There’s no doubt that 2023 will demand our full attention.
The challenges and disruptions brought by the pandemic, geopolitical tensions, and economic uncertainty will make 2023 a year like no other.
However, companies cannot pause their 2023 planning and wait to see how events unfold before acting. To keep growing (and surviving), business leaders must put their strategies into practice now. Marketing plays a crucial role in this process.
I asked several Google leaders for their predictions on the main digital marketing trends for 2023, hoping to help your company find some clarity amid so much uncertainty and keep moving forward with confidence. I hope their insights serve as a guide as the new year approaches.
More inclusive media planning
The advertising sector has focused heavily on delivering more inclusive creatives in recent years. Now, this initiative also applies to media planning. It’s not only important for people to see and hear others like themselves, but also to do so in environments that feel familiar. This last aspect is crucial.
Unintentional biases can be an obstacle in inclusive media planning. For advertisers to truly connect with different audiences, they need to correct these biases and adapt to the content their audiences consume in all its forms.
This year, we’ve seen advertisers like Domino’s and Diageo critically evaluate their media placement choices and take steps to show their content in a wider variety of moments, aiming to better connect with their entire audience. To do this, they removed topic and keyword exclusions that contained possible biases and proactively invested in accredited and carefully chosen voices and publishers.
In 2023, brands should audit their media plans. Consider whether your channel and publisher mix reaches your entire target audience and look for possible biases in topic and keyword exclusions. You can also think about what affirmative actions you could take to genuinely support underrepresented voices and communities.
Cause-driven advertising
Many people have been prioritizing sustainability for some time and want brands to help make sustainable decisions easier. Now more than ever, they also expect organizations to have a positive impact on society and turn their promises into action. In response, we’ve seen brands move from simply seeking ways to minimize their environmental impact to focusing on a more ambitious purpose. They are playing a more active role in highlighting important causes and encouraging people to take action.
For example, Sheba, a cat food brand, set out to save fish worldwide and used an innovative ad campaign to do so. Their team launched the world’s largest program to restore coral reefs, consisting of a series of videos about their work. The ad revenue from the YouTube videos funds the campaign.
For other brands, the cause they support is their reason for being. The French company Back Market adopted the mantra “reuse, reduce, and recycle” in response to the amount of electronic waste society generates. They created a circular economy with their online marketplace for refurbished tech devices to reduce their sector’s environmental footprint. Their ads cleverly convey this purpose.
However, “purpose-washing” is not acceptable—using a cause in advertising as an excuse for image improvement. Commitment to causes must be authentic and long-term, backed by actions, not just words.
Privacy and peace of mind
In the uncertain and competitive market that 2023 will bring, companies have no choice but to differentiate themselves. They will have to demonstrate their values to retain customers and attract new ones. Now that people manage their daily routines online more than ever, online privacy is more important than ever.
Last year, we surveyed over 7,000 Europeans and found that when brands respect privacy, their ads perform better. This year, we went further: we asked 20,000 people about the consequences of their privacy experiences, both good and bad.
We found that privacy experiences influence user trust. We were also surprised by the damage that bad online privacy experiences can cause. For consumers, these experiences are almost as harmful as having their data stolen and are enough for 43% of them to switch to another brand.
Users’ online experiences must have a level of privacy that meets their expectations, and companies that provide it must earn customers’ trust. In 2023, give your customers everything they need not only to control their data but to feel they have control. When users don’t have control over their data, they distrust digital marketing. Provide your customers with accessible and intuitive tools so they can manage their privacy whenever they want.
It’s Gen Z’s world (the rest of us are just watching)
Generation Z is the first to have grown up with the Internet from a young age, and their way of interacting and navigating the web keeps evolving. The most important platforms for this generation are the most dynamic and visual—those that find new and innovative ways to adapt to their constantly changing needs. Gen Z shows where and how they want to interact by using the platforms that matter most to them.
For these reasons, our latest campaign targeting Gen Z promoted a new way to search for what we see. “Find what you’re looking for” focused on the advantages of visual search, aiming to offer this visually oriented audience a way to search with Google Lens for things they couldn’t describe. We created different videos inspired by popular Gen Z trends, like fashion (cowboy boots), interests (roller skates), or artists (Aitch), and adapted all content to specific social networks.
In 2023, don’t try to bring Gen Z to your world—show your content where those users are. Identify the needs they want to meet, prioritize relevance and authenticity over homogeneous uniqueness, and embrace the different visual worlds where this generation moves.
Augmented reality experiences
During the pandemic, online shopping increased. As a result, it became more important (and expected) for brands to innovate in offline environments. In 2023, the in-store customer experience must provide unique value. The goal is to encourage customers to visit stores as well as shop online.
Augmented reality (AR) and other immersive experiences are key to achieving this. The rise in AR technology use means consumer demand for these experiences will be even greater in 2023. In fact, it’s expected that more than a third of Gen Z users will shop with AR by 2025.
Some brands have already started testing AR campaigns. Miss Dior encouraged shoppers to use Google Lens in-store to create a blooming garden with AR. Burberry, meanwhile, paid tribute to its Olympia collection with a pop-up store at Harrods, where customers could bring a statue of the goddess Elpis to life with their smartphones. However, these experiences don’t have to be limited to stores. The ARCore Geospatial API allows brands to make the world their canvas by anchoring creative content to real locations.
Start creating and testing immersive experiences with smartphones today. That way, you’ll be one step ahead when emerging devices like AR glasses become more widely adopted.
Short videos
Viewing habits are increasingly diverse as users seamlessly switch between screens and videos of different lengths, with different needs and expectations for each format. Many creators are innovating with shorter content formats to give users what they want—and they’re seeing tremendous success. In fact, YouTube Shorts has 1.5 billion monthly active users and over 30 billion daily views,2 making it a huge opportunity for advertisers.
Learn from the creators leading the way. They’re taking new approaches in every video format to build authentic connections with their audiences. It’s important to follow best practices for brand storytelling to create short videos that generate lots of engagement. For example, videos should get straight to the point. With only 10 to 60 seconds to advertise your brand, there’s no need to set up a premise or tell a detailed story.
Brands don’t have to reinvent the wheel to use this new video format. We’re testing a machine learning tool that reformats horizontal videos to be square or vertical depending on how users are watching YouTube. It’s already available in app campaigns, and video action campaigns and Performance Max will be next in 2023.
