2024 year in review: It’s been a bad year for…

Transparent pricing

This year was the year “dynamic pricing” entered the common parlance, with the Gallagher brothers’ reunion bringing the phenomenon of changing prices according to demand to the mainstream.

In theory, that means that prices can go down as well as up, but it is the latter that has attracted the most headlines. In the case of Oasis, the band’s much-anticipated reunion hit headlines when fans were asked to pay as much as £200 more than had been advertised when they got to the checkout on Ticketmaster.

Dynamic pricing has, of course, been previously deployed by the travel sector, and in particular, airlines. It is largely accepted that plane tickets will cost more in peak seasons and according to demand, yet it is a harder sell in other sectors. Pubs and hospitality venues have come under fire for the practice, which has seen drinks increase in price during peak times.

There have been examples in other sectors too, from theme parks to car garages. The idea of dynamic pricing might be appealing to businesses, but with consumers becoming increasingly aware of the practice, many are suggesting if it is deployed they will simply take their custom elsewhere.

Dynamic pricing was not the only practice to rankle consumers this year. Pret A Manger came under fire in the summer for changing its subscription offer. Not only did the revamp reduce the benefits for members, taking away things like the popular ‘free’ coffee offer, but its communication also managed to insult current subscribers by suggesting the previous deal had been almost “too good to be true”.

Pricing is a crucial tool in marketers’ playbook, but it must be used carefully. If your consumers feel you’re deploying tricksy pricing, then it will quickly become a bad deal for you and them. NC

Brand safety

Brand safety has been a major concern for marketers since 2017, after an investigation by The Times revealed YouTube ads from major global brands were appearing alongside content by pornographers, extremists and white supremacists, inadvertently funding their causes.

However, the issue made headlines again this year following Elon Musk’s lawsuit against the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), which led to the dissolution of the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM).

GARM was created as a voluntary cross-industry initiative in 2019 in response to the Christchurch New Zealand Mosque shootings, where the attacker live-streamed the event on Facebook.

The body had the goal of effectively eliminating harmful content in ad-supported digital media and had grown to more than 100 member companies, including agencies, platforms and major brands. Diageo, Mars, Mondelez, PepsiCo, P&G and Unilever were counted among GARM’s members.

Elsewhere, reports revealed advertisers are spending millions of dollars on low-quality ad placements that violate brand safety standards. According to WARC’s Future of Programmatic report, more than half (60%) of the advertisers and agencies surveyed cited brand safety as the top programmatic concern.

For the first time, Kantar included brand safety in its Media Reactions report. Just 4%

According to the 18,000 consumers and 1,000 marketers surveyed, just 4% believe X offers brand safety for advertisers. Google claimed the top spot for brand safety at 39% but this is still a shockingly low figure.

“Even the highest could possibly be higher,” Gonca Bubani, global thought leadership director of media at Kantar told Marketing Week at the time. “Industry-wide, there could be an effort to be made on that front.” GG

Out-of-work marketers

The marketing recruitment job market has been rocky, to say the least, following highs in the immediate post-Covid job boom.

Ask any out-of-work marketer – from big business CMOs to junior talent entering the industry – how the market is, and they’ll tell you it’s poor. Some recruiters will say different, though many will admit to having had a difficult year. Indeed, some recruiters have been diversifying income streams by introducing paid-for CV clinics and coaching for candidates.

One recruiter told Marketing Week earlier this year about an out-of-work marketer who spent upwards of £750 for a CV rewrite, which she said did the candidate no favours.

It’s been a buyer’s market all year, with brands still holding the cards when it comes to job movement. Many recruiters have told Marketing Week brands are looking for “unicorns” when they do eventually hire. Someone who has such a broad spectrum of skills in all areas, they are nearly impossible to find.

This means marketers are having to jump through more hoops than perhaps ever to land roles. One marketer told Marketing Week of an eight-stage interview process with a UK retailer for a marketing director role. Another detailed one of five-plus stages. Increasingly, brands are making candidates undertake psychometric evaluations, lengthy presentation tasks and personality tests to make the cut.

In October, exclusive IPA Bellwether data revealed marketing recruitment intention was at its lowest level since 2020, with almost a fifth of brands anticipating job cuts in the final quarter of 2024. This may have been influenced by the government’s October budget, which while benefitting works with no tax hikes, put some pressure on employers with an increase in national insurance contributions.

It’s unclear yet what 2025 has in store for recruitment, but it surely can’t be much worse than 2024 for marketers out of work. MI

Stable economic progress

If marketers had hoped that 2024 would see a gradual decrease in inflation and incremental progress in economic growth then they would have been sorely disappointed.

2024 did see lower inflation and better gross domestic product figures, but progress was hardly even.

The UK Consumer Price Index (CPI) from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed that the rate of inflation did gradually fall in the months between January and May 2024 (from 4% in January to 2% in May). Between May and June, the rate was stagnant, before increasing to 2.2% in July and August. CPI dropped again in September but rose once again in the most recent figures for October, to 2.3%.

