Adtech trends: Veridooh co-founder Mo Moubayed on what to expect in 2023

This year has been a mixed bag for the adtech sector. On one hand, we had our first year without significant COVID-related lockdowns or restrictions, which gave many businesses breathing space to get back to “normal” and begin to operate at their full potential.

On the other hand, the second half of the year has been quite turbulent, with layoffs across big tech companies and local startups unfortunately impacting many talented people.

As we head into the New Year, a level of economic uncertainty will remain for at least the first quarter. Business leaders will be cautious when it comes to growth in order to protect their staff, and investors will be hesitant to invest in new ideas.

This will make it harder for innovative ideas to emerge and only those who are savvy and can adapt quickly and prove the value of their product will thrive.

Return to long-term brand building

The mood of uncertainty usually pushes marketers to focus on performance marketing, but I think when everyone zigs, it could pay off to zag.

Next year, we’ll see bold marketers focus on building brands over the long-term so that when consumers are ready to spend again, they are top of mind. Performance marketing will always be important, but marketers have already been turning to brand building to get sustainable results.

For example, Airbnb reduced its reliance on performance marketing and instead focused on brand building, launching its first large-scale brand marketing campaign in five years. This will benefit one-to-many advertising channels, such as out-of-home (OOH) and radio, so adtech businesses in these spaces will also benefit.

The best marketers will be able to merge their brand building and performance marketing as one, simultaneously delivering ROI that their CFOs are asking for and keeping brand top of mind for when consumers are ready to purchase in the near future.

Value-based decision making

The rise of the conscious consumer has pushed brands to ensure their activities align with the values of their target audience. We saw this with Elon Musk’s dramatic takeover of Twitter reportedly resulting in half of Twitter’s top 100 advertisers seemingly halting spend on the platform amid brand safety concerns.

Next year we’ll see a big push from businesses to operate in an environmentally sustainable way to meet consumer expectations. Consumers won’t want to hear brands talking about sustainability or launching one-off initiatives on sustainability, instead they will want to see it embedded into business strategies.

For brands, this will mean a big focus on reducing the carbon footprint of their advertising campaigns across all channels. Out-of-home has recently launched several great solutions in this area and clients will be ramping up their adoption of them in the new year.

Experience is king

With lockdowns all but in the rear-view mirror, brands know ads on an iPhone are only pixel-deep. While there has been a lot of talk about the potential of the metaverse to create unique experiences for audiences, I don’t think this will eventuate next year with Mark Zuckerberg stating that the metaverse will be a long-term project.

Instead, I think the exciting developments will come from the technology we already have really maturing in 2023. Brands will create more billboards that audiences can interact with and experience, instead of just consume. For example, Adidas’ billboard that people can swim in and Riot Games’ campaign in Dubai featuring two 3D billboards that interact with each other.

Mo Moubayed is the co-founder of Veridooh, a company on a mission to grow out-of-home advertising through transparency.