Dentsu Creative’s 2023 Global CMO Report, ‘Creativity at a Crossroads’ has found that there is an increased industry focus on entertainment, signalling a wider sense of optimism.
Having surveyed 700 CMOs and senior marketers across the US, UK, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, India, Italy, and Spain, the report has singled out eight key themes which illustrate how creativity and technology are vital in empowering the sector.
With an increasingly unstable global political and economic landscape, marketers have doubled down and focused on aspects of the market that they can control, honing in on owning and connecting with their audience in a bid to wrest them away from third parties.
A crucial area of priority for marketers in 2023 has been identified as ‘winning an audience’, with 30% of respondents saying that ‘owning the customer relationship’ is a key concern moving towards 2030. An increasingly human-centric approach is also being prioritised, with 87% agreeing that brands today are built through experiences, and 88% agreeing that it is essential that the customer experience matches up to the brand promise.
“Creativity at a Crossroads dives deep into the hearts and minds of marketers today. From embracing the ‘Frenemy at the Gate’ that is AI, to their resolute belief that advertising can be a force for good, this report shows that CMOs remain both optimistic about the future and committed to the transformative power of creativity, with 85% believing that creativity is a catalyst for economic growth, rising to 94% in the US,” Dentsu Creative global clients chief creative officer, Julie Scelzo said.
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A renewed focus on entertainment has become a key component of the industry over the past year, as brands move away from overtly purpose-focused campaigns amid fears that they had ‘forgotten how to sell’.
Looking towards the future, the impending shift towards AI has naturally captured the industry’s imagination and fears, with the report itself dubbing AI a ‘frenemy’. A staggering 87% agreed that it represented the future of advertising and marketing, although more than half of respondents questioned whether Generative AI could take their jobs in the future – crucially, 75% believed that it will never fully replace the essence of human creativity.
Dentsu Creative chief strategy officer and lead author on the report, Patricia McDonald added: “To own the audience, we need to connect in the spaces and places that matter most to them. The challenge is that audiences are changing: they have new expectations, new behaviors, and new values shaped by a deeply connected world.
“Their expectations have soared while their attention has polarised-they can dive deeper than ever into the things they love and find it easier than ever to ignore the things they don’t. So, brands must be built in new ways through experiences, through culture, and through action. The choice is simple: engage or be ignored”.
