game, with their first branded effort releasing just the previous year: a virtual makeup try-on to run right alongside your favourite beauty influencer. 

The earliest campaign for augmented reality on Youtube was run by MAC Cosmetics, who allowed fans of Roxette Arisa to try on the same products that she was wearing in her video. 

Early results show that 30% of viewers enabled the AR experience in the Youtube iOS app, as well as spent over 80 seconds trying on lipsticks. 

Coming Soon: Web 3.0

There are more trends en-route for 2022, but they’ll take a while to start appearing. As we said in our marketing trends blog, trends aren’t contained to a specific year, and they don’t start at the same time. 

Web 3.0 is something we’re going to see more of in 2022. It’s going to impact the internet on a level that we haven’t even anticipated – we’ve only just started noticing how far-reaching Web 2.0 is. 

But it’s happening. 

And you need to be prepared. 

Why Web 3 matters ?

— Chris Dixon (@cdixon) September 26, 2021

What is Web 3.0?

When we talk about blockchain, the metaverse, and NFTs, we’re talking about Web 3.0. We’re talking about a web controlled by, and designed by, the people rather than by big tech corporations, governments, or brands. We’re talking about an internet that’s open and transparent. 

We’re talking about a decentralised internet where users can control every tiny aspect of their digital lives: from how they see their search results to what kind of recommendations they get.

How is web 3.0 going to affect marketing?

The key quality of Web 3.0 is freedom. 

That means freedom from monitoring, freedom from control, and freedom from advertising. It means an internet that’s similar to Web 1.0: a massive information resource accessible by everyone without someone at the centre controlling it all. 

For marketing, this is going to affect the way brands have to interact and communicate with their consumers. Their audiences are going to shrink, even as their reach is going to grow, and they’re going to need to invest in the right ways to talk online to attract consumer attention. The days of addressing consumers ‘at large’ and managing to reel in one or two by accident are over; with Web 3.0, brands have to segment their audiences and address based on individual characteristics. 

There’s also going to be a shift in how brands talk. Static ads will drop in popularity as hybrid spaces grow more and more complex, and virtual-real experiences will take over from segmented experiences that are either virtual or real. Furthermore, convenience is going to lead to multi-channel apps that can fulfill all a consumer’s needs without the need to go bouncing between different locations.

What do we need to keep in mind about web 3.0?

This has already started. 

We’re not kidding. 

Web 3.0 might take a while to happen in the way we envision because the technology and infrastructure needed aren’t ready yet. 

But the mental shift has already happened. 

Brands have become more than brands. Consumers want more than just products. They want to engage with and talk to companies that understand them, that have their best interests at heart, and that want to do better. Brands who can start to move towards this from now are ready to take on Web 3.0 when the technology is ready. 

Brands who aren’t, need to catch up, or risk being unable to once Web 3.0 rolls around. 

And it is coming. Sooner or later, your brand has to change. 

You might as well do it now. 

Conclusion

Social media marketing has come a long way from what we’re used to. Regardless of which platform you use, it’s hard to advertise nowadays without the traction and the reach you get from social media. 

It’s an investment. It’s a tool. 

It’s necessary. 

But whether it’s useful to you or not depends on how well you use it, and how much time you spend growing your audiences. 

We’re heading towards a point where a digital presence is necessary to connect with your consumers, and where your consumers are located all over. Whether that’s going to be social media for you is not our call. 

But we think it should be. 

And if you’re struggling to figure out how to make the best use of the platform you’re on, we’re happy to guide you through it.

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

B2B Marketing Trends 2022

Seven Regional Marketing Trends We Want To See More Of

The post Social Media Trends 2022: The Year of More 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 2022: The Year of Conflict for free by clicking below. Otherwise, just keep reading!

Intro to Marketing Trends 2022

In a little over a month, it’ll be 2022. 

These last couple of months have been interesting. We’ve watched the world go from full COVID-19 pandemic to ‘what pandemic?’, offices go offline, then go remote, then go back to the office, new cases hit critical mass. It’s been the year of COP26, the year of ICOM Back to the Future, the year of the Great Resignation. 

Last year, we wrote about The Year of New. 

This is the year of conflict. 

A Global Snapshot

The world has had enough. 

Rising house prices. Climate change crises. Mass dissatisfaction. An overwhelming, drowning feeling of exhaustion. Activism that changes nothing. 

