Mediaocean Report: 2024 Has Optimism Written All over It
The Mediaocean 2024 CPG Advertising Outlook Report implies that this year’s ad-marketing landscape calls for optimism.
“Our research indicates a wave of optimism sweeping across the CPG industry for 2024,”
The report said. “Marketers are gearing up for an active year, with a substantial majority expressing their intent to either maintain or increase their spending in every channel.”
Unsurprisingly, print and TV are the only channels in which respondents said they plan to decrease media allocations.
The report also said 94% of CPG respondents indicated they did not have fully synchronized media and creative processes and technologies—a point made in a separate September 2023 survey in which 85% reported a gap between creative and media execution.
Mediaocean, an omnichannel advertising platform, surveyed 118 marketing professionals in the CPG/FMCG industry conducted through TechValidate in November 2023. Those data points are included in the report.
While the use of AI was not a question in past surveys, this one from Mediaoean asked, “How are you currently using generative AI in your marketing?” Data analysis (41%), market research (29%), and copywriting (25%) were cited as the top three uses for AI among respondents.
Grant Parker, Chief Revenue Officer at Mediaocean, talked to StreetFight to expound on the research.
How do you think generative AI will impact marketing in the CPG vertical, either creatively or in media planning/buying?
Many brands are using [Mediaocean’s] Flashtalking AI to automatically identify various elements of their ads for intelligence and optimization. As an example, the AI can determine if a certain color or word or product placement drives better ad performance and then the system can make instant changes to assemble the optimal ad on the fly.
Why do you think respondents ranked performance-driven paid media as the most critical investment for all industries, according to the survey?
In an era of ongoing economic uncertainty and inflation, marketers are under pressure to show tangible results on all investments. Performance-driven media such as paid search and social advertising prioritizes directly attributable sales outcomes.
What is a strong example of a brand using performance-driven paid media?
CHEF’STORE and its agency, Jellyfish, used Flashtalking to rotate weekly specials seamlessly for 88 store locations across Facebook and Instagram. The result was a cohesive workflow that enabled automated updates via feeds for products and offers, and the flexibility to set, schedule, and pause campaigns. The results included a 50% improvement in campaign cost efficiency and 360 hours of production time saved annually.
What is the most obvious hyper-local, multi-location marketing opportunity for brands based on the findings of this report?
Synchronizing media and creative efforts will provide the biggest opportunity for hyper-local, multi-location marketers to compete in an omnichannel world. Against a backdrop of data deprecation and consumer attention fragmented across screens, brands that can connect their message in the moment will stand out from the pack and the feed. This research shows that only 6% of marketers are doing this very well with fully synchronized processes and technologies.
What were the three biggest a-ha moments you saw in this research?
First, data analysis and market research are the top applications for generative AI, not copywriting and image generation. Second, nearly 70% of marketers are planning to maintain or increase investments in local and national TV, despite all the momentum for streaming and CTV. And third, retail media is growing in importance for CPG advertisers but not faster than digital display, video, and social.
Which marketing channel is best at pinpointing a relevant local audience for any CPG product? CTV? DOOH? Or something else?
Social platforms provide a strong mix of signals to enable local targeting. They have first-party data from logged-in consumers indicating where they live. They have interest data based on people and places that consumers are interacting with. And they have device-level geographic data. Taken together, these signals enable social platforms to provide robust local targeting for brands.
How can marketers use these findings to increase media efficiencies and ROAS?
By deploying creative ad tech, marketers can eliminate inefficiencies in workflow and messaging that is repetitive and/or irrelevant. And they can do this across all channels to connect with consumers, drive sales, and increase lifetime value.
Are there any other significant data points that are worth mentioning from this report?
E-commerce everywhere is the number one consumer trend that CPG marketers are watching for in 2024. Clearly the adoption of online shopping that we saw during the pandemic has persisted and brands are focused on omnichannel execution.
