The Brand Outlook and Challenges in 2023

After the pandemic with the country opening up fully brands became very busy in 2022 and we saw many brands actively engage this year. With full IPL season and the FIFA world cup and the festivals provided brands an open field to go full hog and give support to their brand. So, what are of some the challenges the brands will face in 2023 and how brands should think in 2023 as the year looks promising according to many experts. With the general election slated for early 2024 how brands to plan to push their products will be interesting to note. Here are some of my observations on how 2023 will be for brands and what are some of the challenges:

1. The importance to digital will be high. We can see more experiment happening in the social media space, especially in the influencer marketing where brands will explore newer things and invest.
2. Engaging content will drive the communication. Fresh and new content will help in bringing the audience closer. Short videos will be judiciously used to create impact.
3. Creativity will continue to take the lead and innovation backed by technology will bring in intense customer engagement.
4. The growth of e-commerce will continue, and the momentum will pick up. With WFH still happening with many companies online and D2C channel will be the focus for many brands.
5. Brands will bounce back to experiential marketing as malls have opened up. This was missing for the last two years.
6. IPL and One day international world cup cricket to happen in 2023 so brands will have to prudently earmark their budgets for their campaigns. Will cricket give fatigue?
7. Celebrity endorsements will continue to happen but a few brands will be careful in identifying the right celebrities. Especially in cricket a few of them have been non performing. New and promising cricketers will be signed up at a lesser price.
8. The belief in PR has gone up with many brands. So, we can expect more brands to use PR for the 360-degree integration to build credibility and trust for their brands. Here PR agencies has added value and bring in out of box thinking to create effective PR.
9. With so much of data available brands will look at more targeted communication and continuous engagement with their audiences. The use of AI and machine learning will further increase. It will help in analysing and interpreting customer data for more significant conversions.
10. Every brand will look at focussing with their customers more intensely. So we can expect brands to look a t customer centricity in a big way by serving them better post the sales and build in that loyalty factor.

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Ganapathy Viswanathan

An independent consultant in Branding and Communication, Ganapathy Viswanathan comes with over three decades of experience in Brand Communication, Public Relations & Digital Marketing. He has worked in diverse disciplines with several multinational advertising agencies like Ogilvy, Lowe and Mudra Group.

On the Public Relations front, he was the General Manager, Western region of 20:20 MSL, where he spearheaded the western region operations. In his last role he was the Senior Vice President, Sales & Marketing Communication at Eureka Mobile Advertising - a mobile engagement company in India head quartered in UK.