Explore how consumer behavior, AI evolution, and Gen Z’s influence reshaped marketing in 2024. Learn about adapting to new realities, leveraging AI effectively, and building empowered teams.
The marketing industry dealt with a paradigm shift in 2024. The “tried and true” campaigns and strategies that historically carried the industry for years, like paid search or loyalty programs, didn’t land with customers in quite the same way this past year. As the industry evolves rapidly, the strategies that worked six months ago may not work tomorrow.
What sparked such a profound shift? In 2024, consumers proved to marketers that their buying patterns changed. Driven by rapid technological advancements, shifting economic dynamics, changing social priorities, and evolving expectations, these shifts reshaped consumer behavior, compelling marketers to adapt their strategies.
This past year, most consumers planned to cut back on discretionary spending due to inflation concerns. Similarly, this past year, six in ten consumers expected more personalized shopping experiences, driven by advances in AI and big data, further showing their increasingly reserved intent to buy. In 2025, marketers will look to adopt data-driven strategies that provide tailored recommendations, targeted ads, and personalized content to meet these heightened consumer expectations.
AI innovation and fatigue impact marketers
As nearly every enterprise introduces new AI features—whether through innovative vendor products or feature upgrades—the market is experiencing an exciting surge in AI adoption and a heightened focus on refining its value. Over the past few years, AI has transformed from a niche, futuristic concept into a mainstream, essential tool integrated across the entire marketing function. This widespread integration accelerated innovation for businesses, allowing them access to new efficiencies and insights. However, this broad adoption is leading to a saturation point, with a growing number of AI solutions in the market that presents a challenging opportunity for choice and customization.
With so many options to explore, when looking at what technology to integrate into their tech stack, marketers should focus on adding value to their portfolios and what their employees struggle with when it comes to AI technology. Marketers need to determine how they will measure success, what metrics they align with, and how the chosen technologies will drive tangible outcomes. Rather than just adopting AI for innovation, this ensures strategic use of the technology to enhance performance, productivity, and overall business growth.
Recently, my team and I looked at over 70+ AI use cases and how they measure success for each application outside of giving humans time back. We evaluated technologies from helping employees practice pitches to automating performance reviews, to scribing notes and next steps for one-on-one meetings. Although tedious, this deep dive allowed us to identify key areas where AI improves efficiency and enhances decision-making to drive measurable business outcomes.
AI technology has evolved in the last year. While prompting and training were major focus areas, they alone aren’t enough—substantial work remains before companies realize tangible, measurable ROI from their AI investments.
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Major marketing strategy shifts
While innovations notably reshaped the marketing landscape this past year, the marketing fundamentals, such as attribution evaluation and measurement, evolved and transformed the industry significantly.
Historically, marketers could rely on single-touch attribution models, but in today’s complex, multi-channel environment, such a narrow approach no longer delivers meaningful insights. To fully understand the customer journey—which now spans a variety of platforms and touchpoints—marketers must adopt a blended attribution model that reflects this complexity.
In the context of Account Based Marketing (ABM) strategy, leveraging multi-faceted attribution allows marketers to credit various touchpoints and channels for their role in converting a target account. This is especially important in complex B2B enterprises with intricate sales processes, where multiple stakeholders across several interactions and stages of the funnel make the decisions. Although multifaceted attributions have been around for a while, since the early 2000s actually, marketers still struggle to figure out the best combination of touchpoints to evaluate. This challenge will persist into 2025 and beyond.
As we look to the future of marketing innovation, one critical factor determining success is the widespread adoption of global Centers of Excellence (COEs). In 2024, COEs experienced significant growth across various sectors, driven by the need for specialized expertise and innovation, particularly with the growth of AI. To stay ahead, marketing leaders should embrace COEs as a strategic initiative and position them wherever top-tier talent can be best harnessed to drive transformative results.
In today’s modern business landscape, success means cross-functional collaboration. Marketing no longer operates in a silo, and aligning with other departments delivers holistic, impactful results. Think of an organization as a simple but intricate stool, where each function represents one of its legs. No one function can support the entire stool; each is interdependent, working in tandem to ensure stability and success.
When it comes to enterprise-level deals, which require seamless integration and alignment across various teams, from sales and product development to customer success and IT, every department needs to work together with persistence, patience, and an unwavering commitment to long-term collaboration to drive collective outcomes and create lasting value for the business.
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A workplace transformed: Gen Z and empowerment culture
As mentioned earlier, another key driver shaping the marketing industry last year was the increasing dominance of consumers–particularly Gen Z–in the buying market. This shift compelled marketing teams to be equally innovative and strategic in their approaches. As digital natives, Gen Z’s unique values and expectations from their consumer experiences differ from previous customer cohorts, demanding their brands evolve to meet these preferences.
To win over this demographic, marketers brought new ideas to the table that target younger audiences, leveraging platforms such as TikTok or Instagram to craft creative, engaging content that resonates with Gen Z’s desire for both entertainment and meaningful connections. Understanding Gen Z’s need for transparency, social impact, and instant gratification, markets tailored campaigns that appealed to their interests aligned with their values. They ensured strong long-term relationships with a generation that’s reshaping customer behavior.
Not only did Gen Z transform the buying landscape, but their influence also extended deeply into the workforce, forcing business leaders to reevaluate how they engage and manage their teams. One of the most powerful lessons learned from this cohort is the importance of empowerment–building a culture where trust breeds creativity and innovation. In today’s dynamic work environment, balancing autonomy and oversight is critical to building a prosperous, self-sufficient marketing team.
While offering this freedom to innovate, leaders should also practice the “trust but verify” approach to ensure this autonomy doesn’t lead to unchecked risks. This could mean structured processes, like setting up regular check-ins, tracking project timelines, or implementing designated review stages before final approval–helping teams stay on track while maintaining their creative freedom.
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The future of the industry
The core marketing principles remain as relevant as ever and should not be overlooked despite the industry’s rapid changes. Marketers can successfully navigate shifts in consumer buying behavior by adopting agile strategies, harnessing the power of data-driven insights, embracing innovative technology, and maintaining a relentless focus on customer needs and preferences.
While AI fatigue is real, the momentum of investment and innovation seen in 2024 will continue to drive marketing forward in the coming year. AI will not replace marketers, but those who fail to learn how to harness its full potential will be replaced by those who do. Marketers who know how to leverage AI to enhance creativity, optimize campaigns, and drive meaningful results will lead the future of marketing.
