It’s my honour to be back here again after our last article on how to get back to doing marketing after Covid (article written in Thai).
To be honest, the world after Covid that we are currently living in is still somewhat unstable in many ways, but there is always a solution to all the problems if we know what we are facing and that we are prepared. Therefore, this time, I would like to share 2023 trends from Omnicom Media Group that should help us get ready for the marketing this year.
The first trend is the Sonic Branding, also known as the brand identity and assets in an audio form. Looking back in 2021, we found that 94 of 250 global brands that added sound effects to logos.
Let’s take a few references that everyone should remember, the “Tada” sound coming with the Netflix’s logo, or another one that we can relate to, the nationwide famous convenience store, 7 Eleven’s door sensor chime. A lot of us should be able to recall those sound effects alongside their advertisements. There are studies showing that sound can trigger perception in the human brain faster than images we see. As for advertisements that use sonic branding, accompanying their brand or logo, they tend to capture 8.5 times more attention from the audience, both visually and audibly, compared to the ones that do not use any sound effect.
Of course, the phenomenon cannot happen overnight. Creating brand interest through the use of audio branding needs to take into account the brand’s (audio) image, or more exactly the identity as it should match the personality of the brand and be used continuously through a variety of ways on different platforms. Those are the three key practices that would create a successful brand recognition for consumers.
The next trend is the NFT (Non-Fungible Token) that we have commonly known since 2021 and has been used creatively in marketing. Nevertheless, the cryptocurrency’s notoriety, which is in the same ecosystem, has affected NFT continuously as its trading decreased by 70%, the buyer number also decreased by 22% and the average price dropped by 76% in Q3 vs. Q2 in 2022.
For the time being, NFT will not go anywhere as long as the concept of Web3 and Decentralized Internet remains the path to the future for us. What marketers like us should do is consider NFT to be a form of incentive or reward that special customers could receive from the brand to help differentiate itself from other competitors and build excitement for their customers.
Our next trend is a topic that many of us are interested in; the Anti-Work Movement. From the moment Covid became part of our lives two years ago, our lifestyle, including the way we work, has changed dramatically. We have more opportunities to work from home than at the office, making us acknowledge many advantages from changing work conditions. At the same time, we could observe different perspectives both from the employee’s and employer’s sides whether it’s the operating hours or the Great Resignation starting during the pandemic among the giant organizations such as Meta or Google. These events made us realise employees have more freedom to demonstrate their standpoints and ideas and they feel more comfortable to demand more from the employers, whether it’s their mental health or the workplace environment. Furthermore, beyond the salary and employment benefits, growth opportunity and investment in employees (e.g. trainings) are also the qualities that employees are looking for in a company.
Those factors have led employers to pay more attention to their employees. On the surface, this might appear to be a simple corporate policy, but in fact, this is a matter of long-term brand image. Especially in an era where everyone is ready to communicate to the world within seconds thanks to social media, the perspectives and sentiments they have towards a company might have an impact on public perception of the organisation, brand and products available on the market.
The next trend is Green Washing, whether it is the global warming, the greenhouse effect, or the environment, people have been fed and handling with related topics for years. During the past years, a lot of things have changed and become more obvious. If we were to look back and compare year 2022 vs. 2021 the general concern about global warming in our region has increased by 7% in average and Thailand features among the top tier.
However, beliefs do not always translate into behaviours. Based on the chart above, on average less than half of sustainable beliefs only translated into behaviours. One of the main reasons came from the rise of cost of living in the past two years, pushing consumers to make their purchase decision by considering the price first. As a result, the sales of all eco-friendly products dropped by an average of 3.4% since 2020.
Based on GWI (Global Web Index), more than half of Thai respondents said they considered environment important to them and were willing to purchase and use products and/or services from companies that show a positive image of themselves, care about their employees and are socially responsible.
Nevertheless, the solution to this matter remains quite bright and hopeful. What a brand should have is a clear vision to do business in an eco-friendly way while trying to apply the Economies of Scale to help keep consumer goods at affordable prices. Furthermore, it is important to bring in creativity to help promote good products to the larger public. Taking Diageo as an example, the brand launched Johnnie Walker AIR-INK® limited edition, using an ink made from air pollution for their printed labels, or Corona Beer that organised Plastic Fishing Tournament in seas, rewarding fishermen who retrieved plastic waste from the water.
Another unmissable trend is the Artificial Intelligence (AI) which has been constantly improved since the creation of the first chatbot in 1964.
During the past few years, people have been incorporating AI in their everyday lives, from the common use of face recognition apps to unlock phones to work related to the national security. We can see the use of AI in the art field including music composition and image display. While there are lots of questions following this improvement and waiting to be answered, among others, “Should we put a limitation to the AI?” or “What is the ethical/moral line that the AI should never cross?”. And to no surprise, you may have witnessed the latest innovation through the launch of Chat GPT with high developed capabilities including task management, essays writing, providing answers to internet users in many topics. However, the question about its limitation still remains as it might be torn between intelligence and societal ethics. As far as the advertising industry is concerned, many companies have been using the AI to categorize and analyse internet users into different segments to reach more people with higher accuracy while using a smaller budget.
As we talk about the AI, it would be difficult not to mention Gaming as a significant trend. In 2022, more than 80% of internet users in Asia Pacific aged between 16 and 64 played games on their devices and half of the global gaming revenue came from gamers who spent in average nine hours per week on games.
Gaming is a great opportunity for brands to reach consumers given that more than half of gamers in Asia Pacific already spend money on games, while each gamer would have spent $50 on average in 2022.
Gaming represents an infinite community space as the modern games are built on the Cloud connecting people around the world to play together. For the reasons aforementioned, whether it’s the income from gamers or the constant increasing number of users, gaming is the fastest-growing business compared to other entertainment businesses. This has made companies like Netflix, Apple or Microsoft rush to start their own gaming businesses to get their share of the pie. Meanwhile, game developers also came up with new ways to make profits from their products such as Roblox that started advertising in their game allowing brands to communicate to their customers more closely.
Now we come to the conclusion of this article. We started with the sound and we will wrap up with the smell. Indeed, the last trend I would like to talk about is called Smell-O-Vision which is the combination of smell and vision. To be honest, the use of smell alongside the sound to build ambiance for the public (spectators) existed since 1868, as per documented evidence, where scent was sprayed into Alhambra Theatre of Variety during the show of The Fairy Acorn Tree.
Until 2000s the era of advanced technology, many companies launched tools that could automatically mix and release scents for various occasions. Then, in less than 20 years, the invention of VR incorporated scent-generated devices to create more sensorial experiences while viewing. Nevertheless, the use of scent might not be widespread due to accessibility and price of the devices, but it is still one of the aspects that many brands, especially the luxury ones, could explore to create differentiations with other brands in terms of emotions and sensations for customers. The scent would be the medium that makes consumers’ brand perception more complete.
All this will be the trends that are likely to become more present or noticeable this year. In an era where everything shifts within the blink of an eye, it is recommended that brands and products should be prepared for the potential changes so they could communicate efficiently with their customers in a timely manner.
Reference: Omnicom Media Group APAC 2023 Trends Report
Chaivut Eiamvuthikorn (Chaivut.eiamvuthikorn@phdmedia.com), General Manager, PHD Thailand, An Omnicom Company