Where will your focus be for the rest of 2024? Ours is on creating better customer connections

As the head of an integrated agency, I am constantly looking for what to prepare for, what we need to evolve towards, develop more of and what pivots may be required. And that’s quite a task in our turbulent environment. These past few years have been extremely tough globally and on South Africa from a financial standpoint and the shifts in consumer behaviour has have become especially difficult to predict. And talking of predictions, the predictions of 2023 and those touted at the start of 2024 are all predominantly true. Most notably, we saw AI barrelling from ‘a promising future technology’ to an exponentially evolving (if questionable) reality. And, as with all great advancements, the excitement will always be tempered with scepticism and fear, as we settle into the reality that AI is only as good as the data it’s trained on.

The good news, is that the advertising landscape is poised for significant expansion and the South African market value is projected to be in the multi-billions by 2028 according to ReportLinker, with the significant drivers of this growth being digital advertising and supported by the expansion of the middle class. Creativity is gaining a groundswell once again as the key to all advertising success.

And, in my state of flux, while I believe all these trends, predictions and insights to be true, I can’t help thinking that we keep losing sight of the customer. At the end of the day, our key measure of success, can – and should only be – did we deliver communications on behalf of our clients that help them connect to their customers and drive sales, growth and loyalty?

The four focus areas we’ll be spending all our time on, will be:

1. Using all the tools at our disposal, AI included, to create and deliver compelling creative work that resonates with audiences and encourages action.
   
2. Maximising on the influencer marketing trend to reach engaged audiences.
   
3. Leveraging programmatic advertising, for precise targeting and real-time bidding, to ensure our ads reach the right audience at the right time.
   
4. Authentically connecting our clients and our own sustainability and social responsibility goals and values to our advertising strategies.
   

So, as we take a deep breath and dig deep for the second half of this year, we’ll be focusing all our efforts on the north star of creating better connections for our clients with their customers to achieve the stellar growth we all need and to provide customers the products and services they need to thrive in 2024. To achieve that, we’ll be in flux - flexible and adaptive – taking all the trends, innovations, opportunities and nuances and blending them together for the best outcomes for our clients. There isn’t a single trend, or a particular tactic that I think will give us the edge; just a single-minded objective to connect our clients to their audiences in the best way possible.

Ebony + Ivory.
Big enough to do it all – small enough to want to.