Projected Marketing Trends To Prepare For 2022

In delivering Marketing Mojo’s 2022 Forecast to our readers, we looked at two of the major prongs impacting Marketing Trends for the upcoming year.

• The COVID19 Pandemic

• Geopolitics In The Caribbean

When will Covid 19 end?

We are nowhere near the beginning of the end but we are approaching the end of the beginning, according to Yale Sociologist Nick Christakis who outlines the Three (3) Phases that typify most global pandemics of the respiratory kind. The Immediate Phase (which we are currently in and is expected to last into 2022), The Intermediate Phase (which is expected to last until 2024) and the final Post-Pandemic Phase.

We can expect in the year ahead of the unrelenting full impact of epidemiological devastation. This will be exacerbated by vaccine hoarding by Global North, wealthy nations and vaccine hesitancy. New variants and the effects of Long Covid will lead to significant population loss until almost every single person on the planet has either been infected or vaccinated to levels that make the pandemic manageable. COVID19 is here to stay and will be something we live with, like the common flu, requiring regular booster shots/anti-viral medications.

How it impacts marketing trends

Invest in the online/virtual work and event space

That’s right, the age of social distancing is far from over. What The Economist dubs the new Hybrid work environment will continue well past 2022. Outside of Vaccinated-Only events, concerts, we can expect reliance on virtual experiences as the primary form of human interaction, entertainment, and collaboration. The most prized incentives will therefore be any kind of technology that makes the virtual world easier, accessible, and engaging. It's more important than ever to have a sound online event strategy in place that will help you effectively deliver your content while also being more affordable for those who can't attend live events.

Invest In Keeping Customers Loyal

While some economists predict that labor shortages will lead to wages rising, the Caribbean region is not known to be wage-increase friendly. Therefore, we can expect the cost of living to remain prohibitive as salaries stagnate. Combined with shortages and rising prices, consumers are going to get very discriminating with their budgets. They will be nixing from their monthly expenditure all the extras. They will not spend more without an incentive. There will be increased demand for loyalty rewards and benefits to stay with products or services that do not rank high on Mazlow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Now is the time to get creative about partnering with other businesses and offering cross-promotions.

Customization and personalization become mainstream

Customization and personalization are emerging trends in the digital marketing landscape. Consumers are demanding more personalized service and content based on their preferences, and businesses will need to find a way to provide it or risk losing them. Some industries like travel and hospitality have already started implementing these strategies by adjusting their prices and services for individual users. But there is still a long way to go before we see every business tapping into this trend.

Artificial intelligence will play a key role in strategic planning.

AI will play a role in strategic planning with its capabilities in strategy formulation, analyzing data, identifying trends, forecasting future outcomes and decision making.
Strategic decisions are based on the quality of information they are using which can be analyzed by AI algorithms. These algorithms would be able to identify patterns in the data which is not possible for humans to find. AI will also be able to predict what could happen in future events and formulate strategies for these events.

Brands As Content Producers

Brands are going to have to find ways to keep their customers loyal and engaged. This will mean going beyond hard-sell promotion and instead creating brand experiences, infotainment and engaging escapist and inspirational content in order to build engagement, loyalty, and sales. The content creation industry is expected to grow at a rapid rate in 2022. Does your brand have anything interesting to share with the world? Do you have what it takes to own an audience and keep them anticipating your next content offering?

The Rise Of The CMO

According to research done by the McKinsey Company marketing in 2022 and beyond is now “marketing with a capital M.” and CEOs are now giving their (Chief Marketing Officers) CMOs a great deal of responsibility for the growth model of the business. The most desired CMO is the Unifier; one who brings together the primary objectives of the CFO, CEO, COO and the entire C-Suite. CMOs will therefore be requiring of their in-house and outsourced marketing agencies end to end evidence that ROI will be achieved.

Cultural Handover To A New Generation  

The loss of a significant number of middle-aged to elderly people (the most vulnerable to COVID19), leaving behind a far more youthful population is going to have a huge impact. While younger leadership in the private and public sector is already a norm in Western European (particularly Nordic), South American countries, Canada, New Zealand and Australia, in the Caribbean countries people 50 and older still hold most of the gatekeeping, seniority, decision-making positions, wealth and authority over the society, culture and media. What will the rapid dying off of the Boomer and GenXer generations in the Caribbean region mean? We can expect significant cultural shifts. Caribbean Millennials and Zoomers are far more progressive, informal, egalitarian than their parents and grandparents. Leading companies’ brand and marketing communications messaging will need to keep that in mind.

WHAT IS IN-STORE GEOPOLITICALLY?

Those alive in 2022 and the years to come will see the rapid disintegration of the USA’s democracy while simultaneously China asserts its global position as the world leader. The Caribbean’s proximity to the USA and its deep hold on the geopolitics and economy of the region means we can expect to feel both the positive and negative reverberations.  The Caribbean can expect an influx of migrants both inter-island and from outside the region, among them a lot of returning nationals.

China will be ever-present in the Caribbean both as the money behind much of the infrastructural and technological development of the region as well as new citizens by investment. Already, some Caribbean leaders are asserting the right of each territory to engage with China and calling out the hypocrisy of former exploitative colonial and neo-colonial powers for their condemnation of bi-lateral agreements with the communist, authoritarian powerhouse.

While the employment and economic benefits are obvious, the true social and cultural costs are yet to be revealed.

How it impacts marketing trends

你会说普通话吗 “Do you speak Mandarin?”

It will become a key strength for any Caribbean Marketing agency to know how to work with and meet the needs of Chinese private sector entities doing business in our region. We can expect the new M.O. regarding all promotional materials for our islands to prioritize Mandarin translations, something Accela did over ten years ago for Invest SVG’s promotional materials.

Renewed Interest in Worker Protections

We can expect a renewed vigilance in the region regarding labor codes to protect Caribbean citizens, as well as an assertion of our patriotism and culture in the wake of increased migration. As previously mentioned, there is also a generational shift happening and the younger Caribbean citizens are more passionate about worker’s rights, work-life balance, safe working conditions. They are not going to sacrifice the quality of life the way their parents and grandparents did. Any enterprise not up to the mark can expect video evidence all over social media of their failings and will need Crisis Communication but most of all robust internal evaluation systems of their practices.

Need For Diversity Training And Representation

As the demographics of the Caribbean begin to shift and as cultural attitudes begin to change, we can expect to see in media those that were not usually represented in the Caribbean space. There will be far more people who are not of African descent, who are not Christian and people who are visibly LGBT, all expecting to be treated with equal dignity. As more younger, professional women from the Caribbean return home or take their place, some of the “old boy” work culture may also find itself at odds with the level of respect demanded by the new generation. There may be issues regarding social cohesion and diversity acceptance. Marketing has always played a major role in helping society adapt and this may be yet another area for brands to stand out.

In Conclusion

One of the strengths of the Accela Marketing team behind Marketing Mojo has been their ability to read the changing winds; see what is coming on the horizon and take proactive steps to evolve to take advantage of the new climate.  Often our adaptation to one global event sets the momentum for thriving in the future. Our enhancement of virtual and digital capacities in response to the global financial crash of 2008, made the agency ready for the COVID era. In 2020 and 2021, Accela handled marketing campaigns, public relations and public education in several Caribbean territories, planned and hosted events in person (with COVID protocols) and virtually, all while its team worked primarily from home.