2021 taught us a lot about how people will pull together in a crisis and how, given enough opportunity, there is a lot of kindness left in the world.

2022 is going to teach us that kindness is a weapon, and it’s aimed directly at the institutions that failed us: big corporations, governments, and celebrity-led companies that hide behind the thinnest CSR initiatives to pull in greater profits. 

People are leaving their jobs. They’re advocating for better working conditions. They’re criticising the people in power – loudly and visibly. The internet has become a battleground, and the more the year draws to an end, the more it’s obvious that the patterns started in 2021 are going to reach into 2022, dig down even deeper, and force a change. 

Whether that change is easy to make or not.

Also, ‘global’ doesn’t mean ‘it’ll never happen here’. 

It will. The trends we’re seeing in the United States, Europe, Asia: they’re going to hit you too. These things aren’t held by borders or rules or strong economies. 

There is a domino effect. 

Hit one, and they’ll all get it. 

What’s here to stay

Marketing trends change – but the old trends don’t stop happening just because the calendar’s rolled forward one year. Some of the biggest trends of 2021 are following us into 2022. 

Here’s what’s going to stay: 

1. Remote and virtual events. 

The pandemic isn’t over. We’ve just stopped building contingency plans around lockdowns and limitations. 

That said, remote and virtual events were popular last year, and the wider accessibility of remote and virtual events means that these are probably going to keep going until virtual reality becomes a little more accessible for everyone. 

2. Working from anywhere. 

Let’s face it: you don’t really love your office. You love the people that come with it. 

Office culture took a beating in 2021 when offices went remote. Then people realised they could travel around the world, not ever have to do another eight hour commute, and still keep their job more or less the same. We’re not going to go back to the days of working from the same location; if anything, people are going to think bigger. 

If your home can be anywhere, so can your office. 

3. Brand accountability. 

Brands that want to stay relevant need to stay on the good side of their consumers. 

That’s a good thing. 

In 2022, brand accountability is going to be something slightly different, but it’s still the same old mantra: unless you want to be the internet’s main character (nobody wants to be the internet’s main character), you need to look at what your organisation stands for and how it’s going about supporting that cause. 

Everyone needs to support something in their lives. 

Your brand can’t be an exception. 

Not if you value profit. 

How things have changed

2021 brought some big changes into play. If you’ve read our blog about The Great Resignation, you know that’s part of it. 

There’s more. 

Cookies are on the way out: they’re being blocked by most popular browsers. 

Apple has blocked data tracking. 

Data is a big concern for consumers – and for businesses. 

People care about how they’re being treated and about how others are treated. 

The tide is starting to turn against global corporations that are ignoring this narrative. 

2021 has been a lot. People have hit the glass sides of what they’re willing to put with, what they’re willing to sacrifice, and what they’re willing to do. 

In 2022, that glass is going to start straining. 

Trend 1: Active(ism) Listening

We’ve mentioned that brands need to support a cause. 

We’ve mentioned that brands have to have something they believe in. 

Before 2022, that was kind of take-it-or-leave it. A general donation to a charity or co-opting a hashtag was enough – and then 2021 happened. 

Organisations need to show tangible, concrete, continuous proof that they stand for something beyond making profit. 

A brand that has admirable values at its core will do this. Those brands that, even on a small level, actually care about a cause enough to link it to their fundamental principles will behave accordingly and the world will, slowly at first, take note.

That doesn’t mean you can compromise on quality or price. It just means that you have to do more than quality and price to attract customers. 

You have to do more than what you say. 

Statistics

• 79% of consumers agree that positive actions by brands raise brand awareness¹. 
• 64% of consumers have switched to only purchasing from brands who are actively fighting for change². 
• 58% of consumers are influenced by a brand’s activism when making a purchase³.  

How do I use this trend?

Find a cause you believe in. 

Once you do, see how you can support that cause – and, no, ‘raising awareness’ doesn’t count as support. What can you invest in to bring your cause more attention? How can you make sure that your brand supports your cause the best way it can? Once you have that, you have to keep moving forward from there. 

Case Study

Ben & Jerry’s have always been activists. From LGBT+ parades to campaigning for prison reforms, they’ve had things to say, campaigns to say it with, and funds locked into pushing their campaigns to better awareness. 

They’re pros at putting their money where their mouth is, and 2021 continued the trend: as the Israeli conflict deepened, they stopped selling their ice-cream in Occupied Palestine Territories. 

