Advertising is an essential component of successful businesses as it promotes products and services to the right consumers, ensuring sales, brand loyalty, and recognition. In order to thrive in highly competitive landscapes, advertising companies continuously and creatively seek new ways to stand out. Unconventional advertising encompasses strategies designed to achieve significant results while minimizing financial or resource expenditures. These strategies aim to connect with customers and communicate messages through inventive and unusual means. Advancements in technology and the internet have shaped recent trends in unconventional advertising.
1. Introduction
The purpose of this study is to analyze the impact of unconventional advertising trends on consumer engagement and evolve marketing strategies. Focusing on the year 2024, marketing strategies are assessed for how they gain customer engagement through creativity. This study uses information from the Nielsen Company, Google, the Marketing Research Association, and other reputable sources to analyze unconventional advertising trends shaping the dynamics of consumer engagement. By examining five unconventional advertising trends, the findings of this study will benefit advertising companies in formulating appropriate advertising strategies for a client business.
Traditional or classic advertising trends have been widely practiced in the advertising industry. Display ads on television, radio, and publications such as newspapers and magazines are commonly presented. These ads have limited engagement with consumers by partially capturing their attention. Additionally, ad-blocking technologies on digital platforms and changing consumer habits have reduced the effectiveness of classic advertisements. For instance, worldwide television ad revenue decreased by 7% between 2021 and 2022. Moreover, trust in traditional advertising decreased from 29% in 2019 to 21% in 2022.
1.1. Purpose and Scope of the Study
This study endeavors to develop an understanding of unconventional advertising trends such as culture jamming, buzz or viral advertising, controversy advertising, ambush advertising, guerrilla advertising, and cause-related advertising. The selected advertising trends will be explored in a context of user acceptance, effectiveness, and brand image implications. This study will shed light on a somewhat neglected area of advertising research, opening up for future research to build upon this study. The purpose of this study is threefold. Firstly, there are specific objectives of the study, states the specific intentions of the research. Secondly, the extent of the study is outlined, clarifying the road traveled to meet the objectives. Thirdly, the delimitation of the study is presented, discussing the limitations and constraints of the research [1].
Advertising is a vital component of any marketing strategy, regardless of the type of business. In 2024, the battle for consumers’ attention is fiercer than ever, requiring advertisers to “think outside the box.” A myriad of advertising formats developed that challenge established norms of advertising. This study will conduct an exploratory study exploring unconventional advertising trends in a context of acceptance, effectiveness and implications on brand image. The introduction will provide insights into the background to the study, the motivation for this essay, and the relevance of studying unconventional advertising. The informational content of the introduction also embraces the intervention, a brief overview of the methodology, and the structure of the study.
1.2. Overview of Traditional Advertising Trends
Changes in the advertising landscape in recent years have been discussed, including shifts in the advertising medium from print to digital and the growing emergence of social media. In the examination of digital advertising trends, data-driven advertising and social media advertising are discussed. In addition, Facebook advertising and influencer marketing are evaluated in greater detail.
As Geuens notes in the article “The Role of Narrative Transportation in Attitude Change and the Formation of Behavioral Intentions,” advertising that uses narrative has gained interest within advertising research over the past 30 years. Early research illuminates the interplay between narrative consumption, involvement, and emotional response and their effects on overall advertising effectiveness. More recent work highlights the role of flow, attitude toward the narrative, and experimenter involvement in the interplay between narrative involvement and narrative transportation [2]. Others warn against naive conclusions concerning the effects of narrative transportation on the persuasive power of ads. Recent research strengthens the position that elaboration mediates the effects of narrative transportation on the attitudinal outcomes of publicity and advertising. Also discussed is an overview of a seminar held in Barcelona, Spain, showcasing developments in the examination of narrative advertising and a proposal for future research.
