Leaning into transformation discomfort to grow faster

10 important trends across the media, marketing, and technology ecosystem

Sometimes trends move slowly, and other times they move the ground beneath us.  Looking across the media, marketing and technology landscape reveals a rapidly changing ecosystem, which does not afford us many opportunities for incrementalism.  And, to be clear, radical change is often deeply uncomfortable, but the benefits are worth the discomfort.  This is a time to consider deeply challenging how we work, based on the dramatic dynamics reshaping the landscape. 

What follows here are the top ten outside-in shifts impacting how any company in the media and marketing ecosystem should think and transform:

1. AI acceleration.  While artificial intelligence (AI) seems epically obvious as a trend, most analyses focus on the technological deployment of priority use cases to drive efficiency and productivity via generative AI (GenAI). The spectrum of immediate opportunities encompasses a range, from core campaign processes to content creation and adaptation.  The sources of AI innovation are vast and varied: AI is embedded in the largest scale marketing technology (martech) platforms, sourced from pure-play disruptive AI companies, and grown through marketers’ internal efforts.  But as GenAI scales rapidly, the more interesting questions are less around AI enablement and more around how we reshape the talent agenda.  For AI to thrive, we must ask the right questions of these emerging tech capabilities.  Any large language model (LLM) will perform better when the natural language used in the inquiry is intelligently and strategically constructed.  Artificial intelligence only works with human intelligence, and asking the right questions well will become an opportunity to drive distinctive value.
2. Commoditization.  The onset of AI and continued focus on data-driven marketing raise an important question: if all boats rise with this tide, what will be the new source of competitive advantage?  If marketers battling for human attention are using reasonably similar algorithms, platforms and data sources, the new landscape will beg for more unique approaches.  Differentiated strategies for growth aligned to human behavior and focused on business outcomes will become more important as embedded intelligence in tools and platforms accelerates.
3. Martech ROI focus.  Most major marketers are not simply focused on deployment of more marketing and ad technology, but they are focused on smarter deployment to drive greater results or return on investment.  The deep collaboration between CMOs and CIOs has, in most cases, led to a reasonably powerful tech stack, but it often begs for stronger and more strategic adoption at scale. These marketing technologies work best when they are part of a broader operating model transformation considering the collective design of workflows, capabilities, customer journeys, and talent implications.  As new operating models are implemented successfully, they drive realization of the business case.  However, holistic transformation should not be limited solely to internal teams and structure – it benefits from consideration of agency, technology and media partners as integral parts of the equation, putting real customer needs and behavior at the core.
4. Automation.  Programmatic is no longer simply a reference to biddable or addressable channels like search, social, online video and rapidly accelerating retail media.  Stronger tech-enabled capabilities remove friction and complexity from the more transactional and operational components of marketing.  The term “programmatic” should be revised to reference a wholesale shift embracing marketing and media automation across the full ecosystem.  The opportunity to think programmatically involves automated connections across deeper capabilities across the largest media owners, the most innovative agencies, and internal brand capabilities.  For data and AI to fuel the ecosystem intelligently requires keen attention to wiring across parts and partners to get the right signals moving and make them readily actionable as part of an integrated architecture.
5. Consolidation.  Under economic pressure to drive both effectiveness and efficiency, most marketers are shifting their strategies to work with fewer media and agency partners.  And, while the shift has been initially motivated by buying power, in fact, consolidation is also motivated now by deeper operational and technological integration with key partners.  Major media companies are building robust offerings embracing data, technology and automation, and marketers benefit from focus.  Deeper partnerships require integrating more fundamentally and meaningfully for strategic buying ease and more real-time optimization.
6. Scale.  Scale makes us smarter.  A marketing world deploying more data and technology enables stronger pattern recognition and deployment of effective strategies based on all past performance.  The key is to channel that intelligence into continuously learning models within marketing that are more valuable over time using cumulative and transversal insights, as opposed to one-and-done campaigns without connectivity across brands and divisions.  Without scaling insights, we cannot see major shifts or inform scenarios to react nimbly. 
7. Performance.  While the notion of performance is often juxtaposed against brand marketing, it continues to be a false dichotomy.  In fact, all marketing must be directed at an outcome with clear KPIs.  Everything is performance.  When we think of performance less as a subset of channels and more as a mindset, marketing shifts to focus on audience models, particularly using first-party data, to drive models and deliver outcomes.  As the cookie-less world finally descends upon us, these skills and methodologies will become even more vital.
8. Channel-agnosticism.  Marketing until this point has benefited from deep specialization and expertise, particularly as powerful new digital channels emerged at scale.  However, the value of thinking by these channels is being diminished as audiences and results become the most important focus.  Building channel-agnosticism at the core of any operating model will be critical to the future.  Consumer behavior shifts have already radically changed media mix, but now the consumption changes will be further impacted by new factors like GenAI shifting (and potentially reducing) traffic patterns to media destinations.  An objective focus on value will be key to drive clear choices across increasingly fluid investment areas like advertising, shopper marketing, and retail media.
9. Overcoming silos.  In general, most functions operate in too many silos.  We break down work to manage it, splintering priorities and execution.  However, the more connected the customer journey becomes, the more likely business outcomes will be achieved – from brand affinity, to sales, to loyalty.  And beyond the fluidity of media and investment types, the silos of creative and media will further be challenged as AI accelerates our ability for these to work in combination with each other.  Across organizations, paid, owned, and earned media efforts must be part of a deliberately constructed whole. Marketing synergy and value creation must be directed purposefully toward defined goals – for example, driving the growth agenda for a single branded product is different from optimizing sales growth across a portfolio of brands.  We must clarify our intentions with clear KPIs, and our organization and processes cannot obstruct this future.
10. Ecosystem approaches.  And finally, marketers must become even more adept at not being “sold to” by vendors and partners.  As the complexity of offerings from technology companies, media partners, agencies and data companies continue to proliferate and deepen, it is incumbent on marketing teams to clearly articulate their goals as a business and then “wire” themselves intentionally to ecosystem-wide partners to realize those broader ambitions.  CMOs are empowered to intelligently orchestrate across different teams and external partners to implement collective success.

As we face continued and accelerated change in the landscape, this moment begs for the most dramatic shifts in how companies lead.  Marketers will need to challenge themselves to go far beyond their comfort zone in transformation to remain relevant.  Fortunately, CMOs are uniquely qualified to drive enterprise-wise transformation given their natural-born talents for communication, human-centric design and a deep understanding of how to compel action.  Once again, marketers have a unique enterprise-wide leadership opportunity to rise to the challenge to create differential value in their companies.

The views reflected in this article are the views of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the global EY organization or its member firms.