5 Apocryphal Predictions for Marketing

apocryphal

/əˈpɒkrɪfl/

adjective

1. (of a story or statement) of doubtful authenticity, although widely circulated as being true.

It’s that time of the year where people come out with their predictions for the new year. So here I offer you my 5 apocryphal predictions for 2025. And then a few thoughts on what marketers should really be looking out for.

1. Do you want AI with that?

With the promises of massive productivity gains in enterprise software, desktop creativity, and healthcare now proven to all, AI will deliver more for us all in 2025. Look out for the AI kitchen appliances and home gadgets you’ve been looking for.

These are all huge opportunities for marketers in 2025 as the level of information available to these autonomous AI agents in your appliances, clothes, and food increases exponentially, you’ll be able to create dynamic product offers on the fly that trigger category entry points and lead the customer directly to the solution that meets their needs.

But really…

The AI hype will continue in 2025 with many claims of major new advances that will be pretty impressive. Many companies will try to create their own but will find that they don't have the right quantity or quality of data to train a model effectively.

Marketers should definitely use AI for research, ideation, and collaboration. But if we expect AI to come up with new, different, or authentic content, we're asking to be disappointed. Great marketing comes from understanding our target audiences, knowing their category entry points, and reaching them with differentiated messages consistently over time. It might not be as exciting as AI, but will deliver more for our businesses in the long term.

2. Targeting the CAIO segment

After decades of building segments and targeting CEOs, CMOs, CFOs, and CROs, it’s finally time to move on. Because in 2025 the only CxO that really matters is the CAIO. Yes, the Chief AI Officer is finally here and ready to take your call!

This is great news for marketers because it helps to simplify all their B2B campaigns. With all B2B innovation happening in AI, it’s a one-stop buyer for every corporate need.

After all, AI will be doing the financial planning, the systems planning and optimisation, the selling via sales avatars, and even the office planning and coffee making. So the CAIO is the person you need to talk to.

But really…

Yes, there really are CAIOs out there and I'm sure they're buying technology, services and data to build out and use AI models. And if you have AI in your solution (real AI) then you should probably be targeting them.

But your core buying groups won't have changed. The CEO, CFO, CRO, CMO, and CTO and their teams are still the ones driving the business day to day and will be the main buyers and justifiers of investments. Don't neglect them!

3. Need a new marketing role? Make one up!

Mark Ritson talks about marketers being morbid and morose. We’re constantly talking about how different marketing approaches and tactics are “dead”. “TV is dead. Radio is dead. Print is dead.” And he’s right. But we shouldn't forget just how creative we can be - with roles and titles.

We should be proud that we’ve created so many new marketing disciplines over the years. Back in the old days you could only be a marketer and you’d use a range of different, integrated tactics to reach an audience. But now we’re specialised! We created 1:1 marketers, Account Based Marketers, and Digital Marketers. From there we had to have Social and Search Marketers. And now there are Video Marketers, Influencer Marketers, Performance Marketers and Growth Marketers!

But really…

There are specialist skills required to develop differentiated messaging, write great copy, design an amazing event, produce really attractive visuals, build great media plans, and get the most out of today's digital platforms. But the increasing spread of different marketing specialisations has driven the fragmentation of marketing strategy where individual tactics don't complement each other and so don't deliver on the 2+2=5 promise of integrated marketing.

So have specialists where you need them (in house or agency) but ensure they're complemented by great campaign designers, cross-tactic dashboards, and a strong top-down strategic vision that brings them all together and aligns the work to deliver more.

4. Everything measured all at once

In 2025 modern marketing is all about the automation, micro-targeting, with individual and buyer group tracking across owned, publisher, and 3rd party sites. Follow your targets around the Internet, figure out what they're looking at, understand their motivations at a fine detail, and then micro-target them with individualised messages!

If you can't track it, it didn't happen!

But really…

Google has once again delayed the death of 3rd party cookies, but detailed digital tracking is getting harder with cookie permissions and ad blockers in browsers and in iPhone apps. As marketers we're all seeing more and more gaps in the flow of individuals from ad views, through clicks, landing, and then tracking around our websites. There's still useful insight to glean from all that data, but it's no longer the panacea of individual tracing it was.

This means that marketers need to step back from the technological and consider the broader strategic and business objectives. Audience targeting is back with segment research, clear category entry points, and message testing. Brand value is back as that builds trust and familiarity with our offerings. Business outcomes like wins, new logos, customer retention and revenue come back.

It's traditional marketing with great strategy, brand leadership, and customer engagement. Sure beats customer stalking.

5. "Must have 10 years of experience in our industry”

Specialism is king so we need to ensure we hire only candidates with deep experience in our industry. What we really want to is deliver exactly the same message to the same audience in the same way as our competition and by hiring people with specific experience in our industry, we'll be able to copy/paste their strategy.

But really…

More and more companies are asking for deep industry experience across the board. If I was building a banking app, I'd want to hire someone with deep financial app security experience. But for marketing that's overkill.

A great marketer can ask the right questions of the internal team and customers to get the answers they need to build brand and create demand. While industry knowledge is lovely, they also need to know about the product offers, current brand value, target segments, differentiators, and current customer footprint. Even in the same industry these will change from company to company.

So consider dropping the industry requirement and just get great people who know how to ask the right questions and build great campaigns.