While communication apps like Slack have been called “email killers,” email isn’t going away anytime soon. In 2019, global email users amounted to 3.9 million -- a figure that is predicted to grow to 4.3 million by 2023. And while social media marketing has been increasingly successful as well, there oftentimes is less competition for your message in your audience’s inbox than on their Facebook news feed.

Original budgets have been flip-flopped, and planned campaigns have been scrapped for more time-sensitive ones. What’s more, marketers are hard at work staying ahead of consumer behaviors brought on by months of quarantine and social distancing guidelines. Still, more than half of advertisers plan to ramp up ad spending for this quarter.

How do you imitate the convenience of browsing vast aisles of inventory without a physical presence? Or the experience of seeing, feeling, and smelling various products to make a purchasing decision? Due to the coronavirus pandemic, these are questions brands have had to navigate over the past couple of months.

Memes have become so ingrained in modern culture, it was inevitable that brands would pick up on the trend at some point. Because they have a special way of communicating attitudes, feelings, and relevant situations, brands have tapped into their power. On social media, memes generally take the form of a static picture and oftentimes have text layered on top.

Goods are tangible, services are intangible, but experiences are memorable. The last decade has seen a massive shift in consumer spending from possessions to experiences, from materialism to meaningfulness. As something once purely attributed to millennials, the growing importance of experiences is true across the board — irrespective of age. In this article, we’ll dive into the basics of brand experiences, why this shift is happening, and some common brand experience trends that are contributing to customer loyalty.

You scroll through your Instagram feed and see a video watermarked with a vibrating TikTok logo, accompanied by an upbeat remix of a popular song. Navigate to the TikTok app, and you’ll find a whole world of video that doesn’t exist anywhere else on the web — including YouTube. Known for its short-form video dance crazes, TikTok has captivated the world with its humorous and unrefined content. Despite what it seems, TikTok is not just limited to frivility and fun — from dance challenges to internet jokes to full-blown lip-syncing. It’s a hub for unapologetically wholesome content, which might be exactly what the world needs right now.

From immersive imagery to minimalist composition, and from vibrant colors to natural settings, the trends of photography run the gamut from bold to authentic. However, there is one common denominator that unites this upcoming year’s photography trends: realness. People crave photography that focuses on precise reproductions of the world and our times.

Sustainable marketing is more than just a buzzword — it's a fundamental shift in how consumers perceive the products and services they are purchasing. Each year, consumers demand more “responsible” brands. As a result, a new kind of marketing has emerged for brands — green marketing — that involves them being more transparent about their production habits and sustainability credentials.

The visual trends of 2020 see the influence of technology and implications of AI spilling into traditional forms of art and design. We will see a predominance of motion, line art, gradients, and liquid abstraction, and the minimalist design trend of previous years will continue to manifest itself through muted colors and simplistic illustrations.

Love is in the air — and on the Internet.

As a holiday centered around spending money for your significant others, Valentine’s Day presents a distinct opportunity for brands to reap profits. Pinterest boards reign supreme as people scour the internet for the perfect gift, Instagram wins over fans with fun contests and branded hashtags, and Twitter sees brands publicizing witty retorts.

Each year since 1999, Pantone has carefully analyzed trends, technology, and real world events to arrive at a single color they dub the Color of the Year. Pantone views this annual color selection, “an educational program that is intended to highlight the relationship between what is taking place in our global culture and how it manifests itself in color.”

Claiming an ad spot during the Super Bowl used to be the pinnacle of marketing prestige. But in an era of ever-decreasing Super Bowl television viewership and omnipresent digital disruptions, the most successful campaigns are breaking ground off the TV screen as well. Most viewers don’t give one medium their undivided attention and instead have one eye on the TV, the other on their smartphones. 

Attracting targeted customers online today is the difference between a successful business and a failed one. In our evolving digital world, best practices shift rapidly and existing technologies become smarter and increasingly sophisticated. New features and functions become available every day, making it seemingly impossible for manufacturers and businesses to keep up with this frenzied pace. In order to cater to shrinking screens — and shrinking attention spans — you should make sure you are capitalizing on all that digital marketing has to offer.

Rapid digital and technological change sets the bar high for modern marketers. With an ever-increasing number of platforms and ever-more highly-targetable, identity-based audiences, keeping up with marketing trends is an absolute must.

As 2020 inches closer, let's take a look at which marketing trends are cropping up, as well as which ones will continue to evolve.