Top Marketing Predictions For 2015

Every year, as the calendar starts to wind down, we look to the new year with great hope and optimism. Maybe the coming year is the year when brands start to “market like the year we are in” as Gary Vaynercheck has eloquently said.

In my top marketing predictions for 2011, I predicted that marketing automation would become a required part of the marketing technology stack (right), that marketing attribution would become a hot topic (not so right), Display media would make big budget gains (right) that we would stop asking about social media ROI (not so right) and that we would start to see a shift to content marketing (slow start but right.)

My 2012 Marketing predictions included CMOs struggling with talent (right), marketing increased focus on supporting sales (dead wrong), I also talked about Content Marketing delivered via social (right), augmented reality marketing (dead wrong) and also predicted a rise in video production from brands (right).

My 2013 Marketing Predictions included bets that content marketing conversations would mature. I thought branded content hubs would start to proliferate as paid budgets shifted to owned media. I also predicted the need for content strategists, social sales leaders and data scientists. Not a bad year for predictions?

For 2014, my marketing predictions were all about content, data and culture. I bet correctly that we would see more investment in content marketing, big data and marketing technology in general. I also predicted that HR would become the marketer of the employer brand which is a long term and slowly emerging trend that is hard to ignore.

My Top Marketing Predictions For 2015

In 2015 we’ll finally realize that content is a strategic asset across the enterprise. Content and data are the important components flowing across the digital, social and mobile web. So content will become targeted and more personal! Content marketing will take a seat at the table, with budget and someone with authority to drive strategic content programs.

CMOs will begin to instill a culture focused on customers. Budgets will shift away from paid promotion and into brand content that their audiences actually want to consume. Marketing organizations will move away from silos based on channel or functional ownership. Branding, advertising, PR, demand generation – all will begin to dissolve into three areas: data, technology, and content.

And as video and visual content continue to dominate the consumer landscape, brands will focus more on entertaining and informing their customers through visual storytelling.

2015’s Top Marketing Trends

• Budgets shift out of paid promotion (advertising), “through” social (ads on social) and into owned media (brand content hubs)


• Paid distribution gets the budget it deserves


• TV advertising budgets will decline by more than 10%


• Banner ads (less video or mobile) will also start to decline


• Content marketing leaders and departments become more prevalent inside large enterprises


• Strategic enterprise-wide content programs will start to replace tactical campaigns


• Video production inside brands becomes more consistent


• Podcasts continue as the hot content marketing technique


• Employees will be tapped for their expertise and encouraged to contribute to brand-owned media


• Adobe, Salesforce, LinkedIn, or IBM look to acquire or build content marketing platforms

Let me know what you think in the comments below.

Top Marketing Predictions For 2015