2020State of Branding Report

While the jury is still out on the vices and virtues of automation, our results revealed “creating content more efficiently and faster” to be the most popular use case for automation within marketing and branding efforts.

It seems many are still following the mantra that “content is king”, with 58% of those surveyed planning to increase their content production in 2020 by at least 25%, relative to 2019. However, this does not necessarily point to more time and resources being invested in content creation efforts for 2020. Instead, technology is enabling brands to create content faster, more efficiently, and in higher volume—with 1 in 2 respondents leveraging technology to automate administrative tasks associated with content creation.

With that in mind, 1 in 3 respondents plan to optimize and/or improve their organization’s UX this year in an effort to differentiate their brand, while just 15% are planning to employ brand advocates in order to achieve the same goal. However, in the post-GDPR era, brands will do well to consider the impact of stricter security and privacy laws when crafting customer experiences: more than half of our respondents believe security and wider regulation are limiting the potential impact of their branding/marketing efforts.

Ultimately, content strategy is becoming increasingly intertwined with wider user experience goals, with our results showing 54% of those surveyed plan to invest more in branded visual content this year— continuing the upward trend from 2019 which also saw a year-on-year increase.

As marketing becomes more tech-oriented, the most frequently cited challenge was “skill gaps in the marketing team” that could enable organizations to effectively make use of their tech stack—with chatbots seen as the most overhyped technology of today.

There are also signs that the exponential growth of the industry has come at a cost, with the martech landscape becoming increasingly bloated: 40% of those surveyed were struggling with “data overload” and/or having “too many options to choose from”.

But who should drive the internal adoption of new marketing technologies in any given organization? It seems there’s a clear need for clarity on this subject according to our findings: 30% think IT should be responsible for driving internal adoption, while 31% believe it’s the responsibility of marketing.

Social media has inevitably been a hotspot for brands looking to connect and engage with audiences. The rapid rise of social commerce, or more aptly omni-channel commerce, signals the increasingly blurred lines between different consumer touchpoints, and the need for brands to step up and provide a more seamless, interconnected customer experience.

Last year’s respondents cited social media channels as the most effective medium for reaching target audiences and influencing buyer behavior. Our 2020 findings continue that trend with 39% of those surveyed believing social has the greatest impact on brand visibility and perception.

Customers were also ranked as more important than marketers themselves when it comes to influencing a brand’s reputation— another sign that a brand’s marketing is largely carried by its consumers.