Browsing through Brand News magazine, a few weeks ago we found an article with particularly interesting content. It summarized 12 predictions for the new year drawn up by the team of the World Federation of Advertisers: certainly much more interesting predictions than those that can be read in any horoscope of 2022 (and valid for everyone, whether you are Aries or Sagittarius).
Those who work with high-level marketing know well the authority that this association has in our professional world. It is an international body that welcomes within it both national trade associations and important international agencies, thus representing operators from over 60 national markets.
Highlighting market changes, indicating the values that underlie our work (or at least they should), highlighting how companies and advertising interact, have always been part of the association's objectives. To learn more, you can visit its website at: https://wfanet.org/
This is why we decided to propose these authoritative prophecies, or rather priorities for the next year. And also because we found so many assonances with the values and objectives that we have always considered important in Delion.
This article, in other words, for us is not only the future but also the reconfirmation of a way that we believe is correct to do advertising and that is destined to become increasingly necessary and strategic.
Here, then, are the 12 priorities for 2022 identified by WTA experts and presented in the December 20, 2020 issue of Brand News.
Marketing Priorities for 2022: What We Need to Do and Remember
1 – More focus on purpose is needed
It is now clear that short-term strategies can lead to fireworks that may be intense, but brief. The company that aims to remain on the market for a long time must instead look far ahead.
Let us therefore put to rest the era of immediate but ephemeral results.
Defining mission and purpose accurately is not a passing fad, but a necessity for those companies that want to give themselves a strong identity and a long-term perspective on the market. It is up to us who do marketing to help companies in this change of perspective.
2 – We need new metrics for sustainability
There is a lot of talk about sustainability, but we know very well that anything that is not measurable is rarely implemented with significant effects.
So, 2022 is the year in which marketing must accept the challenge and develop new metrics and new models to measure corporate sustainability goals.
It's not that they don't exist: the Sustainability Report is already mandatory for many companies.
But sustainability understood in its three meanings of economic, environmental and social is increasingly a value and a strategic asset well beyond legal obligations. Better to start working on KPIs, given that current proposals are few and not always suitable for all companies.
3 – Let us remember that creativity is a necessity
We studied it in the first year of Economics, or whatever other course of study you took to work in marketing, academic or otherwise: in highly competitive markets where the consumer finds himself having to choose between dozens of substantially fungible products, the difference is made by the brand.
The new thing in 2022 is that… this principle has never changed. The brand is still the main asset of companies and the brand needs to be built and nurtured over time to establish itself.
And it needs creativity to stand out from the competition: with all due respect to all those who have recently tried to cast the word “creativity” in a bad light, only proving to confuse medium and content.
4 – Let’s start studying the metaverse
The big ones are investing in the metaverse; the technology to access it is mature and cheap enough for the average man. There is excitement and curiosity about this new revolution of the virtual that we are approaching with giant steps.
2022 may not see mass adoption yet, but expect “metaverse” to be a recurring word in client briefs from now on. 2022 is the year to start studying this new reality and imagining new ways of using it.