2. Chapter 1: The Rise of Virtual Influencers
While anthropomorphism is not a new advertising strategy, virtual influencers directly challenge the typical concepts of influencer. They are designed products controlled by brands rather than human actors promoting products with brands. Accordingly, one must wonder whether contemporary digital personas coworkers in agency with brands or human influencers are more effective in driving brand engagement. Virtual influencers further complicate notions relating to authenticity and trust. Where trust plays an important role in social interactions, the more a source seems sincere as someone consumers can relate to and invest emotions, the more likely the consumers are to follow their recommendations [4]. However, compared to real influencers, virtual influencers clearly cannot be sincere. Seemingly, they are emotionally cold and cannot share emotions. Since pale tricks of empathy such as a virtual influencer displaying sadness can only highlight its inability to feel, it contrasts real influencers’ ability to seem sincere medium of sharing experiences. The majority of the predecessors of brand investment in responsibility over disclosure in the systems and context of advertising fall within high familiarity. Accordingly, it can be concluded brand investment in socio-cultural context and systems of norms has yet to launch. [3]
2.1. Defining Virtual Influencers
With the rise of social media platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok, there has been a surge in influential accounts run by individuals known as influencers. An influencer is defined as someone with social capital in the form of likes and followers on social media sites who is able to sway the purchasing decisions of other individuals within a given market [4]. Brands have leveraged this marketing trend by building partnerships with influencers who promote their products. This advertising approach has become more popular than traditional television or magazine ads. However, it has created a new challenge for brands, as managing influencer relationships is difficult due to influencers being independent individuals.
Virtual influencers are a new marketing approach characterized by a virtual character managed by a company [3]. While virtual characters have previously existed in video games, films, and chatbots, they are now being used to promote brands and products in marketing campaigns. Virtual influencers are animated and computer-generated, often anthropomorphized in social media posts featuring photorealistic images. Recently, several brands like Lil Miquela, Shudu Gram, Noonoouri, and Blawko have engaged in influencer marketing campaigns using purely artificial influencers to reach millennials and Generation Z consumers. The aim is to make the emergence of this unconventional advertising approach clear to those who may be unfamiliar with it.
2.2. Impact on Brand Engagement
In 2023, metaverses were the talk of social media marketing (SMM). Users hailed virtual influencers as the technological evolution of SMM, while professionals viewed them as the solution to influencer marketing concerns. This paper explores the impact of virtual influencers (VIs) on brand engagement, a concept built on attraction, identification, and interactivity [5]. Attraction is discussed in terms of human likeness and visual aesthetics, while identification is examined through similarity with online personas. VI interactivity is explored regarding the use of social media and platform affordances. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with active social media users, this paper enriches the understanding of how adopting VIs influences brand engagement, which has implications for nonhuman actors’ involvement in SMM.
With the rise of social media, brands have understood that there should be a human face behind their communication in order to be authentic and credible. Nowadays, influencers are considered “the new celebrities.” By being relatable and approachable, they are perceived as more credible compared to traditional advertising, which triggered a new marketing phenomenon. However, influencer marketing raises several concerns, such as control over influencers, and authenticity and trust issues. On the other hand, Smm3s are neutral parties that would not have social relationships or experience emotions like humans, although they might have feelings about them, such as being judged or desired. Hence, if Smm3s have influence, it would be based on different mechanisms than those of human influencers. Nonetheless, brands decide on the format to be applied in marketing communication by weighing the affordances of different social media platforms against their brand strategy [3].
3. Chapter 2: The Power of User-Generated Content
An increasing number of companies has adopted the unconventional advertising strategy of creating paid online user-generated content (UGC)—for example, video post, meme, photo—which consumers view, share, then alter in their own way and redistribute on social media platforms. The strategy stems from the growing popularity of media platforms where users often actively participate in media creation and distribution. UGC, sometimes called produsage, is content created by nonprofessional producers using inexpensive digital technology and online publishing tools. Switching the balance of usage over production in the market of traditional media (e.g., radio, television, newspapers, magazines), Web 2.0 technologies have redefined how consumers participate in the media entertainment landscape and marketing efforts. The new paradigm sees consumers as produsers, participating in content production, rather than as passive audiences, simply consuming content [6]. Companies can be involved in the dynamics of consumers via UGC. The strategy amplifies advertising effects as UGC is perceived to be more authentic than brand-created content. It allows brands to connect and dialogue with consumers in a creative, entertaining way. For produsers, to construct and share videos is a source of enjoyment (active and odynamic consumption) and social interaction (connecting with other consumers) [7].