Caveat: they’re currently locked into a disagreement with parent-brand Unilever, who wants to keep selling their products in OPT, and there’s no current information how it will be resolved. 

One other thing of note: Ben & Jerry’s, the company with over 43 years of active history, has little to no major controversies. In the age of the internet where every company has controversies, that’s saying something. 

Here’s what we did

One Run, One Race wanted to promote equal education opportunities for everyone in Malta, so they decided to do it by running around the two main islands straight. 180km in just under 2 days.

We donated our time and expertise to the cause. We planned their campaign ahead of time, planned the course of action for how to communicate during the event and we even stayed with them for the entire 35 hour marathon to make sure their cause attracted attention – and funding.

Our expert says

“Brands that honestly align with a cause are nothing new. Brands that pretend to align with a cause are now getting old. A growing and vocal group is out there, calling out brands for paying a feeble tribute to the cause-of-the-day, and demanding that they do more. It is a great time for those brands that are still on the fence to take a moment, to sit around a boardroom table and have awkward, introspective conversations, to acknowledge that financial return will only be bolstered by engaging in best practice, and to commit to doing the right thing. We’ve worked with some established and traditional brands who have honestly supported worthy causes and have only seen positive outcomes. While there will be a few loud voices that will scream, ‘that’s not enough’ to anything a brand does, this should not discourage brands from taking small steps in the right direction. Be steadfast, be honest, acknowledge that the brand is in progress, and you will reap the benefits of stronger ties with the audiences who matter.”

Trend 2: Data Do-Over

2021 brought us closer to the end of third-party cookies. 

One of marketer’s significant data allies, the phasing out of third-party cookies meant that a source of consumer data gold was no longer going to be available, and though the end of the third-party cookie has been delayed until 2023, marketers have to start adapting to the cookie-less world now. 

Why did it happen?

Consumers want privacy. 

There’s an unprecedented amount of data that you can collect on consumers today. Download any free-to-use tool or spend even five minutes on an individual’s Facebook page, and you come away knowing more about them than they know themselves. It illuminates what drives that consumer; what they like to support, how they talk to their loved ones, what catches their attention. Things that, if you pin them down to a formula, are crucial for anyone wanting to market to today’s consumer.

And it’s easy to pin them down to a formula. 

Understandably, consumers don’t want anyone to know them to that extent. 

And even more understandably, all that data is useless unless you can make sense of it. 

2021 showed us just what data can do. With everyone locked down and the metrics for success changed, consumer data for 2021 all came from online. Over 90% of the world was on Facebook or Instagram at the same time; is it any surprise that people noticed how much their online life has permeated their real one?

2022 is going to bring about a change in data: in how we gather data, how we use data, and what that data means. 

Statistics

• 61% of high-growth brands are shifting to a first-party data strategy with the intent of providing personalised content⁴. 
• 66% of global users feel tech companies hold too much control over their personal data⁵. 
• 70% of consumers say they’re happy with companies accessing their data so long as they gather it themselves⁶. 

How do I use this trend?

There are two main points you should keep in mind to make the most of data: 

1. Invest in excellent cybersecurity. A data breach is going to hurt you – a lot. 
2. Develop a strategy to collect first-party data. This is important: make sure you have a relationship with your consumers first, and make sure you put that data to good use. 

Case Study

Sour Patch Kids has been pivoting its data accruation strategies from third party to first party since 2020. It started with a Tiktok page; it has since become the biggest snack brand on the platform, and has had a constant, steady stream of activations and experiments that netted the brand an incredible amount of attention from their target audience. 

Its ‘Make My Mix’ campaign is a goldmine of best first-data collection practices. People who want to create their own custom mix get to pick and choose the sweets and pack-size they want, and have it delivered to their home – and because they get something in return, the ‘data collection’ part doesn’t sting. It’s sweetness all the way down. 

Here’s what we did

DIY went big during the lockdown. No matter how old your house, no matter what colour you needed, everyone trapped inside started working on the DIY projects they’d put off for years. 

Enter: Sigma Masterpiece, a fully crowd-sourced campaign that taught us a lot about what kind of people our brand’s audience is made up for. And we got to visit some to-die-for houses in the process! 

