The perfect time has come to sum up what has been happening in the advertising industry and to check what will drive the market in the coming year. Which 2018 trends will not lose popularity? What new developments await us? What should we pay special attention to when planning budgets for 2019? These questions are answered by Mariusz Maksymiuk, CEO of the Adexon advertising network.
Video remains the leader
Video content is gaining even greater popularity, especially thanks to platforms such as YouTube, Netflix, and Amazon. Experts predict that by the end of next year, video will account for 80% of all internet traffic.
According to the latest eMarketer report, spending on digital video advertising in the US will consume as much as 50% of advertising budgets. This result will be driven mainly by content delivered on mobile devices and on social media. Zenith research shows that in Poland in 2019, the budget allocated to online video advertising will increase by 9% compared with the current year. Moreover, we can expect that more and more brands will focus on so-called moments marketing, that is, combining the message with the recipient's needs, which will deliver personalized content to users in the right place and time, on the right device.
One thing is certain – video is the best way to engage audiences, increase conversion rates, and achieve a high ROI.
The development of AR
Already in 2018, many brands implemented into their marketing strategies the solutions offered by AR and VR. This is one of the best ways to engage consumers, offering them unique shopping experiences. Thanks to this solution, marketers have a chance to present a product and service to customers using high-quality technology and a compellingly told story.
This year, the leader in the use of VR and AR was the Ikea store, which launched the Ikea Place application and a VR store. Consumers could choose from more than 2,000 pieces of furniture and, before buying, see how a given model would look in their homes.
Although AR and VR technology is still developing, it can already be said that it is one of the most future-oriented solutions for advertising and marketing. The ability to combine digital reality with physical objects is a breakthrough change not only for the advertising industry.
Growing demand for AI
Over the past few years, technology supported by artificial intelligence has become very common not only in marketing, but also in many other fields and industries. How can AI be used by advertisers? In marketing, more and more aspects are based on data, which means that demand for systems to process it is growing. In advertising, artificial intelligence will be used to improve performance and take the transmitted content to an entirely new level. In the future, marketers will use AI even more often to streamline trend analysis, improve candidate profiling, or develop personalized strategies. Thanks to specially constructed systems that can process enormous amounts of information, they will also be able to spend less time processing data.
Prepare for voice search
It is predicted that voice search will be one of the bigger, so far not fully exploited trends of the coming year. To prepare well for its implementation, it is worth getting to know your audience's preferences even more thoroughly and then using that knowledge when creating advertising messages.
Currently, content related to digital advertising is based on SEO phrases and keywords, which are geared toward typed queries. Voice search requires its own base of words that correspond to the language used by search engine users. Therefore, in 2019, marketers must prepare content by adjusting tone, grammar, and vocabulary so that voice search becomes even easier.
Marketing and digital advertising are constantly developing thanks to technological progress. It is worth noting, however, that the trends we observed in 2018 will not disappear, but will evolve so as to better adapt to customers' changing needs.
Mariusz Maksymiuk – President of Adexon. He has held this position since March 2016. He has more than 9 years of experience in the media, marketing, and advertising industry. As CEO of Adexon, he leads the agency's development.
Adexon has been operating on the market since 2013. It is an advertising network specializing in consulting, planning, and executing advertising and digital campaigns on the Internet. The company has a wide range of modern advertising products, thanks to which it is able to reach every target group. As a result, it is able to provide campaigns with the highest conversion rate from the online channel. The agency's clients include companies from the automotive, energy, and healthcare industries.
