Dentsu has released its annual media trends report, which highlights 10 key changes in the media industry worth watching over the coming year.
The Pace of Progress: Dentsu 2024 Media Trends gathers insights from the holding company’s media agencies Carat, Dentsu X and iProspect to ‘showcase the most pressing topics and the best opportunities for the future’, according to Peter Huijboom, global CEO, media international markets.
According to Dentsu’s 2023 Global Media Client Survey from September, three of the trends relate to generative AI, which 63 per cent of marketers have started engaging with in their company.
The trends include:
The rise of generative search
Generative AI will transform how people access information, from search engines to commerce platforms.
Creativity reimagined
The augmentation of human creativity through generative AI in fields such as content and copywriting, as well as image development.
Generative optimisations
Leveraging generative AI for simplifying advertising production, targeting, and effectiveness at scale and pace.
A further four trends are grouped under the theme of tech platforms’ efforts to better monetise their offerings:
A world of lookalike apps
As platforms become progressively similar, attracting audience attention has never been more important for brands.
From walled gardens to walled pipes
Platforms have a more defensive stance on their data which opens the larger question of the delicate balance between protection and discoverability.
The identity refocus
A doubling down on people intelligence by media platforms as third-party cookies approach the end of the line.
More ads for more returns
Expansion of advertising into new areas for most platforms, with new formats, opportunities – and risks – emerging as a result.
The final three trends relate to how advertisers increasingly see their interaction with media through the lens of social value and sustainability:
The new faces of growth
With media consumption becoming increasingly diverse and personal, brands must adapt to reflect the needs and identities of audiences and stay relevant.
Safer, better, faster, stronger
Amid a fast-moving digital landscape, new developments in brand assurance aim to create safer environments for both people and brands.
More attention, fewer emissions
As brands implement carbon media efficiency strategies, optimising for attention should lead to decarbonisation through optimised and improved impact.