Our expert says

“The death of the cookie is a symptom of a larger ideological shift. Gen Z in particular expects brands to be more transparent and have better business practices surrounding subjects such as privacy. The quicker your brand gets onboard with these expectations, the more support it’s likely to find. Until recently, most people were not aware that their data was being collected and sold to the highest bidder. Or, just as likely, they didn’t care. Now, notorious data collectors such as Facebook & Google have come under serious fire, and will continue to do so until their practices change. Resting your entire marketing strategy on these platforms will work for now, but won’t be as sustainable very soon, unless you’re happy with a spray-and-pray approach to your advertising. Find out how you can provide real value to your audiences for them to want to hear from you, rather than have them scroll mindlessly past it. Or worse, develop a negative association with your brand based on the channels you use.”

Trend 3: ‘Just-Like-Me’ Marketing

Consumers want to see themselves. 

This isn’t really a new trend as much as the expansion of a pre-existing trend. If you’ve ignored the push for diversity in the last couple of years, the possibility that you’ll be able to keep going is getting smaller and smaller. From Black Lives Matter to the Netflix boycott, consumers are tired of the ‘ideal’ advertising: white, bright, and beautiful people in white, bright, and beautiful homes.

They want to see their society, up in lights. 

And their society isn’t going to look like anything you expect. 

This goes double for influencers. Influencer marketing is going to skyrocket in 2022, but not for the big influencers everyone is tired of looking at. Micro and niche influencers will find their audiences much easier to grow as people look for authentic lives: lives they can relate to, lives they can watch, and lives that can guide them to live a little bit better. 

Statistics

• 59% of consumers are more likely to trust brands where they are represented in ads⁷. 
• Micro-influencers with less than 15k followers have the highest average engagement rate of all influencer categories⁸_. 
• 71% of consumers expect greater diversity from brands⁹. 

How do I use this trend?

Reach for different influencers. Hire diverse, from small businesses to suppliers to content creators, to add meaning and authenticity to your messages. Listen to the minorities in your audience and learn from that. 

And back up your paper promises with proof. As we’ve said: in 2022, the name of the game is how much you’re willing to invest for a cause. 

Case Study

Decathlon, a sports brand, recently went viral for a very small thing: expanding the notion of what sports and active lifestyles should look like. Their first, and most recent, campaign took the international symbol for the disabled, a man in a wheelchair, and gave it a modern, active slant. 

They took inspiration from the 2020 Canadian Paralympics team, and made the icons available to use free of charge in the hopes that other retailers would update the old 1968 with something more inclusive for all. 

Here’s what we did

Our Take Me to Malta campaign gathered influencers from all over to leverage their unique audiences into seeing our island through their eyes. We built their itinerary based on the most beautiful locations at the perfect time to get them some incredible shots of the island at its best. 

Our expert says

“Every content creator on social media is an influencer. What is going to stand out in 2022 are long-term relationships. Creators are pushing back on the ‘one time collaborations’ of putting a product or service in the spotlight, and instead are looking for long-term brand collaborations where they can really experience the brand in order to truly talk about it. 

And this is something that they have to do to remain relevant. More than ever, people are aware that they’re being targeted with paid content, and creators have to stand out as an authentic source of information despite that. The narrative of influencer marketing has changed from ‘this brand is collaborating with me to promote their product’ to ‘I have selected this brand to promote their product because of [reason]’ and this is something brands need to be prepared for. There needs to be a drastic change from looking at influencers as just a billboard booking to actually investing time in creating meaningful, lasting relationships – and only then will you have truly authentic, diverse, human content.”

Trend 4: IRL Online

One of the things that came out of lockdown: how to make sure that your real life and your online life meshed. Remote events, hybrid experiences, AR, VR, AI: the list is limitless. And hey, it makes sense. Clicking on ads and Zoom calls are so 2016. 

Technology has never been capable of so much. The capacity for what you can do with a little bit of coding and a sense of fun hasn’t been met yet, and it’s time that it is. 

2021 showed us tech is possible for great things. 

It also showed us that tech, in general, has been boxed up and made generic. 

But that’s primed to change. 

After a whole year of routine Zoom calls and emails and bland connections, brands should start adding fun back into their online offerings and hybridising their approach to communication. We’re in a beautiful, technological time. 

Make the most of it. 

QR, AR, and VR are the sectors most likely to see a rapid-scale expansion as brands connect the physical world to the virtual. Easier shopping experiences and multiversal offerings offer a lot of value to consumers who crave innovation – and after a year of nothing, everyone craves innovation a little bit. 

