Two annual rituals in our culture are identifying the top events or trends of the past year and predicting events or trends for the upcoming year. The marketing industry gets in on these rituals, too. One effort to predict future marketing trends was undertaken by Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. In a survey of Chief Marketing Officers in August of this year, CMOs identified areas in which they planned to increase marketing spending in 2010.
Findings from the Duke survey reveal CMOs will focus spending in areas that will strengthen customer relationships and deliver measurable results. The area with the highest growth will be spending for online marketing programs, with an average increase of 9.5% expected. The second and third areas are new product and new service introductions, with spending growth expected to be around 9.3% and 6.7%, respectively. Spending on customer relationship management (up 6.4%) and brand building (up 4.5%) round out the top five areas for marketing expenditure growth.
Two implications arise from the survey of CMOs. First, the projected increases for new products and new services suggest companies are willing to take risks in rolling out new offerings. This trend could be a signal of a stronger economy. Second, spending on traditional media advertising continues to have a diminished role in many marketing programs. The desire for customer engagement and performance tracking has led marketing spending into areas such as social media, search engine advertising, and customer relationship management. Mass media advertising will not go away, but for many brands it has been unseated as the primary marketing channel.
eMarketer – “Seven Predictions for 2010 from eMarketer’s CEO”