This zig-zagging figure might still seem positive to marketers, looking for signs that customers’ wallets will be less hard-pressed than they have been in recent years. Yet, it should be remembered that even when the rate of inflation is falling, inflation overall is still up – things are still significantly more expensive than they were a few years ago.

Consumers are feeling the impact of those still-higher prices. After a gradual build this year, consumer confidence took a dive in September, according to GfK’s figures. It continued to fall in October, and although there was some improvement last month, there is still lingering worry among consumers. Even at its highest this year, the overall consumer confidence index score remained firmly in negative territory.

That low confidence has translated to a low growth environment in the UK. Gross domestic product (GDP) growth has not had any big surges during the year, and has fallen on some occasions. The UK is lagging behind the US and the EU on this measure, which indicates economic productivity.

For marketers, this low growth atmosphere has made their jobs all that much harder. Kudos must go to those brands that have driven growth this year, with little help from a deeply lacklustre economy. NC

Vice brands

After a few years of confusion, a lack of clarity and changing governments, it seems like time is up for brands advertising potentially damaging products to children.

The new Labour government reaffirmed its commitment to banning TV ads for products high is fat, salt and sugar (HFSS) airing pre-watershed from October 2025, as well as stopping them from appearing online.

A restriction on the advertising of HFSS products has been on the table for a while. Many retailers have limited the availability of these products in store, while some brands have already been reformulating products to meet new guidelines.

Take Tyrrells and Hula Hoops owner KP Snacks, which announced a reformulation strategy in 2022, resulting in a quarter of its portfolio being HFSS compliant by the end of the year.

In a similar vein, disposable vapes will be banned from 1 June next year, to “protect children’s health”. For a few years, campaigners have accused vape brands of intentionally marketing their products at children, with bright coloured packaging and fruity flavours on offer. Now, their time is up.

Not only are disposable vapes being banned in the summer, but Labour’s first budget in October set out plans to introduce a vape tax from October 2026, with a flat duty rate of £2.20 per 10ml of vape liquid.

Also included in the budget was a pledge to gradually end the sale of tobacco products. MI 

Influencer transparency

As the number of influencers and creators rises, so too has the number of social media mishaps, with some unaware of guidelines but others choosing to ignore them.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has been cracking down on influencers behaving irresponsibly this year, made easier thanks to its AI-powered Active Ad Monitoring service that allows it to search posts in an automated way.

Influencer Grace Beverley is one creator who has been rapped by the ASA as a result. Back in May, six ads from the influencer-turned-business-owner were banned for not being properly disclosed as ads, breaking the CAP code.

Miles Lockwood, director of complaints and investigations at the ASA, told Marketing Week that the case was “precedent-setting”.

“It makes it clear that, even when influencers are cross-posting with a business account, they need to properly label their ads. We don’t expect the public to play detective to work out whether they’re seeing paid-for content. An easily visible ‘#ad’ makes all the difference,” he added.

Entrepreneur Steven Bartlett was also made an example of when ads for health brands Huel and Zoe featuring his quotes failed to disclose that he has a financial stake in each business, also going against the CAP code.

Meanwhile, TikToker Danielle Walsh came under fire in March for a video that the ASA saw as encouraging excessive and irresponsible drinking, alongside not being disclosed to be a partnership with drinks brand VK.

Alongside the ASA’s crackdown, brands such as Lipton Ice Tea, which has been working with influencers on an ambassador programme, have been establishing internal measures to work with creators in a transparent way. With the ASA committing to its crackdown on cases going into 2025, influencers won’t be getting away with behaving badly for much longer. AV

Working from home

Working from home has been a point of contention for many businesses since the pandemic. While hybrid working is now the agreed norm for many firms, some CEOs are drawing a line in the sand and ordering staff back to the office.

Big brands have been at it, with Boots’ managing director informing head office employees it was reverting to a five-day in office working week from September. Amazon has done similar, as have The Hut Group, Santander and Asda.

Employees aren’t happy about it. Recruiters suggest demanding full-time office attendance is prompting staff onto the job market, at a time when the landscape is already in a difficult position.

It could also negatively impact companies from an employer branding point of view.

At Amazon, concerns of a mass exodus of staff were sparked following its RTO policy. A poll of Amazon head office staff by Blind, a workplace insights website, reported 91% of were dissatisfied with CEO Andy Jassy’s order. This was a poll of 2,585 verified employees.

Just 4% of marketers think five days in the office is necessary, according to a Marketing Week poll earlier this year. The majority of marketers (68%) said they thought one to three days per week was sufficient.

Marketing Week’s Career & Salary Survey saw a similar theme this year. More than half of marketers were seeing a trend to returning to office-based working at the start of the year, and with more businesses revoking their flexible working policies this year, this figure looks set to rise. MI