2020 Trends – IAB Europe Brand Advertising Committee

IAB Europe’s Brand Advertising Committee are already looking towards the future and predicting the challenges and opportunities for 2020. From Audio and Connected TV to impactful advertising and mindful marketing, the committee's team of brand experts reveal some top predictions and trends for the next year.

Manuela Lahidalga Guereñu, Marketing e Investigación, IAB Spain

We predict two terms that will become mainstream in 2020:

- Mindful marketing: It relies on listening to generate targeted marketing actions and customizable solutions. The brand tends to search for solutions and solve a specific problem with a clear commitment such as the environment, diversity or social rights, will no longer sell a product to a consumer, but tends to humanize focusing on the values of both the brand and humans.

- Multi-experience: Branding strategies can no longer be unilateral, now we have to offer differentiating experiences where not only sell product and brand commitment. One of the trends of this 2020 is to see branding strategies with multi-experiences highlighting virtual reality and augmented reality that will provide content, as they interact differently with the user, in commitment, by the high emotional content provided by these technologies and finally in visualization, by the great potential to take advantage of them.

Heather O Shea - NA Head of Media & Content, Insights Division, Kantar

Will newer audio channels go mainstream in 2020?

We predict that 2020 could herald a new age of audio advertising. We expect podcasts to be one of the fastest growing channels for ad spend: according to our Getting Media Right 2019 study, 63% of marketers say they plan to increase spend in podcast advertising over the next 12 months. The intimate and highly personal nature of podcasts offers advertisers a highly receptive audience. And being one of the least cluttered channels, they are also one of the most engaging - our measurement of podcast advertising shows above average lifts on metrics such as purchase intent when compared to our norms data. Radio is also reinventing itself, tapping into the broader resurgence of audio as a marketing channel. Digitisation is fuelling greater diversification, enabling the rise of more niche stations.

2020 could be the make-or-break moment for newer audio channels. Podcasts need to become more measurable to help advertisers and brands understand the ROI from their investments. Radio will continue to modernise in a way that helps brands reach new audiences, to reinforce its position as a relevant and reliable advertising medium. Over the next 12 months, aligning brands with these increasingly digital audio moments will need to evolve to a new level for marketers.

Małgorzata Walendziewska, Special Programs Manager, IAB Poland

At IAB Poland discussion intensivity about brand advertising in upcoming years is increasing. We've decided to ask experts representing various sides of digital marketing which trends will be the leading ones.

• Dorota Adamczyk-Mroczek, Director of Sales and Product Development at wyborcza.pl / AGORA - online version of one of Poland’s biggest daily newspapers expects that “brands will focus on creating a truly personalized experience - the right ad in the right environment, at the right time and to the right person. The goal will be to use personalization technology at critical points on the consumer's buying path. This will be possible thanks to continuous improvement of consumer shopping experience, using a combination of customer's own data (which the company collects from its customers or recipients) and data of external entities. We see that consumers are more willing to share their data with trusted brands in exchange for measurable benefits, such as an easier and faster purchasing process, a tailored offer and message. One more trend to observe will be exponential development of subscriptions - we will move from "possessing" to "access" in almost every sphere of our lives.”
• Agnieszka Kleczewska, Senior Executive, Exchange at Mindshare lists few areas which importance will grow in brand advertising: “Expanding the offer based on data - precision marketing offered by major suppliers (portals, VOD players) as an attempt to compete with the dominance of Facebook and Google duopoly; Focus on sound - development of the audio offer e.g. podcasts by Polish suppliers and its programming; Addressable TV - testing the service on linear television platforms where instead of classic commercials user receives adjusted Internet spots (so-called DAI - Dynamic Ad Insertion)”.
• Adam Majewski, CEO & founder at Adquesto - Questvertising is a trend to grow. “Indicating the correct answer is necessary to reveal the rest of the article. Thanks to this, questvertising is characterized by such exceptional parameters as 100% visibility of every paid advertisement, while being resistant to the effect of advertising blindness and fraud.”

Marta Sułkiewicz, Chief Executive at Gemius GmbH CSO

The keyword for the upcoming year should be the rebirth of long-termism in the post digital age! We should focus on how to engage and captivate audiences with ads using ultimate touchpoint sequences instead of just forcing people to watch ads. Yet,I think there still won't be enough room for it in our discussions. We still need to worry about current issues like brand safety, viewability or transparency across media and the walled gardens. So instead of focusing on how to grow, marketers will still be thinking how not to lose”.

Estelle Reale, Global Marketing Director, Sublime

As a new decade beckons it’s exciting to see brands taking advantage of creativity in digital, and making use of innovative ad units that deliver an engaging framework for brand messaging. From videos to augmented reality, store locators to slideshows, brands have the tools to design truly immersive experiences, and interactive formats enable them to boost engagement rates.

‘Creativity’ will be 2020’s buzzword, with brands producing ad content that entertains, inspires, and informs. These three elements transform campaigns into something viewers seek out, care about, and engage with, rather than something they begrudgingly sit through to access quality content.

In particular, creativity will be indispensible in video, where shorter ad formats are designed to resonate with distracted audiences. Brands must utilise creative within short bumper ads and tell a brand story in under ten seconds. It is crucial here to ensure the creative seamlessly integrates with the content, without interrupting the user experience. Driving innovation and creating engaging and non-intrusive ad formats will be key as we enter the new year.