10 Stories That Defined 2024
The Gist
- AI missteps. One failed in-person event highlighted how AI is not a magic fix. It requires a clear, executable plan for success.
- Document leak. One well-known search giant saw a leak of 2,500+ pages of its algorithm, giving an inside look at its ranking system.
- Rebrand fail. One big brand attempted — and failed — to rebrand in a way that would appeal to a larger audience.
With December quickly coming to a close, it’s time to talk about the 10 biggest stories in marketing from the past year.
If you haven’t kept up with all the headlines — and there were a lot — you might be out of the loop on a couple big topics. A hint for some biggies? Think 2,500+ leaked documents, big AI predictions and sad Willy Wonka, to name a few.
Let’s get into it.
Table of Contents
This year we got the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory prequel that nobody asked for. But one silver lining is we also got the Willy Wonka Experience.
If you missed it, the Willy Wonka Experience was promised as an interactive and immersive event — aimed at families with children — using AI. But when attendees arrived, what they found was a sparsely decorated warehouse, some rough looking oompa loompas and, possibly worst of all, no chocolate.
This photo from the Willy wonka experience is single handedly the photo of the year. I know it’s only February but close the vote there’s no topping this. Please find this woman she needs to be interviewed ASAP pic.twitter.com/97wsodLLpQ
— 🇱🇹 (@agneponx) February 27, 2024
Attendees demanded refunds, a number of photos went viral online, and we all learned a valuable lesson (probably one you already knew): AI is not magic. So if you’re going to use it to enhance an experience — whether online or in-person — you should have a plan for how to pull it off.
Google caught quite a few big headlines this year. One that definitely made a splash was the algorithm leak — 2,500+ pages made public that documented which factors Google takes into account when ranking content.
Unfortunately for all SEOs and content creators, this was not a step-by-step guide on how to get your content to the top of SERPs. While the leaked docs showed which factors the search giant looks at, it didn’t disclose the weight of those factors when it comes to ranking.
Still, we did learn a few useful things:
- Links still matter — and they hold more value if they’re from the same country
- When an article was published (Is it fresh? Old?) is a factor in rankings
- Contrary to previous statements, it seems Google does look at a site’s overall authority
- Metrics like click-through rates and user engagement might influence ratings
Related Article: Google vs. SearchGPT: What Marketers Need to Know
Google has long been the reigning champ of search — as of November 2024, it holds a near 90% market share. But with AI taking the world by storm, that might be about to change.
Unlike a typical search engine, which relies heavily on keywords, SearchGPT understands the nuances, context and intent behind user questions. The end-result is a more interactive search experience, one where users can continue to ask follow-up questions and receive even more refined results.
What does it all mean? For marketers, it might be time to start adapting SEO and content strategies to align with AI-driven search. Plus, it likely means that marketers will gain access to new types of analytics and user insight tools to better understand how people interact with content.
TikTok has taken center stage in the social media world. As of April 2024, it has 1.5 billion active users and is the fifth most popular social media network worldwide.
Despite this success, tough times may be ahead for the platform. Back in March, the US House of Representatives passed the Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (quite the mouthful). This bill effectively implements a TikTok ban in the United States.
The app does have an out, however. The act claims that if TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, divests from the platform and finds a new buyer, it can stick around.
That contingency had a six-month timeline, however. And as of this writing, that sale has not happened. While TikTok has now asked the Supreme Court to block the ban, it’s anyone’s guess as to what will happen next.
Google’s parent company, Alphabet, made moves this year to acquire marketing software company HubSpot. Experts estimated that if the deal went through, it would likely be Google’s biggest acquisition yet.
Prior to this, Google’s largest acquisition on the books was $12.5 billion, when it acquired Motorola Mobility. The HubSpot deal was valued at $25 billion.
The news left many marketers speculating about the company’s strategic plans to expand into CRM and marketing automation — something that would have hit a sore spot for other major players like Salesforce and Microsoft.
Ultimately, however, the deal fell through. Now we’re left waiting to see what Google’s next acquisition play will be.
Related Article: Will AI-Powered Search Engines Ultimately End Traditional Search?
