Perspectives on Brand and Product Marketing

The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed numerous industries, with many registering a drop in demand and sales. Others show promising growth opportunities. For example, from 2020 to 2024, the product-based sales training market is poised to expand by $4.21 billion. The sector is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of nearly 12 percent during that period. The marketing world is not any different and is changing fast. Below are several trends that are likely to continue shaping the brand and product marketing sector.

Brand and product marketing strategies are quickly evolving. Technology has not only changed the way people live, but how products are promoted and sold. Through advances in technology, audiences are constantly bombarded with promotional messages, ads, distractions, and much more. If a brand cannot stay abreast of the latest trends, it stands at risk of being left behind by the competition, or at the worst stagnating.

Today, consumers are extremely knowledgeable and they hold brands to high standards. This has made it increasingly difficult to grab consumer attention, and even more challenging to maintain that attention during the entire buyer journey. This makes it imperative for marketers to focus more on their brand than on product initiatives.

More than any time before, consumers are choosing brands whose marketing, values, and messaging go beyond the product. They are looking for brands that speak straight to the heart of the user. According to Marketing Evolution, brand identity and trustworthiness are considered to be major factors in buying decisions by 71 percent of consumers. This is a significant shift that has prompted marketers to reconsider their marketing priorities and focus more on brand equity strengthening.

Consumers are no longer just interested in competitive pricing and quality products, they want a genuine connection between the brand and their unique interests, needs, and lifestyle. What sets winning brands from the crowd is the ability to craft advertising that cuts through the clutter and truly resonates with and grabs the attention of the consumer. Today, given the complexity of the customer omnichannel journey, to hold or keep consumers engaged throughout their buying cycle it’s key to understand how customers develop an emotional association with a brand.

One way of engaging customers is through well-designed marketing videos. Today, this mode of marketing is recognized as one of the most effective. This is because the human brain is wired to prefer videos over text content. People are attracted to color and movement. By 2022, it is projected that over 82 percent of all online consumer traffic will be video content, 15 times higher than in 2017.

According to Forbes, 91 percent of consumers prefer watching visual and interactive content to reading product information in written form. Additionally, 85 percent are more likely to make a purchase after watching a video on a given product or service. Live videos on leading social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook are known to attract many viewers who also interact with products and brands through comments and questions.

The role of artificial intelligence (AI) in product and brand marketing is growing. AI can help track user behavior trends, run automated ads, predict sales, and provide superior and timely customer support through chatbots. AI-based chatbots bridge the gap between marketing and customer support to make a brand more interactive, accessible, and personalized.

Brands must take note of the growing role of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) in marketing. In 2021, according to Hubspot, 35 percent of marketers were leveraging VR and AR in their strategies, with 42 percent signaling their intention to increase investments in the sector in 2022. Virtual reality involves viewing a lifelike computer-generated scenario, while AR is viewing the real world enhanced with visual additions.

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