That said, don’t knock the possibilities of AI. AI tactics for customer services have barely scratched the surface of what’s possible, and 2022 is going to show us just how much AI can do with human-led design behind it. 

Statistics

• 73% of event planners see hybrid events as here to stay¹⁰. 
• Products with AR capabilities see a 94% higher conversion rate than products without¹¹. 
• The augmented reality, virtual reality, and mixed reality market is forecast to reach 30.7BN in 2021 and close to 300BN by 2024¹². 

How do I use this trend?

Stop thinking about your audiences as separate. Online or in-store: it doesn’t matter. Address them both, at the same time, and within their own territories, using the tools you have available. Bring online in-store and take the store online – 2021 showed us the boundaries between them are paper-thin. 

Break them. 

Case Study

Estee Lauder is a perfume company. It’s hard to sell perfume remotely – the scratch’n sniff technology of 90s stickers hasn’t yet been pioneered to transfer scents over the internet 

However, that didn’t stop Estee Lauder from pioneering a Snapchat filter designed to sell scents. Using image, sound, and ambience, their augmented reality line-up includes four fragrances that allows users to pick what kind of scent they want to buy. It’s a good way of building atmosphere and marketing a product without relying on physical stores – and a good way of leveraging today’s try-before-you-buy, bargain-hunting mentality to do something creative. 

Our expert says

“The more ways we have to talk to a customer, the more ways we have to get it wrong.” That’s the glass half empty reaction that most businesses will have, which means that there is immense opportunity to get it right. Just like every other great opportunity staring at us in the face right now, this will be one area in which smart businesses will take advantage and use this as another way to get ahead of the competition. 

So think of all the channels with which you can communicate with a client and create a process that ensures delight with every interaction. Delight in a way that makes sense for you across channels and that matches the spirit of the channel itself. It’s not going to be easy, but nothing worth doing ever is.

A note of caution: Just because someone promises that they’re using AI to carry out a task does not automatically mean that it is better. AI is being thrown around by marketers all over the world, but very few companies are using it with any real benefit over traditional algorithms yet. That time will come, but it will take some time until it’s really democratized. For the moment most AI “implementations” are just smoke and mirrors.

Another note of caution: Keep human. Don’t see different channels as a new opportunity to bug them across all the channels you can possibly reach them. If you’re seeing more channels as more opportunities to bombard your “20% off!” message, please crawl back into your cave.”

Trends we’ll see later on in the year (or beyond)

Some trends don’t strike at the same time, and these won’t roll out the second the calendar changes digits. 

But we’re going to see them regardless. 

Trend 5: Metaversing

Tech brands are going to figure out a way to capitalise metaversing: finding a way to create a for-entertainment sub-society on the internet, with real-world, real-life applications. Think supersized entertainment as a way of life, from in-universe tie-in products to actually getting to live out and experience your favourite escapisms. 

Early trend-setter: Microsoft Mesh

Microsoft Mesh is expanding what it means to work from home by using their newly-built Mesh technology to create a comprehensive virtual reality office. Featuring avatars, ‘shared holographs’, and interactive elements such as a whiteboard and colour-coded tasks, Microsoft Mesh is on the way – and work will not be the same. 

Trend 6: All the Comforts of Home

We’re not going back to commuting everywhere, and we’re not going for green energy. We’re staying home, and companies are going to provide every opportunity and possibility for those WFHers to live the same way at home as they did in the office. Does this lead to increased privacy concerns? Maybe, if your boss is like that; but it’ll definitely be more comfortable. We’re looking at high-speed, do-or-die internet, unique corporate products built as an ecosystem, and the diversification of what ‘corporate’ means in an online environment with less accountability than the office. 

Early trend-setter: Skittish

Skittish was one of our favourite initiatives in 2020, and now that we’ve had a chance to play around with its ecosystem, it’s definitely looking like something that’s going to take the corporate world by storm once they realise that working from home might lead to increased productivity, but the office culture so many of us have painstakingly built will suffer. Skittish isn’t strictly work: although you can create multiple locations that deal with business, you can also watch movies, spam Rick Astley music until your coworkers change the video, and just pretend you’re in the office for a little while. 

As a technicolour llama. 

