Based on 2,300 ads researched with nearly a million consumers in the US over the last four years, Julio Franco (chief customer officer, Zappi) looks at the advertising trends that are most likely to captivate consumers in 2024 and why.

When the Super Bowl aired in the US in February 2023, T-Mobile unveiled its home internet commercial during the fourth quarter, bringing together Scrubs duo, Zach Braff and Donald Faison with John Travolta. The ad depicts Travolta moving into Braff and Faison’s neighborhood, but they are horrified to see him installing cable with a company other than T-Mobile. Adapting the lyrics to Summer Nights from the 1978 movie Grease, they convince Travolta to change his mind. Travolta responds in song, as well as throwing in some iconic Grease dance moves.

Using a beloved US actor to the backdrop of an enduringly popular song just six months after the sad death of Travolta’s globally adored Grease co-star, Olivia Newton-John, captured people’s hearts and minds and tapped into a certain nostalgia. The one minute version of the ad on YouTube garnered over 56 million views in six months.

Good ads don’t happen in a vacuum. They take what we know and create logical and emotional connections to our needs. The T-Mobile ad works because it combines the tangible and the intangible with characters and unspoken context to create a moment of intense relatability, without sacrificing core values to the brand and promotion.

The T-Mobile campaign reflects Zappi’s research on ‘The state of creative effectiveness in 2023’, which shows more concerted brand-consumer connection this year. By analyzing the same data, spanning a four year period, we’ve managed to predict 2024’s most likely advertising trends.

Ads are on the up
We looked back at over 2,300 ads researched with nearly a million consumers in the US over the last four years. Our goal was to examine the art and science behind creative effectiveness to interrogate how advertising has evolved over a hugely unpredictable period.

The data shows that this year’s ads are performing strongly against US norms, demonstrating that advertisers are back in tune with what consumers want from brands. Critically, overall emotion (nearly 4% higher) and emotional intensity scores are now outperforming the US average.

Messages which resonate are also resulting in a stronger consumer response as we are seeing both higher purchase uplift and higher brand appeal, meaning consumers are more likely to consider these brands in future.

But it has been a bumpy ride.

Brands stepped up in the pandemic era…
Our research looked at four distinct eras of advertising – each one highly influenced by social and economic forces: pre-pandemic, pandemic, inflation, and January 2023 to the present, or ‘the normalization’ era.

Covid-19 caused sudden, disruptive changes. This forced marketers to rethink their strategies to reach consumers who craved kindness and togetherness at a time of huge uncertainty. Many brands moved fast, successfully tapping into their audiences’ need for empathy. Ads during the pandemic period scored 17.5% better in emotional appeal than pre-pandemic ads. This helped to promote a considerable 32% boost in purchase uplift.

Yet while emotional resonance and response gained traction, brand recall fell 5.6% from pre-pandemic levels. By succumbing to lazy pandemic clichés, depicting families, friends and loved ones connecting against the odds, many advertisers failed to leave a lasting impression.

…but were slow to act as the economy took a hit
As Covid-19 subsided, many brands focussed on the ‘quick hit’ approach of targeting people’s pandemic savings, rather than using creativity to build an emotional connection. But inflation was rising and savings were fast receding: the messaging jarred with much of the audience.

Global economies continued to worsen and consumers were impacted more gradually than the relative shock of the pandemic, but as consumer sentiment evolved – and the way people perceived ads shifted – many brands failed to keep their fingers on the pulse. In July 2021, creative effectiveness declined 2% alongside other key indicators of advertising effectiveness. For example, purchase uplift fell 7% and emotional intensity decreased by 4.5%.

Beware of the band-aid fix
It is a trend which has continued. Despite strong evidence to the contrary, many brands are prioritizing short-term campaigns at the expense of forging a deeper, emotional connection that will foster loyalty and long-term consideration.