The AdNews end of year Perspectives, looking back at 2024 and forward to next year.
Lucy Formosa Morgan, Managing Director, Magna
Well, that was a rollercoaster year.
We came into the year thinking it’d be a tale of two halves – the first being tough, not just economy but for the media industry too, and then we’d see the market picking up in the second half. Unfortunately, the tough H1 continued, and the economy didn’t bounce back like we all anticipated.
With consumers feeling the pinch of cost-of-living pressures, the knock on has been felt with advertisers being far more reticent with their budgets be that for local and/or global reasons. Yes, the Stage 3 tax cuts have been implemented together with energy bill relief, but that hasn’t yet translated into increased consumer spending patterns.
There is cautious optimism though for 2025…
Consumer confidence is trending up. Interest rates will hopefully, finally start to drop early next year so there are green shoots.
What do I expect to see from 2025?
Buckle up, change is coming and it’s going to evolve how we operate.
There are a few key areas that’ll influence the industry over the coming 12 months.
- From an industry perspective, AI & Large Language Models (LLMs) are already starting to influence our direction and ways of working. This change is only going to intensify at pace over the coming 12 months, with every organisation (from all side – agencies, sales & clients) looking internally at how they can take advantage of advancing technology capabilities to expedite and streamline operations to deliver greater results for their clients and our own business health.
- We’re seeing an increasing number of clients evolve their thinking from planning to outputs, to planning to outcomes. ROAS isn’t a new topic however with advancements in automation and technology, we’re able to analyse performance metrics via full funnel modelling / market mix modelling far more frequently with our clients.
This immediacy is starting to influence how we plan and buy media for our clients to maximise outcomes through key media optimisations.
- Premium video consumption habits have evolved, backed up by Magna’s on-going Screens research studies. It’s not surprising then that the streaming platforms are all now jumping on board with offering consumers cheaper ad tiers to access their content. The great opportunity here is that it opens up far greater access to those previously unreachable audiences. With these new ad tiers comes an explosion in the volume of inventory now available.
Obviously VOZ is launching end of December, which coupled with various other screens measurement tools will shake up the way we think about, plan and buy total TV.
With an increased focus on FFM / MMM, it becomes increasingly important for clients to test how each platform performs to ensure we don’t just latch onto the shiny new toys but assess what’s best for delivering them the results they’re after.
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