Top advertising industry trends to watch in 2023

As we close the books on another year, it’s time to take a closer look at the major themes that defined these past 12 months, from the highs to the lows and everything in between.

“2022 was the year that started with a bang and ended with a fizzle,” said Andrea (Ring) Grodberg, global chief strategy officer at VMLY&R. “Everyone wanted to party, marketing-style. Just look at the Super Bowl; every celebrity was in every ad. Brand was back. Crypto threw money around like it was the ’90s. The metaverse was inexplicably the answer to everything—until it wasn’t. Now, there’s no money left. Crypto has left the building, the flu and RSV have replaced COVID and Kim and Pete broke up. So where does that leave us? Quite frankly, it leaves us in the right place.”

With talk of a looming recession, the end of 2022 feels for many advertisers like getting off the rollercoaster as brands aim to regain steady footing.

“Results are back in style,” Grodberg noted. “Brand-building is about more than celebrity, and customer experience and loyalty are being recognized for their heavy lifting. The coming year might not be flashy but it will be effective.”

Here’s what other leaders from the Amp community had to say about the year in review, and what the future may hold for advertisers and brands in 2023.

The post-lockdown party—and hangover

As advertisers look back, the idea of brands going wild at the outset of 2022 with spending galore is one narrative that stands in particular.

“In many ways, it felt like a return to pre-COVID normalcy,” said Leyland Streiff, managing director at Deloitte Digital. “Once again brands engaged customers with high-impact activations that met people where they are, out in the real world. We also saw brands re-embrace the power of purpose and spend in the upper funnel to drive brand distinction and desire.” 

For many, the metaphor of a wager couldn’t be more accurate, with brands spending hard to make up for lost time.

“The year 2022 was about compensating for the pandemic, and unsurprisingly we overdid it,” said Martyn Clarkson, executive VP and global head of strategy at Jack Morton. “During the pandemic we spent online, changed jobs, found nature and bought exercise equipment. Then we went wild catching up on everything we missed. That double-down on spending slashed personal savings to Great Recession-era lows and did its share of contributing to global inflation. But exploring extremes is what finds balance, so 2023 will be about rightsizing, restoring and revisiting—all with a view to finding meaning and new purpose.”

It’s impossible to ignore the ways in which the pandemic continues to shape and reshape our world, and certain legacy elements from our time in lockdown will stretch into 2023, according to Jonah Ballow, founder and head of content strategy and production at Heartlent Group.

“We have seen clients dial back on shoots requiring travel, and have opted to capture some of the production through video calls,” Ballow said. “This approach was a necessity during the pandemic and stay-at-home orders, and the trend is still visible on the big television networks, using talking heads remotely versus in-studio. We think this flexibility offers a strong solution; we can handle the preproduction virtually, set up the optimal light and set-up for the shoot, and even send a camera or lighting package. Additionally, our ability to create a distinct motion graphics package in post-editing can enhance the final remotely recorded video feature.”

That flexibility has also extended the pool of talent available to brands for collaboration, with remote work now the norm.

“For a few years now we’ve seen a shift in supplier management when it comes to production and content creation, but COVID has given it a boost,” said Paul Sluimers, managing director at Revel.ai and business director at Ambassadors. “It has opened the doors for working with suppliers in content creation wherever they are.” Brands want to get more knowledge in house and partner directly with suppliers and creators, whether they’re around the corner or farther away.”

Bringing back humor and heart

The emergence from one of the darkest times in recent history left its mark on the creative work itself, with advertisers embracing all things funny, heartfelt and, in general, entertaining.

“Against the backdrop of all the chaos in 2022, one of the most notable trends that emerged this year was the industry’s use of humor,” said Eileen Zhao, strategic director at Fred & Farid Los Angeles. “From Liquid Death to Ocean Spray’s jiggly jelly holiday spot, humor has been making a huge comeback in advertising. We’ve seen firsthand how powerful humor can be to boost awareness for our challenger brand client Ladder Life Insurance. With our So Good platform, we’ve created two chapters of work that only humor can bring to light. And as brands move towards shorter, more humorous content, I expect to see others in the same category invest more in the craft and brand expression of their campaigns.”

