Branding is going to see a sea of change in 2022. With humanization, inclusivity, and building a social brand becoming important branding in 2022 will explode. Time to be on train or rebrand with a purpose.
We do not limit branding as a concept to your logo design, typography or visual paraphernalia. It is a lot deeper than that and in the digital era, without a one-on-one interaction, is critical to business.
Your online presence is highly critical to growing your business. The content you share, the design of your website and a lot of other factors create a psychological impression on the visitor and speak about your trustworthiness and professionalism. All these factors are decisive to conversion, and your brand is the foundation of all this.
Being a digital marketing agency for over 18 years has given us tons of data and research on branding and we firmly believe that telling compelling stories and communicating USPs is critical to brand building, besides evolving your brand with the times.
Trend #1 – Go retro
Ads and content always yield better conversion when evokes emotions or aligns with them. So, if your business is looking to rebrand or refresh the brand, the best way is to go retro.
With people being glued to social media and mobile phones throughout their waking hours, data chaos rules supreme. We live in a busy world and under a lot of stress.
Getting nostalgic and remembering the old times always gives people the much needed release. The remembrance of a simpler life, a stress-free day, is something we cherish. By going retro and aligning with those emotions, your brand can evoke positive feelings.
Positive feelings will build trust in the brand and help brand recall. So, go ahead, give it a thought and align them with your domain. If you feel nostalgic branding helps, spend a little more time on the drawing board.
Trend #2 – Branding in 2022 will see humanization
Most brands use brand communication to send out content like ads, social media marketing, announcements, press releases, etc. The space out there has become chaotic.
So, people have ignored such messaging and today they prefer brands that talk to them. Also known as conversational messaging, brand talking is the trend today.
This is the first step to humanizing the brand. This enables a better connection with customers and prospects and also weeds out the ambiguity from brand communication.
User engagement being the top ranked branding aim, brand humanization is on the rise and will remain so.
The difference from the past is that today brands engage with every comment, like or retweet they get as a part of their social media marketing. In the bygone era, brands only posted and did not really care about the reactions or engagement they got.
Today, because of humanization, brands get more engagement, more comments and connect with customers and prospects better, like peers. Building an approachable brand becomes much easier, and it helps conversions. Of course, content is the key and will remain so for branding in 2022.
Trend #3 – Brand with a purpose
To become more sociable, many brands have moved on to addressing the pressing needs of the society. Aligning the business, its services and products for social appeal is glorious business. The motivation comes from their core mission, leading to changes in visual identity, story telling and decision making.
A business that looks for more than just ‘profit’ will always create a profound impact on the customers. When your business can align with such a cause and create a marketing strategy to execute, it will create more appeal.
Customers will now buy from you because they can identify with the brand that aligns with their values.
You will find many brands that give away a part of their revenue to underprivileged children or to the homeless. These brands evoke sympathy and align with people’s values and sales improve automatically.
Branding in 2022 will see this trend moving up the agenda for many businesses. Empathizing with the audience is again humanizing the brand to a certain extent.
If you are looking to create or rebrand to brand with a purpose, it is time you palled out a strategy and began working on the collaterals to align the messaging and communicate your social priorities.
Trend #4 – Inclusive branding
Customer expectations have changed over time and today they are more interested in seeing positive physical appearances, diversity and inclusivity. No more is ‘zero’ size, white or blonde, a statement of beauty. If your brand is still following the old norms, it is time for a rethink.
According to an Accenture study, people prefer and are more likely to buy from brands that are diverse and inclusive. Approximately 80% of the brands that cater to this philosophy agree that they also address cultural and social issues in their branding exercises. For example, we handle certain brands that have different price points for differently abled people.
Celebrity marketing or using well-known people to endorse your brand is over, as a strategy. If I were you, I would prefer to engage my most loyal customers by featuring them in my ads. Real people who have actually used the product or service are always more authentic and compelling. Believe me, it shows.
In fact, a famous brand has been using diversity in its branding for about 40 years now. We are talking of branding in 2022, but this brand went quirky way back and has been reaping benefits continuously.
Trend #5 – Influencer driven branding
Though still nascent, influencer driven branding is the new trend. While I completely based this on numbers and approachability today, it will open up more vistas once it gets data driven.
This is a new opportunity for brand and influencers both to get more engagement besides word-of-mouth.
Branding in 2022 will see data in use, more and more influencers will come to the fold depending on segregation of target audiences. Small and big influencers will get the same opportunities and will be a win-win situation.
The next level of influencer-driven branding could be to showcase influencers as brand ambassadors, which will attract more customers. In fact, influencer-driven marketing will grow to be a $15B industry in 2022.
Trend #6 – Branding in 2022 will be absentia
Branding in absentia or branding ‘without’ a brand is going to rise in 2022. What was a joke in the marketing circles has become a reality and is rocketing.
Branding in 2022 will see brands putting up ads or hoardings with no brand on them. These ads will only talk about the USP of a product or a service, but will not mention the brand itself.
Customers have seen enough brand logos and mascots, and the recognition has become more of reflex and therefore the trend. This is also a part of minimalist branding.
Now, showcasing USPs is one thing, however such ads should have a brand recall. Which means, only those brands that are sure of brand recall should use this trend. So for beginners, we will see this trend mostly amongst the big brands.
Conclusion…
As a digital marketing agency with a pedigree of over 18 years, we understand that the above mentioned trends for branding in 2022 are here to stay.
Going into the future, aligning your brand to these trends, or rebranding on the path to follow them is the best thing your business can do.
It is time to change and once you are on that strategy, things will only brighten up and your brand will be ready to take on the future trends easily.
More Digital Marketing trends for 2022.
One more insightful article from from an unmatched expert!
1) Going retro is a great idea. Fasion comes back and retro will never be outdated. Nostalgia sure triggers strong emotions and branding is successful one when the effort evokes emotions.
2) Of course the impact is powerful when brands engage with their admirers and fans. It establishes the human connect and furthers the brand’s recall value.
3) Raising the social image certainly pays in the long run.
4) Featuring loyal customers in branding ads sounds a great and refreshing idea. I am sure the emotional connect would grow stronger. Waiting to see how many brands capitalize on this idea.
5) Influencers as brand ambassadors vis-a-vis celebrities is again a stupendous idea. This surely could be a game changer.
6) Absentia is new to me. I wonder if that works, nevertheless sounds interesting. It’s like attracting attention despite remaining invisible deliberately.
This article has given a whole new dimension to my understanding about brand marketing. Thank you for the progressive insights!
Very Insightful and loved the piece of branding without brand name . Gives the customer / end user so much more work to do and the brand owners so much more work to think of usp and sustain quality and the agency to rethink, this time perhaps break the box and no more out of the box thinking.
In all an amazing article and a lot of food for thought.