Technology Is Shaping New Buying Trends

 

"Companies pore over consumer behaviors to better foresee their needs and interests as they evolve -- often in step with the internet and now touched by the newer specter of AI.

Fake product reviews, AI-generated errors and search results cluttered with ads are driving people to forums like social platform Reddit and subscription network Substack for information seen as more trustworthy.

Shoppers are also becoming hesitant, less eager to click "buy" on a site or use chatbots or provide email addresses lest a site turn out to be fake.

"Trust has come up repeatedly for the last 10 or 15 years, but what we're hearing this year is, 'I'm not sure about clicking,' " said Mark Curtis, head of innovation at Accenture Song, the creative services division of consulting giant Accenture.

Just over half of consumers say they have been scammed for personal information or money in the past year, while 39% said they have seen fraudulent product reviews online, according to Accenture.

"If at every given stage of the marketing funnel click-through rates decline, there is an actual cost," Curtis said. "We're going to have to combine a focus on trust alongside that focus on facility, or ease."

Some advertisers are buying space on Reddit to burrow closer to increasingly skeptical audiences: The platform's third-quarter ad revenue vaulted 56% higher from the year-ago period. And more agencies are snapping up influencer-management companies to get a better grip on the paid-for-but-personal recommendation machine.

The pervasive online distrust, however, will likely make tried-and-true household names more valuable.

"It's going to lead to a revival and a resurgence in the importance of brands as symbols of authenticity," Curtis said.

Food has become as much a status signifier as clothes, as seen in a flood of social-media posts featuring branded produce, the $12 strawberry platter, the rise of the Resy-bots and Erewhon's hip $20 smoothies.

So designer brands are trying to capitalize on that hunger, building eateries to encourage free publicity on Instagram and TikTok, and offering those who might not be able to afford their nonedible products a literal taste of their brands.

LVMH's Louis Vuitton and the owner of Le Coucou, a refined French restaurant in New York City, opened a posh eatery in the designer's Manhattan store in November. In March, Coach opened its first restaurant, choosing Jakarta for its debut; Armani earlier this month replicated its European Ristorante on Madison Avenue; and Alaia, also in December, opened a cafe and bookstore at its flagship in London.

On the flip side, restaurants and food and drink brands continue to churn out merchandise as if they were sports teams, with Vogue declaring 2024 "a ravenous year for restaurant merch."

Trendy tinned seafood brand Fishwife teamed with fashion boutique Lisa Says Gah to produce a $60 necklace. Coca-Cola and Diet Coke secured their own co-branded shoes from footwear brand HeyDude. And salad-bar chain Sweetgreen last month dropped a nine-piece apparel collection featuring a tote bag, hoodie and even socks in the manner of a streetwear brand.

The next chapter could bring brands and food even closer together. Companies that have already conquered signature looks and scents might turn their sights to developing branded tastes, said Guto Araki, co-founder of food-culture marketing company Biite.

"Within three or four years, I think we'll be asking, 'Well this brand has a shape, has a color, has a space in the socio-economic spectrum -- but what does it taste like?' " he said.

An expanding arena

Events like the Super Bowl and NBA Finals will continue to draw colossal audiences and advertising dollars, but consumers' proven capacity to follow more and more teams, leagues and sports will drive marketers into the arms of upstarts in 2025.

One in five brands next year will give priority to streaming sponsorships with emerging sports leagues, according to an October report from research firm Forrester.

Advertiser targets include Major League Cricket and Formula One in the U.S., while Major League Pickleball is looking attractive to brands hoping to connect with younger people. Twenty percent of millennial and Gen Z U.S. adults are interested in the sport, compared with just 8% of Gen X, Forrester said.

And following a banner year for women's sports, which saw a flurry of new brands and ad categories jump in as sponsors, the NFL last week struck a partnership with female-focused publisher Betches Media, which will offer new ad and sponsorship opportunities for brands looking to reach women through sports.

Whoopi Goldberg's All Women's Sports Network began carrying a smorgasbord of games on the streaming service Vizio, with plans to feature sports as diverse as judo and table tennis.

"Brands have an opportunity to become title sponsors of emergent sports leagues or sports broadcasts to reach very specific audiences, and that gives them an element of heft," said Forrester CMO research director Mike Proulx. "Sports are still important, but it's the makeup of sports, and what's being broadcast, that's evolving with culture."

Just over 30% of weekly podcast fans choose YouTube as the service they tune in with -- more than any other single platform, including audio giant Spotify and podcast pioneer Apple, according to an October survey from Edison Research.

The trend got started in the pandemic, when consumers desperate for human contact began tuning into Zoom videos of their favorite hosts recording podcasts, and the behavior proved sticky, YouTube told The Wall Street Journal in November.

The addition of video has been a gift to advertisers: Podcasting inventory on YouTube offers a highly engaged audience and sometimes hours of video per podcast to break up the sometimes-unskippable ads. It also allows sponsors to augment the prized host-read ads with visuals.

The number of podcast ad campaigns with a visual component has increased 23% in the past 12 months, according to measurement provider Podscribe. Some podcast hosts now place sponsors' logos, products and discount codes around their physical studios so they are seen on camera. Others film live product demos and produce scripted skits to promote sponsors.

In just over a year, the TikTok Shop has seen wild consumer uptake and -- if the social-media platform gets to live on in the U.S. -- that embrace is on track to expand.

Half of surveyed U.S. users who use TikTok once a month or more say they have already bought something on it, and 90% of them say they would do it again, according to the trends analysis publication The New Consumer and venture-capital fund Coefficient Capital. The fashion, accessories, beauty and personal-care categories account for the bulk of TikTok Shop's business, but consumers are also using it to purchase food, baby items and collectibles, the research found.

TikTok Shop's easy-to-navigate user interface and its appealingly casual aesthetic have set the scene for social commerce, which until now has struggled to gain a footing in the U.S., said Dan Frommer, founder of The New Consumer.

"Because TikTok Shop is so deeply integrated into TikTok, you put your payment info in once, and then you can just buy stuff whenever you want," Frommer said. "It's just so seamlessly integrated."

To be sure, TikTok shoppers still spend a lot more on Amazon.com, Target and Walmart, the survey found. And TikTok is hardly immune from the trust problems that suffuse the online world.

Just over a quarter of TikTok users who haven't bought anything from TikTok Shop said they don't trust the company with their credit-card information, according to the research. Twenty-four percent said they don't trust the quality of the products and 14% said the prices listed seem too good to be true." [1]

1. Technology Is Shaping New Buying Trends. Deighton, Katie.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 27 Dec 2024: B1.