Humor won the day in part due to the growing power of affinity over awareness, noted said Kaitlin Doherty, founder and president of The Local Everything.

“I think we are going to see a lot more of that no matter where you are in the marketing funnel,” Doherty said. “Brand affinity will continue to drive the strategies for brands and advertisers as we seek to break through and drive results with consumers. It's nice to see more emotional triggers within brands stories. Consumers are having fun again, and marketers are stretching the emotional palate of their own brands.”

According to Norm Shearer, partner and chief creative officer at Cactus. brand values likely also played a role in bringing back the heart in 2022, with the need for strong purpose backed by action continuing to drive consumer and brand direction.

“The trend in creative voice was hope, humor and humility, with many brands leaning into diversity and social causes to align with—from Sephora’s “Black Beauty Is Beauty” to Apple’s recent The Greatest,” Shearer said. “I don’t see this trend shifting, but only growing, which is refreshing and will inspire other brands to get on board in 2023.”

Shearer points to “The Beginner” ad from John Lewis that indicates a movement away from the flashiness of the early part of the year. “The client admittedly said it was designed to be high emotion, but lower ‘flash’ compared with previous approaches, with mega-hit music rights, Hollywood talent or showy production dollars."

It's (still) an influencer’s world

Social media continued—and perhaps tightened—its hold over popular culture in 2022, with trends across the lifestyle spectrum, stemming from TikTok in particular. Exhibit A is namecore.

“This year we saw new subcultures and aesthetics arise with alarming rapidity and specificity,” said Jen Herbert, strategy director at Amp Agency. “From such terms as goblincore and barbiecore to night luxe and coastal grandmother, consumers—especially those on TikTok—aligned their personal styles, design choices and even emotional states to micro-labels like these. Why? From a channel perspective, the advancement of algorithms on more visual and hashtag-based platforms can now surface smaller communities’ trends and individual influencers’ aesthetics with more speed and ease.”

TikTok reigned supreme throughout 2022, with no sign of slowing in 2023.

“We saw the mass adoption of TikTok as a critical marketing channel,” said Chris Jacks, director of growth strategy at HireInfluence. “TikTok shed its identity as a Gen Z-specific app and took center stage as a go-to resource for implementing viral marketing campaigns to reach diverse audiences. In turn, we saw brands reconsider how they spend their money on traditional channels like Facebook and Instagram. In addition to live shopping tools, the major platforms will continue to ideate, build and launch novel platform integrations across NFTs, AR and unique subscription opportunities.”

This was also the year that TikTok arguably shed its reputation as a purely-for-fun platform and began to set meaningful trends in the social space, noted Sam Zises, CEO at [L]earned Media.

“Gen Z users who embrace e-commerce enthusiastically use TikTok as a search engine to seek out products and reviews,” Zises said. “Brands that have figured out how to leverage this trend are reaching their biggest audience. Influencers aren’t going anywhere, and micro-influencers will continue to be huge for targeting specific audiences and establishing brand credibility. And Meta’s ongoing investments and rumors about an Apple AR/VR headset indicate that advertising in the metaverse may be just around the corner.”

The changing landscape of conversion data

While cookies didn’t see their final demise in 2022, the data landscape for advertisers did indeed shift this past year.

“In our corner of the business world, we’ll remember 2022 most for the death of usable conversion data for individualized ad targeting,” said Mike Margolin, chief digital officer at RPA. “When Apple took away access to conversion data, it slayed the primacy of social platforms and stripped away six years of accumulated market value from Meta/Facebook. It also wounded virtually all ad-supported technology companies, undermined the direct-to-consumer revolution and raised questions about whether we want one company to have so much value-destructive power at the push of a button.”

Brands should continue to prepare for the eventual demise of cookies and be on the lookout for “alternatives to cookie-based targeting,” as well as a greater presence of ads in streaming platforms, Margolin added. “Despite a split Congress, it will be interesting to see if Amazon and Apple will finally receive some level of regulation,” he said.

The new year will likely see advertisers continue to get creative in finding ways around restriction to data access and ads.

“I’m intrigued to see how far we can continue to leverage addressable audience solutions amid obstacles like growing consumer privacy concerns, built-in ad blocking tech and the end of the third-party-tracking/cookies era,” said Kimberly Torries, senior digital analyst at Big Communications.

