Advertising in 2030: Expert predictions on the future of advertising – An Essence Report

Marketers have always been captivated by the future, whether selling it – foldable phones and self-parking cars – or trying to interpret and predict it to gain a strategic advantage.

This has never been more true than over the last decade, where our collective imaginations have been shaped by the technologies and technology companies remaking the way we do business and live out our daily lives.

Yet for all the insight into the potential paths for technologies to evolve over the next decade and well into the 21st century, the team at Essence was struck by the lack of clarity around how marketing and advertising might evolve in conjunction with those changes.

With so little certainty around what brand marketers should expect over the coming decade, Essence set out to identify the boundaries of expectation and the areas of conventional wisdom and agreement. They were curious: Do leading decision makers and experts in our own field even believe advertising will continue to exist in ten years’ time?

In a study conducted between January and late-February 2020, Essence interviewed nearly 50 industry experts, from academia, business, marketing, technology, publishing, and advertising trade organizations around the world to find out. Experts were asked to evaluate the likelihood of 15 different scenarios and their implications for the future of advertising – from data and personalization to AI, creativity, commerce, payments and the environment.

Please read and download the report of their findings on Essence’s website here.