1. The Gen-Z Camera Zoom proves social is fiction
Millennials getting trolled for their camera zoom isn’t a normal event. In influencer culture, the first few seconds are depiction of what is yet to come. It shows that Gen-Z treats social media differently, it’s media first, social second. For older Generations, it’s social first, that’s why millennials have a pause, they are being natural like real life. Gen-Z on other hand is being natural but it’s TV show-type natural.
2. Reformation’s Balletcore & Consumer love
They have been very consistent with unique and brand-building collaborations. From their partnership with New York City Ballet bringing Balletcore to NY Streets. To their sustainability partnership with Thredup to give existing customers credit for sending back old clothes.
3. Disloyalty Programs for the win
Apart from MischiefUS’s disloyalty program for peet’s coffee, there were few other businesses running disloyalty schemes, but why?
- Kaleido Rolls did a similar disloyalty campaign but very straightforward. (TG)
- AAPI Month Disloyalty program. (HG)
- Subway launched a one-day disloyalty program for National Sandwich Day. (PR)
The latest arguments in the marketing industry highlights disloyalty programs make consumers more aware of the brands they really like and align with.
4. McDonald’s grimace + duolingo’s living with lily
1/ McDonald’s Grimace taking over TikTok & Twitter (X).
2/ Duolingo’s living with lily content series.
These two social media successes of 2024 explain NPC culture and how brands create trends. Most people think NPC Culture is only people controlling others, instead we control each other. The Actions of an NPC Influencer/Character influences your next action, problem is you are unaware and too indulged into the game. Using Social listening & NPC Culture built on the idea of control, brands utilise their characters like Grimace and Lily, creating interactive social media content, keeping the audience hooked. Making all of us NPCs on Internet.
5. IKEA’s proudly second best made us question?
Everyone asked who’s the number one? If IKEA would have said they are the best, people would have trolled them for 100 different factor. With them saying, they are the second best. The brand won the heart of the consumers and the relatability of most purchasers by being second. In 2024, if someone asks who’s the best in furniture business? I don’t know about the best, but I do know IKEA is the second best.
6. Balenciaga’s Street Show in LA & Rise of Erewhon
After getting cancelled for their controversial ad campaign, Balenciaga’s Fall Show was a critique on luxury fashion and showed many of us that luxury in 2023-24 is different. Luxury in 2023 isn’t only about brand value or quality of clothing. It’s about being seen like someone else. The meaning of luxury is changed, it would be hard to imagine many brands survival of many brands without influencers.
The same goes for Erewhon, The growing purchases are more influenced by idea of being seen as their customer. $150 Tote Bag? You might think, this is normal everyone want to buy from brands because they are a brand. No, they don’t. Boomers & Gen-X bought luxury because the luxury products were luxury in product quality and the limited supply. Now, Paper bags are luxury too.
8. Fast fashion-ification of books
The latest argument of book lovers and creators on tiktok and twitter is #booktok changed how most people consume and read books. With #booktok algorithm making content quick-to read and appeal-to-everyone books go viral. One of the main creator leading the discussion about booktok shared that her posts with bad reviews about TikTok books were taken down for absolutely no reasoning. Who’s to blame? TikTok, Influencers or Publishers.
10. Celebrity Documentaries to Change the plot
This was the year of documentaries with releases like Beckhams, Taylor Swift Era’s tour, Harry & Meghan, Beyoncé’s Renaissance taking over the movie screens. But the decision-making behind these releases was to change the plot of their life story. All of the documentaries above were funded by the celebrities being documented. These weren’t independent documentaries showing the art of documentations, what most documentaries tend to do.
Online Streaming now allows Celebs to self-produce new content, not films or movies. Films & Movies are art, what we saw in these documentaries was content about their life and story, portrayed how they wanted. I am not saying they are evil to do this, but we only saw one-sided stories. And I expect many brands will do something like this in 2024.
11. Hijacking Events; Dash Water & SURREAL
- Dash Water gained over 1.8 million views on TikTok and extra coverage from BBC when they hijacked the Prince Harry’s visit to the High court.
- Duolingo Germany gained more than 4M views and around 500k Likes on their Octoberfest content, the platform brought Duo to Munich and the talk of the week was how the character was engaging with others at the event.
- Eat Surreal crashed Kellogg’s pop-up event in london.
14. Gen Alpha in 2023; Skibidi Toilet & iPad Kids
1/ Gen Alpha showed even though they are kids, they won’t accept the Gen-Z culture and memes. They are here to create their own online culture as soon as possible. This happens with every generation, the surprise is AI & Metaverse games like roblox and fortnite, both are allowing them to build their culture early. It started in 2023 with their meme; Skibidi Toilet.
2/ The Second Trend of the year for Gen Alpha was the argument against Millennials being lazy and raising iPad Kids. Gen-Z multiple times took the argument to TikTok and Teachers did the same by sharing how hard teaching Gen-Alpha has become in 2023.
15. Amazon’s Black Friday NFL Game predicts Future
With Amazon using purchase data to recommend products during live NFL Game from their retail partners. What happened this year is only the beginning, what Meta holds in their hands is much bigger. The Brand could do something similar but on a much bigger scale in the metaverse, doing livestreams of new movie launches with Ads powered by user activity.
16. Just Eat & Olympics 2024 Paris Ad Campaign
1/ Megan Thee Stallion’s Paris Olympics Ad. (watch)
2/ Just Eat’s Ad with Latto & Christina Aguilera using a musical. (must watch)
These two ads were the talk in the pop culture as both borrowed engaging elements from the current Gen-Z baddie culture & Female hiphop trends. With Nicki Minaj making a comeback and SZA’s last album coming up. Marketers who want to do something similar to use the hyped-up female music genres, still have the time execute in 2024.
17. Most Experimental Brands of the year; Heinz & IKEA
I would say both brands have great teams in US & UK, but UK is just doing it better in terms of creative & social media content.
- In UK, they launched the ‘clear ketchup’ with no color, that went extremely viral on Internet.
- During Taylor’s NFL game hype cycle, they launched ‘seemingly ranch’ to attract her fans to buy the new product.
- IKEA launched a towel skirt for their customers to make fun of balenciaga.
- Heinz Beans Pizza trolling both UK & Italian Audiences.
- IKEA launching massive ‘turkey-sized’ meatball in UK.
- Just In, Heinz UK is giving away a ketchup boat, what’s that?
18.2023 was the Year of Too Honest OOH Ads
- SSENSE’s Iconic OOH Ads highlighting, they were marketing.
- Raydar NZ’s Sorry not sorry DOOH Campaign.
- Vinterior’s honest OOH Ad Campaign against IKEA.
- Oatly’s Paris OOH Ads were honest but Parisians hated them.
Apart from these four, OOH Formats were filled with a lot of honesty-focused copy. Will this idea of being honest exist in 2024.
19. Toxic masculinity & traditional femininity
This was the year of Masculine content gurus (Andrew Tate) taking over social media with their idea of being a man, that happened a lot on TikTok, twitch and other apps. On TikTok and IG, we saw many female influencers like Gwen the milkmaid transitioning from ASMR to Tradwife content. Plus, the rise of RushTok influencing and portraying a traditional feminine society. This year was big on influencing teens and young kids toward a utopian world, impacting future decisions of these kids.
I hope this helps to plan your year ahead.