Trend 7: Anti-Doomscrolling

Occasionally, the internet is overwhelming with bad news. This takes a toll on social media users in particular. For 2022, companies are going to start rolling out better measures against doomscrolling and screen-fatigue to combat the higher rates of stress and anxiety that comes with being online. This means, for some companies, a complete overhaul of their core tenets. We’ve seen some of this in 2021, but it’ll only start making strides in 2022 as companies figure out what side of the mental health awareness they stand on. 

Early trend-setter: Joyscrolling

The best way to fight screen fatigue and the general anxiety that comes with an endless loop of bad news is with joy. Joyscrolling, by the Icelandic Tourism board, is a multi-sensory app that uses sound and image to draw the user into a more positive, cheerful mindset and show them only good news. Fighting doom with joy: we’re into it. 

Trend 8: Super-App Synchronicity

The days of disparate apps are slowly dwindling; make way for the super-app, the all-in-one, everything-at-your-fingertips expansion to your regular Facebook or Instagram browsing. Social media companies have already attempted to make their app the supreme app: Facebook has Facebook Marketplace, Messenger, Facebook Live; it’s attempting to branch out into virtual currency, it’s rebranding as Meta, it has plans to encompass even more of online life than it already does. And once it happens for Facebook, it’ll happen for Instagram and Whatsapp in tandem. One app that you can do everything with. One app that you never leave. 

Early trend-setter: Yandex Go

Yandex Go combines Yandex’s food delivery, transportation, and delivery services into one global application in what is being called Europe’s earliest adoption of the super-app trend. 

A note on trend forecasting and trend watching

We publish one of these reports every year. 

It doesn’t mean that last year’s edition has stopped being relevant. 

Trends are determined by huge, seismic shifts in society: by activism and riots, by rage, by progress, by burnout, by joy, by people and what’s in their lives, what they watch, what they buy. The trends that we see now are reflecting what we’re seeing in real life. 

But they don’t come from nowhere. 

Each trend report we release builds on last year’s edition. And the trends we published in 2021 are still relevant – just less so.

As consumer priorities and behaviours shift, so do the trends we’re seeing; they adapt to the society that’s pushing them forward and making them the focus. 

2021 changed everything. The trends we saw then are still going to be relevant for years to come. There’s a reason we called that year ‘The Year of New’. 

2022 builds on that. 

Keep them both in mind. 

Conclusion

It’s always bittersweet to write these articles at the end of the year and see how much has changed. On the one hand, understanding where the world is going is important for everyone, not just marketers.

On the other hand, the changes are coming fast, and they’re not all for the best. 

Sometimes it feels like all we can do is tread water until the next big change comes along. 

But agencies can do more. 

Our role as an agency has not changed from 2021. The goals that we set out to do then – make better choices, tell better stories – are going to remain relevant for the end of this year, and even more so for what comes next. 

Things are difficult. And they’re getting harder. 

We need to make sure going forward is better, for everyone. What’s become increasingly obvious over 2021, and going into 2022, is that agencies also need to push for better: better causes, better goals, and a better way of doing things.

Want to read more marketing trends for 2022?

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

SEO Trends 2022: More Human

Web Design Trends 2022

Seven Regional Marketing Trends We Want To See More Of

B2B Marketing Trends 2022

Social Media Trends 2022: The Year of More

Sources

Trend 1: Active(ism) Listening

1. 2021 Global Marketing Trends, Deloitte, 2021
2. 2021 Meaningful Brands Report, Havas, 2021
3. Q3 2021 Consumer Trends Report, JungleScout, 2021

Trend 2: Data Do-Over

4. 2021 Global Marketing Trends, Deloitte, 2021
5. Global consumers opinion on personal data control by tech companies, Statista.com, 2021
6. ‘Personalize or Perish: State of Personalization Report for 2021’, Forbes.com, 2021

Trend 3: ‘Just-like-me’ marketing

7. ‘The Psychology of Inclusion and the Effects in Advertising’, Microsoft Advertising, 2021
8. Influencer Marketing Benchmark Report 2021, Influencer Marketing Hub, 2021
9. ‘The difference diversity makes in online advertising’, Facebook Marketing, 2021

Trend 4: IRL Online

10. ‘73% of Even Planners Expect Hybrid Events to Be More Common in the Future’, Meeting Spotlight, 2021
11. ‘The Rich, Untapped Future of Augumented Reality for Customer Experience’, Deloitte, 2021
12. ‘Augmented (AR),virtual reality (VR), and mixed reality (MR) market size 2021-2024’, Statista.com, 2021

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