3.1. Evolution of User-Generated Content
Social media has become a part of our daily lives. People spend a considerable amount of their time on social media and produce, consume, share, and exchange a huge amount of user-generated content. On one side, social media has turned into a primary source of information for consumers; on the other side, it offers great marketing opportunities for organizations. Because UGC (user-generated content) is viewed as more credible than firm-generated content, it has the potential to impact brands by increasing their awareness, shaping brand image, and influencing purchase intention [6]. As Brewer stated in 2022, marketers are aware that consumers do not trust them, but they inhabit the world of social media where every user can simultaneously be a content consumer, producer, and a journalist, which completely inverts the marketing paradigm.
In the marketing landscape, developing and implementing marketing initiatives has progressively become more challenging for companies because of developments such as the proliferation of media channels, expansion of advertising options including sponsor-based advertising, and fragmentation and evolution of the own consumer base. Moreover, prior research has primarily investigated UGC published on one type of social media platform, leading to a global knowledge gap regarding user behavior regarding brand-related UGC across different social media platforms. The research question, therefore, is: How does brand-related user-generated content differ across social media? [8]
3.2. Leveraging UGC for Authentic Brand Messaging
User-generated content (UGC) represents a transformative force in the advertising landscape. By allowing consumers to directly engage with the brand and create their own content, brands relinquish a certain degree of control over how they are perceived by others; it is now the consumers and not the brands that shape the brand universe [6]. This gives rise to new challenges, as this unprecedented touchpoint can easily backfire if not implemented properly. Yet when brands get it right, UGC results in authentic brand messaging that cannot be replicated through conventional advertising. In addition, it creates a sense of community around the brand that cannot be easily achieved through traditional methods [9]. Also, UGC bears the potential to convey intricate brand messages and evoke nuanced consumer responses like no other medium.
The advertising potential of user-generated content goes far beyond consumer engagement. In a world with overflowing advertising clutter, UGC enables brands to fight for attention through creativity both in terms of content submitted by consumers and in how brands choose to use it. UGC bears the potential to enhance brand recall, but the specific generative features of UGC advertising may even allow brands to tap into automatically consumer-generated information with a potential impact on the reconstructive processing of brand information in the minds of consumers. This nuanced advertising potential remains largely neglected, opening exciting avenues for further research regarding a much-debated topic in advertising.
4. Chapter 3: Embracing NFTs in Advertising
The rapid advancement of online technology has presented a variety of new trends and marketing avenues that advertisers can explore and integrate into their strategies. Searching for the next great media outlet and deciding what to do with it is a constant challenge for marketers, particularly in the face of failing campaigns, changing trends, and dwindling revenue; however, the new rise of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) may present marketers a solution. Chapter 3 dives into the new rise of NFTs and the understanding of what they are, as well as how they can be integrated into advertising campaigns. This research should provide insight to advertisers in search of a new frontier of advertising that is gaining attention with the integration of blockchain technology and digital gaming/memes [10]. NFTs are assets on a blockchain with unique identification codes and metadata that distinguish them from each other. They cannot be replicated and are bought and sold in cryptocurrency. All NFT assets can be tokenized on the blockchain, including integral files of a website, audio & video files, GIFs, memes, application data & files, or artwork. Recently, there has been a rise in “PFP” NFT pictures, which are digitally drawn avatars typically sold at high prices. NFTs can also grant a member exclusive access to a community or other rewards.
