By Scott Gillum
Estimated read time: 5 Minutes
Off we go into 2023!
For us, 2022 was an odd year. The first half was on fire. The second half…it was hard to even get a spark ignited.
One thing was clear, at least for our clients, the recession mentally hit during the late summer. It began with budgets being clawed back, and then the ax came down hard for 2023!
Heading into the new year, I believe we are going to see a similar situation. The first half will be slow, then improve during summer, and momentum significantly gaining into 2024. As a result, I’m going to segment my predictions for the year into two parts.
For the first half of the year, I envision the following:
- Hiring freezes and staff cuts. This is probably not shocking, but where it occurs might surprise you. Covid hit event and travel budgets in 2020, but during this downturn, I see
it hitting digital spending. And when it does, companies will freeze their digital staff hiring (once viewed as a never-ending need). - CMO exhaustion. It’s already happening. CMO’s are exhausted from the internal battles over budgets, staffing, strategy, etc. The last three years have been a rollercoaster of highs and lows.
- Message confusion. Never have I seen the wild swings hitting the B2B market in such a short amount of time. From supply chain disruptions to overstock warehouses, and endless job openings to layoffs, it’s gone from one extreme to the next. It’s virtually impossible to stay current with your value proposition with so many swings between effectiveness and efficiency.
The second half of the year, as I mentioned, should show some improvement in the economy. As a result, I think we’ll see:
- CMO turnover. The burn out mentioned above will fuel CMO’s desire for a clean start. As soon as the economy and hiring outlook improves, I suspect you will see a lot of
movement. - Big time AI adoption. Chat GPT is just the beginning. Expect to see agencies widely embrace AI for all types of creative – not just content. Open AI’s CEO Sam Atlman sees the greatest application of AI for creative use, not in replacing blue collar jobs as many had predicted. (more on this topic to come soon in an article of The Drum).
- Better tools for improving ROI. Better tools will come online to improve; 1) the quality of intent data, 2) the cost of content syndication, and 3) the effectiveness of ABM programs.
And of course, as with any prediction, I could be entirely wrong. I am genuinely optimistic, though, that we will be in a much better position kicking off 2024 than we are today.
Good luck and much success this year. I hope your year burns brightly!