For some advertisers, that work began in 2022, with new avenues opening up for advertisers.

“The proliferation of ads in previously ad-free environments is a notable trend that kicked into high gear in 2022,” said Richard Yao, senior manager of strategy at IPG Media Lab, UM’s innovation division. “Subscription-based video on demand services Netflix, HBO Max and Disney+ all launched their respective ad-supported services this year, and companies like Uber and Roblox debuted their own turnkey ad solutions to diversify their revenue streams. All this opened new channels for brands to reach consumers and engage with them in different contexts.”

Much ado about the metaverse

Even if it never quite lived up to its hype—in large part spurred on by the announcement of Facebook’s name change toward the end of 2021—the metaverse was a major item on advertisers’ radar in 2022.

“It feels like we’re moving through a hype cycle at hyperspeed,” said Media.Monks cofounder Wesley ter Haar. “The reality is that this decade has seen a transformation of digital, and of the value it has in peoples’ lives and livelihoods. The time we spent in and on digital channels and devices is no longer a ‘second life’; it’s just life now and that’s leading to outputs you’d expect: People are spending more time in virtual and tactile spaces. This was already happening broadly with gaming, but we now have a first wave of metaverse platforms, and people are imbuing purely digital assets with monetary value.”

Naturally, brands want to be on the cusp of whatever that next big thing is, and the metaverse was one of several much-fabled pots of gold at the end of the virtual rainbow. Was it really?

“If we look back at the start of this year, we can see the rise of things like crypto, the secret place where you can get rich fast, or Web3 being the ‘promised land,’” said John Higgins, CEO and cofounder of OS Studios. “When brands heard about the buzz, they wanted to have a seat at the table first or at least make their presence known immediately. Many people believed NFTs would be the next big thing and have a great impact as opposed to the impact they actually have today. The hype for what could’ve been is almost silent now following the many failed metaverse collabs and projects. The past 12 months have been fairly difficult for the metaverse.”

Forecasts for the coming year

Brands will be defining and redefining how they approach their audiences, with even greater shifts around data and tracking coming down the pike. Given the spending frenzies and marketing blowouts that defined the earlier part of the year, some are predicting a return to moderation in the coming months. A looming recession may mean more restriction on marketing budgets as brands continue to adapt to changing consumer patterns.

“Our forecast for 2023 is going back to the basics,” said OS Studios’ John Higgins. “Everyone was trying hard on metaphysical realities and trying to reinvent the wheel digitally, but for 2023 we plan on focusing more on our social media platforms, attending live events, being present in the office—not a virtual one—and simply showing up at the right place and at the right time.

“I like to recall the most talked about Super Bowl commercial this year, being the QR code that was floating on our screens for a minute straight,” Higgins continued. “Coinbase brought in over 20 million scans using a method that has been around since the 1990s. I truly believe that going back to the basics will lead us into building a stronger foundation moving forward.”

For Grant Owens, chief strategy officer at Critical Mass, 2023 will see the emergence of five major trends:

1. Finding our people again. “Consumers are still redefining digital and real-life relationships upended by the pandemic. I see this continuing in 2023, where they’re dropping existing social platforms and starting new ones within new communities, often more local and intimate than before.”

2. Tuning the tech. “As the economy looms large and many of our clients have already spent large capital funds on tech stacks, they’re now determined to squeeze all the ROI out of them that was promised.”

3. Findability. “With valuable content across a wider array of platforms, the search game is up for grabs in new places. We’re predicting a concerted industry effort to further structure that data and extend its value and context.”

4. Wellness design. “This trend continues post pandemic as people are waking up to both the harmful and helpful aspects of digital experiences. We’re going to be advising our clients on how to design for experiences that improve people’s lives, rather than simply impose marketing upon them.”

5. The foundations of Web3. “No doubt some of the hype has dimmed, but what I see happening is that consumers are wanting to learn more about and exploring elements of Web3 that will benefit them. Whether or not pure decentralized platforms emerge to facilitate it, consumers are going to expect better privacy, IP ownership and digital security in 2023.”