4.1. Understanding NFTs
Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) are digital tokens that have unique characteristics. Unlike cryptocurrency which is fungible in nature, NFTs are not interchangeable. Each NFT contains ownership information stored on a blockchain making it impossible to duplicate or alter the token. Once a digital asset is converted into NFT form it gets inscribed on a particular blockchain, say Ethereum, Heartbeat, Solana, etc., and can only be owned later by accessing the previous owner’s digital wallet through public and private keys of the specific blockchain [11]. Thus, aside from being non-fungible, NFTs are non-duplicate, secure, collaborative, owned by the creator, represent wealth, and impact exposure. Initial models of NFTs (colored coins) were created in 2012 during a time when blockchain usage was only limited to Bitcoin currency allowing only the exchange of value among users. Four use cases were explored in the white paper, including is it possible to represent real world assets on the blockchain, can the creation of colored coins connect users to assets, can currency and asset colored coins trade amongst each other, and can asset backed cryptocurrencies add advantages to blockchain networks? In 2014, with the advent of Namecoin blockchain the first NFT called Quantum was created with the capability of tracking and trading ownership of art and music. Later on in 2017 through ERC-721 standard NFTs started their journey on Ethereum blockchain [10].
4.2. Integration of NFTs in Marketing Campaigns
A novel technology that offers exciting opportunities for advertisers and marketers, NFTs are unique digital tokens that establish ownership and authenticity of art and other digital assets on blockchain networks. Marketers can use them to interact with consumers, create multimedia ads, and foster conversations. Major brands are adopting NFTs for virtual fashion shows, ticketing, and concert experiences, and to promote expected product launches. High-profile NFT campaigns from brands like Taco Bell, Nike, and Budweiser raise awareness and attract viral buzz. Nevertheless, many consumers are still unfamiliar with NFTs, suggesting marketers must explain the technology thoroughly.
Brands such as Gillette, Starbucks, and Coca-Cola are creating and releasing collections of NFTs in a bid to target younger consumers, engage loyalty program members, and enhance social media followership. The mixed success of these NFT collections shows that advertisers must account for the likelihood of investing in unsolicited and arbitrary NFTs and have strategies in place to educate consumers on blockchain technology. Market fluctuations in NFTs also indicate that brands should select scarce assets wisely and consider whether to partner with a cryptocurrency exchange with a reputation for scams.
As NFTs become further embedded in culture and commerce, concerns about their use proliferate. From August 2020 to early March 2021, over $250 million was spent on NFT artworks. Certain NFTs – digital works of art, music videos, or tweets minted on the Ethereum blockchain – have sold for more than $69 million. Recently, after Taco Bell auctioned NFTs of taco art for charity, all 25 NFT gifs of its taco-themed “NFTacoBell” art sold for a combined $45,000 within minutes. Animal snout-pictured NFTs sold at auction for millions under the name “Bored Ape Yacht Club.” With growing panic, brands fear it is only a matter of time before they are trolled, haunted, or rendered obsolete by internet consumers armed with meme magic and pixelated money.
Major platforms are beginning to welcome NFT-powered content. On March 15, Twitter launched a “connect your crypto wallet” feature that enables the profile pictures of paid Twitter Blue subscribers to be displayed as a circle-framed “hexagon,” signifying they bought the NFT and own the JPEG of the ape. In March 2022, Instagram announced plans to allow users to connect their wallets and display their NFTs on the platform. TikTok has allocated a $100 million Creative Fund for users to launch NFTs. In 2020, Facebook hired an economist that helped create cryptocurrency Libra “diem” (which was never finished) to lead their NFT initiatives. NFT marketplaces, such as OpenSea, Rarible, and Mintable, facilitate creators’ sales of NFTs, typically as crypto-as-ads.
5. Chapter 4: The Future of Audio Advertising
In an era where consumer attention is fragmented across numerous media channels, audio advertising is emerging as a powerful tool to capture audience engagement in a subtle yet impactful manner. The rise of smart speakers, podcasts, and voice-activated technologies has paved the way for advertisers to explore new formats and strategies within the audio space. These innovations allow brands to create more personalized, contextually relevant, and interactive audio experiences. As consumers increasingly multitask, audio content offers a unique opportunity to reach them during moments when visual attention is diverted, such as during commutes, workouts, or household chores. The future of audio advertising lies in its ability to seamlessly integrate into the daily lives of consumers, delivering messages that resonate without interrupting their flow. As we move forward, the challenge for marketers will be to harness the potential of audio platforms while ensuring authenticity and relevance in their messaging. [12] [13]
5.1. Trends in Podcast Advertising
Podcasts are unleashing the power of audio and becoming a mainstream content delivery platform for brands and advertisers. Great storytelling is at the heart of podcasting. As brands are becoming storytellers and creating powerful narratives about their products, podcasting is seen as an opportunity to enter the consideration set of consumers in today’s oversaturated media landscape. Podcasting provides a non-intrusive and immersive advertising experience that resembles the intimacy of a radio. In fact, new generations are turning to podcasting platforms, such as Spotify and YouTube, to seek news and consume content instead of traditional media [14]. The podcast advertising market is expected to reach $4 billion in the next five years. Brands across all industries are accelerating their podcast adoption journey, with 41% of marketers investing in branded podcasts in 2021.
