2024 Advertising Outlook ReportKey insights on marketing trends that will impact the coming year, with data gathered from 1,000+ leading marketing industry professionals. January 20242 ©2024 MediaoceanIntroduction ....................................................................................... 3Foreword by Joanna O’Connell ................................................... 4Insight #1: Macro ad spend trends reflect industry optimism ................................................ 6Insight #2: Focus on AI comes at expense of Metaverse ............................................................... 7Insight #3: Current applications of AI focus on research and analytics over content generation ................. 9Insight #4: Brand advertising investment continues to accelerate .........................................10Insight #5: The creative-media gap persists .......................12Conclusion and Methodology ....................................................13About Mediaocean and Flashtalking ......................................14Table of contents3 ©2024 MediaoceanThank you for reading Mediaocean’s 2024 Advertising Outlook Report. These insights reflect input from more than 1,000 customers and partners, focused on key consumer and technology trends along with 2024 projected media investments. We primarily surveyed marketers and agencies, but also included perspectives from media companies, measurement firms, tech platforms, and other industry cohorts. This is the fifth in our series of biannual market reports, with the first published at the end of 2021. The most recent data points used in this research are based on surveys conducted in November 2023. Introduction4 ©2024 MediaoceanWe continue to weather uncertain storms as a global community, but there is light. While geopolitical strife and conflict continue to cast massive shadows, the COVID-19 pandemic has waned and the economic picture around the world shows signs of potential stabilization.So, is cautious optimism warranted? Certainly, we see confidence reflected in respondents’ media investment expectations: they report plans to increase funding in a whole range of digital media channels with CTV, digital display/video, social, and search as standouts. Notably, this optimistic view is not new—the last three years of survey data reflect a very similar pattern. Why? For my part, I think several things are at play but fundamentally, to work in this business is to BELIEVE in this business—advertisers and agency professionals intrinsically understand the value of advertising in shaping consumer perception and behavior. Perhaps this is also why we see brand advertising given such weight in respondents’ minds: now, nearly 50% of them note that investing in brand advertising is critical (topped, importantly, only by performance media and measurement/attribution), a number that’s also been on an upward trajectory for several surveys in...
