2024: The Year of Brand Marketing?

Some good news for content marketers and influencers: brand marketing spend is set to increase in 2024.

After a tough year of layoffs and budget cuts (where brand awareness initiatives were the first to be cut in favour of ROI-friendly performance marketing), it's a relief to see that execs are seeing the value in brand marketing again.

In an executive survey by McKinsey and Business of Fashion, “72% of respondents plan to spend more on brand marketing in the next year, compared with 45% intending to increase performance marketing.”

Paid social is becoming more expensive, and new data privacy regulations are making it harder to re-target customers, which means that brands are looking for a cheaper and better way to reach new customers.

Personally, I am all about this because I know basically nothing about performance marketing and instead have focused my 15 year career on brand awareness and “top-of-funnel” content marketing. And the biggest challenge us brand marketers face? Analytics.

Why Brand Marketing Spend Decreased in 2023

If you don't have a CMO who is all-in on brand marketing, it's difficult to show the value of your efforts.

You know it's working, you can see the overall lift, but it's a lot harder to track the value of your efforts from a customer's first introduction to your brand on social compared to the “last touch” attribution when that customer later clicks on an ad to purchase.

Amid budget cuts in 2023, marketing leaders faced pressure to rely on channels that could directly increase sales, scaling back brand spend in favour of performance marketing because it offered more of a guarantee on investment: pump X more dollars into this ad, get X more sales.

But now the pendulum is swinging back, and marketing leaders are realizing the value of brand storytelling and reaching their customers at multiple touch-points through social media, influencer marketing, events, and free content that provides value.

the future of brand marketing in 2024

So what does this mean for you? More content jobs, and more budget for creative. 🎉 Or if you're a small business, you'll want to invest more time/money in building a cohesive brand and creating an effective content strategy.

Three years ago when I was working in tech and thinking about where I wanted my career to go, and what that roadmap would look like, I ended up on Chief Brand Officer – which was an incredibly rare title.

Now, Business of Fashion is predicting that "more companies may hire chief brand officers as brands take a more holistic view of their storytelling and marketing efforts.”

So if you naturally gravitate more towards brand marketing, keep building your skillset because there's a new path to the C-suite!

One final note from the report: "However, 2024 won't be about generating more and more content, or perpetually refreshing brand identities. Now, the focus needs to be on 'less is more,' with carefully crafted storytelling that amplifies a brand's clear, coherent personality."

Sounds like a fun year to me.

If you’re looking to increase brand awareness in 2024 and need some help, say hi here to chat about my consulting services, or view my LinkedIn here.