A number of brands are using podcasting platforms as channels to distribute content prior to launching their podcasts. For example, in hopes of building anticipation and excitement, Netflix dropped the first teaser for its newest series Stranger Things (2016-) on several lifestyle and news podcasts. However, without a corporate sponsor actively promoting it, branded podcasts have a higher barrier to entry. Against the freelance market for podcast producers standing at infinity, brands are typically approached by independent production agencies that know how to build a narrative and signature style but need to get familiar with the brand’s voice and values.
5.2. Innovations in Voice Search Marketing
With innovations in artificial intelligence, brands have explored the use of voice search as an avenue for advertisement. Voice search advertising utilizes voice recognition technology to allow consumers to interact with brands through voice commands. Unlike traditional text-based searches, voice searches are usually longer and formulated as a question. Accordingly, brands should focus on developing content targeting ‘question keywords’ to better reach audiences. This emerging trend currently accounts for a mere $800 million in ad spending, but its growth potential convinces industry leaders that voice search advertising is the future of advertisement [15].
Furthermore, brands are searching for ways to integrate voice enabling interactions into their marketing campaigns. Amazon’s voice assistant Alexa launched an audio advertisement for its e-commerce via the New York Times podcast in January 2018, becoming a pioneer of podcast advertisement. Google Home launched a service assisting brands like Nestle and Spotify to develop smart content in the form of audio experiences. Also serving as both hardware and software providers, Spotify and Google launched an interactive audio advertising, allowing listeners to dial up audio advertisements with a voice command [14]. As these landscape changes, strategies of advertisers are bound to change.
6. Chapter 5: Environmental and Social Responsibility in Advertising
For better or worse, advertising is central to people’s perception of the world. People who understand the world in advertising terms dominate social and economic life globally. There are many reasons to be concerned about the conventional values of this international advertising class [16]. Although there is no such thing as a simple psychological association between pictures of “happy people” and the products consumed, advertising tends to use these tropes nonetheless. The discussion of environmental and social responsibility in advertising is worth pursuing because it illustrates the depth and breadth of the questions that continue to arise at the heart of the predicament [17]. How advertising should be made is complex and subject to debate. The question of whether a social duty to advertise is coherent merely restates the requirement to think through the consequences of action. The snippets of commercial films and slogans chosen are important elements in addressing that question.
Discussion of advertising’s environmental impact approaches the ethical concern from the side of what advertising should seek to do and encourage, rather than the questions of how advertising should be made. Aside from defence of energy or resource consumption in terms of environmental profitability ad implications of advertising’s impact on society, there are three broad and telling areas of impact where sustainability should be a concern. First there is the impact of advertising materiality on the planet’s environment, viewable in generic terms of land fill and residual resource claims. Second, there is impact on the advertising content itself in terms of its encouragement and shaping of consumption patterns. Thirdly there is impact on the audience of advertising, with a view to understanding how sustainable it is to have a mass medium of advertising type. The first two often raise similar questions. It is important to consider how advertising and its tropes broadly impact upon habits, convention, and standards of what it means to be ‘modern’ or ‘advanced.’ What stories or visions does advertising tell of the world? What diverging narrations are defended as erroneous or irrelevant? Which possibilities are bereft of an instance in advertising? Reflecting on this concern invites exploration into cultural diversity, different identities and interpretations, and associated conventions of worth. Over and above discussions of representation, denigration or stereotypes, there is simply the question of the overall breadth of vision and values being mediated by advertising. Given that variety embraces many narratives of worth that are distinctly different, even incommensurable and internally layered, it is not inconceivable that the dominant value or vision would be viewed as simplistic, inappropriate or injurious by others. If it ever were to happen in whole or in part, how much and which choices and fundamental premises of today would still be reflected or entertained? One view of advertising is that there is, from a global perspective, a dearth of diversity in vision and values. To be modern, advanced, developed, or progressive is commonly translated into the tropes of advertising’s standardisation or routines of resource accumulation. What, if anything, remains of alternative visions, different development paths, or conventions of worth? How would it come about that such narratives were rendered erroneous? Would it necessarily need to come to pass that plans or policies to address poverty, health or wellbeing were no longer made? Would it suffice for alternative visions to persist but be rendered meaningless as a consequence of lifestyle choices? As a consequence of the above, what is the prospective future for ethnic minorities, indigenous peoples and rural communities?
