Digital marketers today need to be creative, flexible, and agile to keep up with the ever-changing economy and stand out from the competition. 2022 revealed that consumers are searching for authentic, interactive brand experiences that are personalized to their unique needs. Marketers opened new doors to create relationship-driven experiences between brands and their audiences. Let’s look at the leading digital marketing trends of 2022, along with examples of brands that knocked it out of the park.

This past year, consumers have valued brand authenticity more than ever. When it comes to customer loyalty, today’s consumers often look beyond a company’s products and services to connect with those who share the same values. For example, consumers who are passionate about equality might look for brands with inclusive hiring practices. In contrast, consumers who are passionate about the environment might look for products with sustainable packaging. Millennials, the largest generation in the current workforce, place more importance on authentic brand messaging than previous generations and seek out socially and environmentally conscious brands. 2022 showed that consumers want to know their brands care about making a positive impact on a global scale and are committed to following through on their promises. 

A brand community is a segment of consumers who are invested in and dedicated to that brand. They don’t include people who occasionally check out a brand’s social media or only make the occasional purchase but typically involve those with a deeper, more emotional connection. Brand community members are emotionally invested in a company’s products, services, and values and consistently engage with its content. They may even be brand advocates who frequently leave reviews, offer feedback, and spread the word among family and friends. Companies must create a dedicated relationship-building strategy if they want to see their brand community expand and evolve.

For example, Alo Yoga is a clothing brand with a mission to bring yoga to the world. They nurture their brand community through their Mind Full podcast, which features inspirational conversations from individuals in various industries. Additionally, they regularly host community events online and in person across the US. These events feature mindfulness, yoga, breathwork, or energy workshops. Typically, individuals who care about wellness, physical activity, and holistic health participate in the Alo Yoga brand community. 

In 2022, consumers became more likely to support brands that share the same values and belief systems. Brand activism is the most prominent way for brands to share their values. Brand activism is when a company takes a stance on a social, political, economic, or environmental issue that aligns with its values. This can include charitable donations, operational changes, and external initiatives, such as partnering with nonprofit organizations or collaborating with activist groups. This marketing strategy has allowed brands to connect with their consumers meaningfully, leading to retaining loyal customers devoted to the brand’s greater cause. According to Hubspot, 30% of marketers create content that reflects their brand’s values, making it the third most popular trend in marketing. To consumers in 2022, brands are more than just companies that sell products - they are avenues for world change. 

For example, Londre Body Wear is a swimsuit brand focusing on environmental sustainability by making its swimsuits out of recycled plastic bottles. The brand has a recycling program, in which customers return their used swimsuits to be rejuvenated into new materials, as well as a repair program to ensure that one swimsuit can last the consumer for a long time. Additionally, they have donated thousands of dollars to environmental and women's health initiatives. Londre does an excellent job of inviting consumers to contribute towards their goal of fighting climate change and creating a sustainable future for swimwear.

In 2022, brands drove consumer engagement with interactive brand experiences. From shoppable videos to utilizing the metaverse and AI marketing, brands creatively used these tools to show consumers who they were and encourage them to purchase. 

Shoppable videos have been gaining popularity in North America in the past year, following their well-established reputation in Eastern countries like China and Thailand. A shoppable video is a marketing tool that presents retail products via an entertaining video and makes them available for purchase through embedded links. Viewers can click these links as they pop up throughout the video and can purchase the product without leaving the video page when clicking a link. Shoppable videos simplify the consumer journey, enhance customer engagement, and improve sales. 

There are two ways brands can produce shoppable videos: live or pre-recorded. Brands can make their products shoppable through livestreaming to an audience, also known as “live shopping.” As business owners or influencers present their products in real-time, viewers are encouraged to purchase products directly from the livestream’s links. The audience can even ask questions about products and receive answers through the live video. Live shopping is an entertaining tool for business owners, employees, or influencers to use for interacting and building meaningful relationships with their customers. Live shopping is projected to be a $480 billion industry in China this year and $11 billion in the United States. These numbers are projected to jump significantly in 2023.

Walmart, for example, launched a live shopping option where influencers and industry leaders can host shoppable livestreams featuring different products and brands. Recently, the brand hosted a livestream titled “Cyber Deals Sunday” with celebrity Busy Philipps as the host. With this livestream, Walmart could highlight specific deals for Cyber Monday. Through this live shopping initiative, they can host multiple livestreams per week that feature a variety of products, including skincare, cosmetics, baby food, or back-to-school supplies. They attract viewers by having hosts like TikTok sensation Chloe Mitchell or pop star Willow Smith. This shows how large retailers can integrate live shopping into their sales strategy through creative partnerships. 

This past year, artificial intelligence has been widely used in retail, customer service, sales, and marketing. For example, retailers use AI to manage and optimize inventory, while support personnel use it to provide virtual assistance through chatbots and visual search. Also, sales and marketing teams use AI to optimize sales strategies and ad campaigns, create predictive models and analytics reports, and develop personalized consumer content and offers. 

Additionally, marketers have used the metaverse as a part of their marketing as a creative way to engage consumers. From a technological perspective, metaverses are virtual worlds where people create avatars, seek experiences, interact with other users, and purchase digital products like clothing and artwork. Metaverses are often closely associated with Web3, a new iteration of the World Wide Web focused on blockchain technologies like cryptocurrency and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). 

For example, Amazon uses AI to personalize consumers’ shopping experiences. The company provides personal shopping recommendations, based on the shopper’s recent search history and views. By using AI to educate customers about the best deals and products that exist,  Amazon is able to make the shopping experience easier and more effective. 

