Forbes magazine started the year off with one of its "expert panel" pieces offering insight and advice from a select group of business experts. The article solicited 15 key marketing trends for business leaders to consider for the coming year as they design their companies' strategic marketing plans: 1. Unpredictability. The election will have an impact on marketing strategy, but political turmoil makes it difficult to know when to speak up and when to remain silent. Digital content is trending more and more to angry, serious political content. It could be an ideal time to look for ways to introduce more levity and humor in your advertising. 2. Creator marketing. Expect to see the current investment in digital-creator marketing continue to expand. Creators will continue curating goods and services for consumers, and platforms will shift performance metrics toward "bottom-of-the-funnel" results. 3. Marketing science. More marketers will rely heavily on market data and AI to gain strategic insights and analyze campaign effectiveness. They will allow the science to shape the marketing algorithms. 4. Employees as essential influencers. The power of "real-people" influencers will result in companies learning how to leverage their own employees' influence by using their personal, sincere brand loyalty and unique perspectives to effect the customer base. 5. Decreased internal content teams and evolving UGC. As AI tools continue to develop, you can expect content-generating AI to shrink and replace in-house "content teams." 6. Focus on branding and brand awareness. Marketers have learned that data-driven marketing, AI, and other tech tools provide a lot of value, but they must not forget that consumers still respond to good brand strategies. Getting your brand in front of your target audience has never been more critical. 7. Consumer marketing fatigue. Brands bombarding customers with irrelevant messages risk alienating and losing them for life. Personalization and relevancy must shape strategies to provide an antidote. 8. Quality over quantity. Mass marketing will continue to morph into campaigns designed to provide personally memorable, creative, and attention-grabbing content through their ads, emails, and websites. 9. Offline, tangible experiences. Most customer bases are experiencing "digital fatigue," and companies will try to find more human, tangible experiences. Marketers will explore cost-effective, offline touchpoints that resonate with clientele at a personal level. 10. Commoditization of AI and machine learning. It will become increasingly difficult to differentiate your company's customer experience, because AI tools will make every competitor's sales and service look more and more alike. 11. An unfortunate influx of personal content. Events have become too expensive, so companies will continue to move their organic, personalized content to online media like video. 12. The rise of micro-influencers. The phenomenon of non-celebrity influencers in the marketplace calls for a strategy to replace expensive celebrities with an army of lowbudget "ordinary" folks to pitch your products and services. 13. Intentionality. In light of financial challenges and stiff competition, businesses will have to double down on developing a marketing philosophy that emphasizes a values-aligned, audience-first approach. 14. CGI integration. Computer-generated graphics will continue to proliferate and improve, blurring the lines between imagination and reality. 15. A focus on the impact of tech and data. Expect marketing professionals to pay special attention to AI-generated content, and to continue pursuing data and AI tools to analyze the user's personal journey. Marketing data metrics will remain front-and-center for improving campaign effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]