6.1. Sustainable Advertising Practices
As environmental concerns dominate the agenda of governments, the economy, and societies, efforts to protect the environment are no longer restricted to orders and prohibitions coming from the ‘top’ of nations or organizations. New forms of governance based upon co-responsibility for the environment demand ‘bottom-up’ initiatives from citizens and consumers alike. In Europe and beyond, the idea of eco-consumerism has gained momentum, leading to a plethora of ‘green’ products and responsible brands fighting for customers’ attention and loyalty [18]. In reaction to scandals about breaches of regulations and the violation of common standards, companies across the world have developed corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies addressing environmental and social issues. Such strategies involve changes to internal business processes as well as environmental commitments and social programs within the scope of an active involvement in the communities in which they operate. Companies also embrace the responsibility of transforming their image through advertising.
If traditional advertising focuses on creating a personality, image, or stereotype for the brand/product offering, ‘green’ advertising aims to create an image of environmental responsibility. Although such advertising can help the environment by promoting responsible products, technology, attitudes, and lifestyles, it is also susceptible to misinterpretation, misunderstanding, and disinformation [19]. Many attempts to identify industries or companies with a record of eco-deficiencies have demonstrated that some of the worst polluters embrace environmental strategies and promote green advertising in an effort to gain ‘social legitimacy’ and avoid regulations and constraints.
6.2. Promoting Diversity and Inclusion
The commodification of multiculturalism and the struggle for African American representation in advertising are yearly concerns. However, changing the way people, especially marketers and advertisers, think about diversity may prove to be the biggest hurdle. Diversity and interaction spurred a different view of class culture in the summer of 2015 when social psychologist Ellen F. D. Langer published an image of friends who were all Black. She later published three other photos with audiocasts explaining the different experiences of consideration, description, and even ridicule. After both Diversity and Interaction photographs spread like wildfire through DOM, here were only three negative responses out of 157. When asked why people would find the image of friends who were all Black difficult to understand, the most enthusiastic response was, Now that’s racist!
Diversity is traditionally celebrated in particular forms. This form is arguably associated with commodified consciousness, or a sweet and deceptively innocent projection of self-awareness. On the marketing and advertising end, companies often fail to offer genuine representation and instead overemphasize the aesthetic benefits of using products. Yet within these understandings, there are also larger and deeper meanings outside their upfront narratives about wealth, envy, acquisition, difference, and identity. Embracing these larger narratives may ensure the continued use of the images, an acceptance of difference beyond aesthetic pleasure, and perhaps the formation of new, productive understandings of diversity and race relations. The focus on the ad itself proves somewhat problematic as it misses the larger, multi-layered structural black images of the personal and collective psyche written into the public’s interpretation of the ad. Corporate America uses diversity in five major ways: as a commitment to be fair/human resources; a goal to achieve workplace diversity; the pursuit of a diverse market; as a means to manage, along with or instead of the other aspects of diversity; and a response to market opportunities with ethnic linguistic considered as human capital. If diversity is mismanaged, it may become divisive. And we suggest multiculturalism, in terms of corporate social responsibility, is an ethical platform of undergirding marketing and advertising development for such diverse forms and target markets.