I’ve already mentioned Google enough already, but this story bears mentioning.
Cookies have been a hot topic of conversation for a while now. Google claimed it would do away with third-party cookies, with the original deadline for deprecation set for 2022. However, two years later, we’ve seen delay after delay after delay.
Now? Google says Chrome web cookies tracking is here to stay. Instead, it’s opting for a new experience that will allow users to make informed choices about their browsing privacy — choices they can adjust at any time.
While marketers already got a headstart on first- and zero-party data strategies due to Google’s planned cookiepocalypse, experts agree it’s still a good idea to stick to those strategies amid an era where consumers value trust and privacy.
Email has been a staple of marketing for quite some time. It’s something 81% of companies use as part of their marketing strategies — and it’s no surprise, as research shows for every $1 spent on email, marketing teams see a return on investment of $42.
Despite its long standing, the medium saw some interesting changes in 2024. Namely, rules around the unsubscribe process.
Tired of scrolling to the end of an email to find the unsubscribe button? Or looking for it in super tiny print (or white text that’s near invisible)? No more, said Google and Yahoo.
Now, these new rules mandate that bulk senders utilize simple, one-click subscribe processes, as well as maintain a spam complaint threshold of under 0.3%. For marketers, failure to comply could mean damage to your brand’s reputation and long-lasting impacts to your marketing and customer experience efforts.
Sam Altman, the on-again, off-again CEO of OpenAI, made a bold prediction in 2024: AI will replace 95% of creative marketing work. As if we all weren’t anxious enough about robots taking our jobs.
To calm your nerves a little bit, Sam Altman wasn’t talking about any old AI tool. He specifically meant artificial general intelligence (AGI), the type of bot that can learn and perform any cognitive task a human can — perhaps even better.
Right now, AGI is still the stuff of science fiction. Altman earlier this year predicted we’re only five years out from the tech becoming a reality. Then, he bumped up that prediction to 2025.
It’s been a wild year for search engine optimization.
First, we had a number of core updates, the major updates Google makes to its algorithm in order to improve the content that shows up on SERPs. While that seems like a good thing on the surface, it often means a little uncertainty and potential volatility for organic traffic and rankings. The last core update rolled out in December, and we might not see the full impact until the new year.
A Google Search ranking bug was also discovered around the same time as one of these updates, back in August, and it impacted a large number of search results. Google pretty quickly announced they’d discovered the root cause of the issue (though they didn’t share what that cause was) and claimed to have remedied it.
Perhaps one of the biggest wave-makers of the year was the roll-out of Google Search Generative Experience (SGE), now known as AI overviews. These are big sections of AI-generated text that attempt to answer a user’s search query without them having to click onto a specific page.
That latter change has left SEOs scratching their heads. How can you measure the impact of your content if people don’t actually click on it? And if AI search is the future, how can you get your content to show up in these overviews?
Related Article: Can OpenAI’s SearchGPT Outdo Google?
I think a lot of us like a good story of marketing gone wrong. Sure, it’s a lesson you can learn in what not to do. But it’s also just mesmerizing — like watching a train wreck or a ship sink. You know it’s bad, and you feel wrong for watching, but you can’t look away.
That’s how I felt about Victoria’s Secret’s rebranding attempt in 2024.
The company’s all-new executive team decided they wanted a more inclusive image, which included introducing the “VS Collective,” a group of women featured for their unique backgrounds, interests and passions. Group members included a professional soccer player, a LGBTQIA+ activist, a body advocate and an actor.
In the end, the company’s efforts led to a decline of more than $1 billion in sales. Though it’s not because consumers don’t value inclusivity — they do, especially millennials and Gen Zers. But they don’t like it when it seems disingenuous or pandering.
The lesson: If you want to promote your organization’s values, your actions matter just as much (or more) than your words.
That’s It for 2024: See You Next Year
And that’s a wrap on 2024.
There’s been some highs, some lows and lots and lots of questions. It’s hard to say what 2025 will have in store for us, but we’re sure to expect many more changes around AI, some stir-ups in the social media world and talk of a new generation coming onto the buying scene.
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