Our roundtable discussion with Members of the Marketing and Communications Center on marketing investments highlighted CEO and CMO perspectives on drivers of growth and avenues for cutting costs as they navigate an uncertain economy and geopolitical instability. Some marketing executives’ focus will be more on retaining customers and investing in brand awareness over the next year.

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The roundtable was a discussion on the results of The Conference Board C-Suite Outlook 2024 survey, specifically on marketing investments.

• Loyalty marketing is brought into focus. Spiking costs are pushing some marketers to pivot their strategy. They are pulling back on customer acquisition and focusing on loyalty and retention to ensure their current customer base is being retained while navigating unfavorable business conditions.
• Richer offerings for existing customers. As a part of the strategy to retain existing customers and invest in loyalty marketing, companies are looking to enrich the offerings for their current customers. This includes upselling and improving the quality of offerings to existing customers, as well as more strategic relationships to expand the “market basket.”
• Marketers are increasing investment in brand awareness and brand differentiation. Competition, new entrants in markets, expectations of customers, and the ROI of keeping current customers happy is leading to a rise in investment in some traditional marketing areas such as brand building, loyalty marketing, customer experience, new product development, partnership marketing, and advertising. This is being funded by cutting costs in some other areas to free up the budgets, but AI is also being exploited to improve productivity.
• Election season-driven price increases may be a roadblock to increasing investment in advertising. Companies are ramping up their investment in advertising in 2024 after slowing down during the pandemic due to supply chain issues and budget constraints. However, the increased cost of paid media during the election season could make an increase in advertising more difficult.
• CEOs and CMOs are split on e-commerce as a channel for growth. In the C-Suite Outlook 2024 survey, fewer CEOs and more CMOs said they would invest in e-commerce as compared to 2023. New product development and availability can fuel e-commerce. However, while it can be a driver of growth, it is not always profitable.
• Setting the team up for success. Some companies are looking to keep their headcount steady and improve efficiency and operations before introducing more challenges, including new technology such as AI.
• Use cases for AI. Companies are experimenting with AI and potential use cases but are finding that the human element is still very important. This is especially evident to marketers for use cases such as content creation which needs a creative and strategic human touch that AI is unable to deliver as it stands now.   

Some of these choices of investments and growth drivers may have been informed by the expectation of a recession in 2024. However, as it stands now, the Conference Board is no longer forecasting a recession in 2024, only a slowdown followed by a soft recovery in late 2024 into 2025. As predictions for the economy and the market shift, CMOs must stay agile to find opportunities that could significantly drive growth.