Additionally, Gucci launched a virtual Gucci Garden, which is a digital replica of a museum in Italy. Users are able to “walk” through the museum, browse products, and ask for more information by clicking on products they see. This is an innovative way for Gucci to increase brand awareness with both consumers who are immersed in the digital world, as well as consumers who have yet to engage the metaverse. 

Marketers have also leveraged social media to increase brand awareness and build consumer loyalty. Used by over 42% of marketers, social media is the #1 channel brands use to get their content out into the world. Each social channel can be used in different ways to reach various audiences. Whether it’s sharing expertise by posting articles on LinkedIn or making followers laugh with trends on TikTok, there’s a place for each brand to share their products, services, culture, and values. 

Short-form videos have skyrocketed in the past year. With YouTube being the second largest search engine in the world, consumers are looking to video more often to learn about brands, products, and services. Sprout Social reports that short-form video is the most engaging type of in-feed social content. This rise in popularity may be due to the rise of TikTok, a short-form video platform currently used by 42% of marketers. Moreover, Instagram is being used by 58% of marketers, most likely because it provides a similar short-form video option through Reels, and Gen Xers and Boomers are more likely to be familiar with the platform. 

Any brand can use short-form videos to their advantage. For example, the Washington Post has climbed up to 1.5 million followers on Tik Tok in the past year. The newspaper draws in a large audience by posting news, entertainment, and cultural commentary.  

Additionally, influencer marketing has been an effective way for marketers to show their product or service has social proof. Social proof is the idea that people observe the behavior of others and take cues on how they should act. In a marketing context, consumers are drawn to the popular or common choice when making a purchase. Mainly, younger generations like Millennials and Gen Z are more likely to trust other people than brands themselves. Currently, over 1 in 4 marketers use influencer marketing. This digital marketing strategy offers the second-highest ROI of any social media marketing trend. This is because brands typically offer influencers free products or services in exchange for a post or an influencer campaign.

Athletic Greens is a health supplement brand that sells a powder that contains 75 vitamins, minerals, whole-food sourced superfoods, probiotics, and adaptogens in one serving. Their mission is to empower people to take ownership of their health, and they use health and wellness influencers to help market their products. For example, Kate Glavan, a prominent runner living in New York, shared content for Athletic Greens on her TikTok profile using the hashtag #athleticgreenspartner. Using influencer marketing, Athletic Greens increases brand awareness and draws on social proof as a marketing psychology tactic.

In 2022, marketers faced the looming implications and impacts of a cookieless future. Third-party cookies help brands track users across different websites and collect data about their browsing activity. They capture audience touchpoints and behavior, which helps marketers build customer profiles. However, data regulations like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) call for banning third-party cookies to provide greater consumer protection and brand transparency. This meant that collecting first-party user data through different commerce platforms, interactive experiences, or multimedia ad campaigns is necessary for brands to comply with the latest developments in data policies and consumer privacy.

The following privacy laws have been significant for marketers in the past year. The U.S. House Energy & Commerce Committee is developing a national user privacy bill called the American Data Privacy And Protection Act (ADPPA), which will dictate “how data can be collected, used and shared for marketing and other purposes”. The bill's primary goal is to prevent companies from capturing unnecessary data, profiting from sensitive information like health and finances, and targeting ads toward children. It would also give government officials more enforcement capabilities and consumers more rights to sue brands for privacy violations.

Other than ADPPA, there are currently five comprehensive statewide privacy laws in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Virginia, and Utah that cover protocols for common privacy concerns, including the collection and storage of sensitive information, the definition of selling and sharing personal data, and the processes for acquiring user consent, deleting consumer information, and enforcing privacy regulations.

In 2022, brands learned to be especially careful when navigating multiple statewide privacy laws, as they typically have different standards for the amount of data brands can collect, different best practices for acquiring user consent, and so on. Marketers have started by requiring double opt-in, avoiding targeted ads toward children, and practicing progressive profiling to build user profiles over time rather than asking for excessive amounts of information from the start.

SMS marketing campaigns should always include a double-opt in strategy with an option for the consumer to opt out to ensure that brands are complying with privacy laws. Opting in can be done in-store, over email, or on a website. The second opt in can be done through a text message, allowing users to opt out of messages at any time like the example above. 

To win consumer trust, brands have moved away from collecting and using second-party and third-party data, as customers, governments, and regulatory organizations are becoming increasingly concerned about data ownership and privacy. Considering governments around the world are developing legislation like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), marketers have been focused on protecting user data and prioritizing transparency, confidentiality, and accountability. With zero-party and first-party data, brands capture accurate information from their consumers without external influences and legal or ethical risks. 

Brands have learnt to build trust by explicitly stating how they intend to collect and use customer data, such as collecting contact information to send email campaigns and SMS messages. As trust is built, consumers may feel comfortable sharing more interest-based data over time in exchange for personalized brand experiences.

Brands should collect and leverage first-party data to build meaningful consumer relationships. Fostering these relationships will help your brand boost sales, improve ROI, and drive customer loyalty. Don’t be afraid to reward consumers with discount codes, exclusive content, and free products in exchange for information like purchase history and product preferences. Over time, this strengthens a company’s understanding of their consumers and the consumer’s trust in their favorite brands.

With PLATFORM³, brands can run data-driven campaigns to build consumer trust, including gift with purchase promotions, contests and sweepstakes, and loyalty programs. Modules like Contests and Promotions, Points and Gamification, Dynamic Messaging, and Data Capture & Analytics give marketers the tools and information they need to guide their decisions and develop stronger consumer relationships. To learn more, chat with an expert today.