7. Chapter 6: Conclusion and Future Outlook
The essay encapsulates unconventional advertising trends anticipated to dominate in 2024, with an acute focus on unexpected advertising. The key takeaways unveil that brands are increasingly capitalizing on controversial topics, pursuing attention instead of focus, avoiding the conventional paths to the target audience, and producing cringe content to lure in their detractors as allies. In comparison to prior trends that revolved around evolving technologies, the approaches analyzed here are more about creativity harnessing human emotions, imagination, and biases instead of algorithms and automation. In terms of an outlook for the future, it can be predicted that backlash will drive brands to double down or avoid controversial topics altogether. Attention will become more expensive as brands will need to spend exponentially more to capture the interest of the same audience. The recent turmoil in the political arena and ongoing cultural wars signal a reversion toward a more conventional and neutral course for a fraction of brands. With a growing awareness of cringe culture, producing cringe content that fails to connect with the audience will become increasingly risky [2].
Most branding endeavors, including advertising, strive to carve a respectable position in consumers’ minds free from negative influences. In particular, this essay has explored an unconventional advertising milieu of building brand avatars as controversial figures or characters. Brands embracing the bad-boy archetype were found to evoke polarizing perceptions of ridicule or admiration in the targeted audience, with the existence of the former amplifying the latter. Adverse yet attention-grabbing communications have been advocated as an avenue to drive publicity; however, given brands seldom chose a path from industry leaders to descreditable rebels, further investigation is required to discern their motivations and conceptualize a theory of such controversial branding endeavors [12].
7.1. Key Takeaways from 2024 Trends
This section distills the essential insights derived from the exploration of 2024 advertising trends. It summarizes the noteworthy shifts and emergent themes in contemporary advertising approach, which comprised the following generic headings that recurred across several or all of the advertising examples examined: product placement, humour, narrative complexity, voyeurism, mode of address, and branding type.
In-depth evaluation of each of the components, or tendencies, is provided to offer further understanding of transformative patterns over time. The discussion begins with an exploration of assumptions underlying contemporary advertising approaches. This is followed by a retrospective analysis of the advertising trends examined with respect to shifting cultural values and ideologies. Finally, it considers the implications of selected 2024 advertising trends for an understanding of the advertising landscape [20].
7.2. Predictions for the Future of Advertising
There is a consensus that the future of advertising needs to focus on the audience to be more engaged by a strong narrative, honesty, fairness, and transparency. Ninety percent of the ad-blocking apps are used by the fifteen to twenty-five-year-old audience, which only wants relevance. Advertising needs to be broader, that means taking care of all stakeholders at the same time. The creative talent pool needs to shrink, to have fewer voices editing out advertising that is not empathetic and intelligent. The media pool is changing; traditional media buying is being replaced with an emphasis on earned media. Now a brand is not what the marketers plan, but what the stakeholders choose to pay attention to and share, so advertising needs to be important enough to earn attention. Media cost needs to be related to the impact on sales, so getting in places that are hardly affordable needs to be questioned, and searching for fledgling players with impact and room to grow should be looked upon as crucial [14].
The most-watched video on YouTube is “Was it a fake or real?” by Bud Light, the third most infamous beer brand in Spain. The Spanish people had no idea, though they were aware that there was a combination of a faked ending just to see what happened the next morning. The war on terror is another example. Observed from the media perspective, it works like this: A horrible crime is filmed, a terrorist is shown on TV; The government, terrified, is compelled to take action; Countries unite, the populace on the moon is angrier at the monster alien terrorists. Hours after the attack, an advertisement is written to forgive only God’s chosen people. Apparently, there were unseen narratives that embraced so many viewers, with no souls understanding what had just been aired. Janet Jackson’s nipple appeared unknowingly, shocked, the inhabitants of Hudson Alaska. How could something like that frighten three million souls, dumb but clever enough to keep it quiet? Van Gogh’s own slice of ear meant nothing for Amsterdam’s oblivious but honest populace [12].
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