The next five years for digital advertising are going to much different than they have ever been before. With this sudden pandemic crashing everyones 2020 plans, companies have had to make sudden and extreme adjustments to their day-to-day operations to sustain their businesses. A prediction for the next coming five years is that there will be a rise in online visitors. It is predicted that by 2021 52% of media consumers will be consuming through the Internet. G3MediaWorks, (2020). We might have actually already beat this prediction for 2020, with everyone stuck at home for most of this year.

Location based services are something that I believe will be trending harder in the future. With smartphones and their constant access to customers locations. Businesses have the ability now to tailor ads based on wheres customers are. Goodrich, (2018) So, for example if you’re near a McDonald’s, you might start seeing advertisements for a Big Mac when you never previously have. This is going to help businesses attract more customers for sure. By bringing in new interested customers and putting this interest in customers minds for them Like if a Mcdonalds ad popped up on my phone and I was already within a few miles of one, I might be more inclined to just make a quick stop for some of my favorite french fries.

Another digital advertising trend and also technology that is notable is the use of Artificial Intelligence or AI simulated adverts. There are already some popular AI characters that are being heavily used in digital advertising like, Lil Maquela with over 2.8M instagram followers. Katz, (2018) She has already had huge brand deals like with Prada, and used her following to support causes like the BLM movement. The use of these AI celebrities will help businesses in the future with their advertising by reducing costs associated with generating attractive ads. They can cut the costs for the entire production, focusing just on the graphic design aspect. Companies can also create a character who is free of flaws. Not visible flaws per se but the flaws that come with hiring celebrities for brand deals. Not knowing how they might behave in their free time that could reflect poorly on the brand. AI solves this issue by having a virtual character for whom free time literally doesn’t exist.

Social media marketing seems like an obvious trend to watch out for in the next five years. Maybe thats because I am a millennial and have grown up watching this all unfold? Any way you look at it, social media is the most profitable and has the highest ROI in terms of marketing costs. Previously, it was thought that social media is the best way to build what they call “soft leads” but in 2020 we are seeing that change. Mars, (2019) It could be the sudden pandemic, but conversions are becoming clearer through the use of social media. There are options for tracking the ROI, like with Facebook Ads, but the results seems skewed for most companies at the moment. Other options to track sales from social media are the use of influencer marketing and discount codes. Influencer marketing is the new way to utilize social media and hit a more engaged target audience. Influencers themselves however do want to know how much they should be getting paid for this reach and audience they have created. Advertisers now have the ability to track conversions when people use the influencer’s specific discount code and they can then pay the influencer a percentage of sales form that. Ladd, (2016) Going forward in the next five years, I see this trend really exploding and becoming something widely used by many online businesses. The benefit of using this is that aside from companies being able to directly reach their target audience, they can do so at a smaller cost.

References

G3MediaWorks, (2020). Retrieved from https://g3mediaworks.net/how-are-the-advertising-trends-in-2021

Goodrich, (2018). Location-Based Services: Definition & Examples. Retrieved from https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/5386-location-based-services.html

Katz, (2018). The Rise of the Computer-Generated Celebrity A new breed of digital star is stealing the limelight. Retrieved from https://www.wired.com/story/computer-generated-celebrities/

Ladd, (2016). 4 Ways to Tie Influencer Marketing Campaigns to Revenue. Retrieved from https://www.buzzstream.com/blog/4-ways-to-tie-influencer-marketing-campaigns-to-revenue.html

Mars, (2019). How to Measure the ROI of Social Media (No, it’s Not Impossible!). Retrieved from https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2013/04/25/social-media-roi