1. What trends should small business owners look for in 2020 (and beyond)?

​In 2020, personalization will be one of the most pronounced trends, as it will become more commonplace with large brands looking to capitalize on consumers’ growing desire for customized or tailor-made personalized experiences. This means that websites, email marketing, and social media amongst other marketing platforms will allow for customers to opt-in to sharing information (participate in surveys, quizzes, polls, etc) which offers specialized content, products or service recommendations based on the customer’s specific needs. While this may seem like a hard mountain to climb for small businesses that lack the resources to invest in personalization technology or tactics, they can do little things such as segment their email marketing campaigns to provide a more personalized interaction. They can also begin pairing complimentary products or services together (products or services that customers tend to buy together) to provide more customized recommendations. Personalization is really about putting the focus back on the customer and creating customer-centric marketing. That means that a little effort can go a long way in really understanding the needs, interests and wants of your customers.

Before Superbowl 54 advertisements hit the airwaves, our prediction was that this year's ads would have a very different feel than previous years. Of course, we still saw our fair share of quick-wit and clever advertisements, but as suspected, purpose-driven ads took center stage. We watched as Goggle reminded us that it’s more than a search engine, it is a brilliant way to track and relive your most heartfelt memories. Secret inspired us with a seemingly common football game only to surprise us that the players were female, unveiling the clever close: let’s kick inequality.  Budweiser gave us their version of the “Typical American” highlighting the common experiences that make us uniquely American. It was the year that many Superbowl brands finally embraced the brilliance of being larger than their brand by being purpose driven.