Automotive marketers see Connected TV (CTV) and streaming as the top consumer trend in 2024, according to new research.
In Mediaocean’s 2024 Automotive Advertising Outlook Report, which surveyed leading automotive marketing industry professionals, 61% cited CTV/streaming as an important consumer trend. This result reflects auto brands elevating their strategies by delivering personalised and interactive commercial messages through innovative ad formats, serving consumers with engaging content. Generative AI (56%) was beaten to the top spot, but the huge consumer interest in ChatGPT and large language models (LLMs) is clearly being followed closely by advertisers.
The report also delved into how GenAI is being most predominantly used by auto marketers, with data analysis (41%) leading the way, followed by market research (28%). Surprisingly, copywriting (27%) and image generation (20%) lagged behind, perhaps highlighting the current contextual limitations of AI-generated content when compared to the nuanced creativity and emotional depth of human-made work.
65% of those surveyed were planning to increase social media ad spend, heading a potential rise in investment across nearly all advertising channels. The research signals a wave of optimism in the auto industry, forecasting a busy period for marketers. Also on the rise is CTV spend, with 58% of respondents planning an increase, as well as digital display/video (58%) and search (55%). Print continued to fall out of favour among marketers, with 41% saying they were planning on decreasing spend there.
Auto marketers appear to be worried about the ‘cookieless future’. Performance marketing (63%) was cited as the most critical investment in 2024, but the growing importance of measurement & attribution (57%, up from 41% in October 2022) reflects concerns around cookie deprecation. Third party cookies have long been at the heart of data-driven advertising strategies, however Google’s phase-out to limit cross-site tracking looks to have ruffled some feathers in the marketing community. In its report, Mediaocean calls for marketers and publishers to evaluate and prepare for alternative measurement solutions to prevent key population segments from becoming invisible.
The survey also revealed that, from an operational standpoint, the creative media gap still persists, with 88% of automotive marketers saying they did not have fully synchronised media and creative processes and technologies. Solving this creative media gap represents a huge growth opportunity for brands, with potential impact to team workflow, messaging relevance, and market intelligence.
Download Mediaocean’s full 2024 Automotive Advertising Outlook Report here.
