With just a few weeks left in 2016, it’s time we turn our focus toward the New Year and the new trends we expect to see in advertising. Technology is progressing faster than ever and over the next 12 months we are sure to see new advancements that will forever change the advertising industry.

So what will these trends look like and what does it mean for your business’s advertising and marketing strategy? Take a look at our top predictions!

Advertising will make people feel like they are part of the experience

With social media moving toward the trend of “live experiences” through features like Facebook Live and Instagram Stories, people are craving raw and real-time footage that makes them feel like they are right there with you. We predict that ads in 2017 will try and create a similar experience for their audience through real-time sharing and even designing commercials to feel more real and authentic as opposed to staged and edited.

Audiences will become even more specific and targeted

Technology already allows businesses to narrowly segment their audiences based upon any number of qualities. Especially for social media advertising, there are tools that can very accurately target your desired demographics. We predict that advertising will move even more toward specific and targeted audiences rather than placing broad and generic ads that mostly fall on deaf ears. This trend will allow businesses to reinvest more ad dollars toward creative and quality ads designed to appeal to a very specific audience.

Brands will create multiple versions of the same ad

As we mentioned in the last prediction, brands have the ability to hyper-target their audiences which creates the need for multiple version of the same ad to appeal to these specific audiences. For example, a toy company targeting moms age 18-25 with children ages 1-2 need to create an ad that resonates with the parent. This same company also wishing to reach grandparents age 45+ will need a different message to appeal to their motives. It’s a little more work on the creative side, but the result is a much more effective advertising strategy!

More brands will move toward native advertising

You’ve likely heard the term “native advertising.” It’s not exceptionally new, but it continues to prove to be effective, especially as consumers continue to be inundated with traditional advertising and tune it out, as a result. Simply put, native advertising mimics the natural form and function of the user experience in which it is placed. Because native advertising doesn’t disrupt the user, like a banner ad or pop-up ad would, it’s been proven to build trust and receive more interaction. In 2017, we predict native advertising will become the “standard” type of online advertising, especially on social media.

Websites will continue to degrade in importance as content is pushed through distributed channels.  For the longest time, the website was the hub of digital activity, it was a business’s “home” presence online and advertising efforts were highly focused on pushing people to visit the website. Moving forward, we expect this to change drastically. Rather, smart businesses will use strategies that meet users wherever they are. For Advertisers, this means creating more content and considering the linkage of campaigns.  For example, considering driving people to social pages or content sites instead of the main sales page.

Location will gain more importance as we close in on micro moments. For the majority of advertisers, this is still a dream, but for large-scale retailers with ample amounts of data, it might be closer to a reality.  The location of consumers (in the brick and mortar world) will shape messaging to be highly focused with real-time relevance to address their anticipated need in that exact moment.

People will gravitate toward ads that inspire

Finally, we predict that advertisements that aim to “inspire” will perform the best. Previously ads that were informative or emotional were the top performers, but now people are drawn to brands that do one, simple thing. They make them feel good. If you focus your advertising on inspiring your audience – making them, hope, dream, smile – they are going to remember you and associate your brand with positive emotions.

What new advertising trend for 2017 has you most interested or excited? Share your ideas by leaving a comment!