From the power of playfulness to soft pop and metaverse immersion, Adobe Stock reveals the top creative trends of the year.
Adobe Stock shared its 2022 creative trend predictions in a report earlier this year, showcasing feelings of connection, optimism, relief and inspiration through visual and creative marketing.
Visual Trends
Visual elements or art play a vital role in marketing technology and customer engagement. Adobe Stock highlighted two visual trends this year, including the following:
- Power of Playfulness
Creative ads should reflect joy, energy, and comfort, inspiring and engaging consumers to stay optimistic, discover the simple joys in life, and move on with the “new normal” or time following the pandemic outbreak.
Incorporating more colorful ads can help break the black and white background that the pandemic crisis has brought to people’s lives. Happy faces, magnificent views of nature (like the beach or mountains), pet or animal advocacy, and people in action are some examples of inspiring visual elements that can draw the attention of more consumers to marketing tactics. - Love Yourself
This visual trend focuses on extinguishing the negative mental health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Marketers should incorporate visual elements that can help destress and reduce burnout and depression.
For instance, an image of the water in the sea, lake, or falls, can make a person feel calm. The same holds with greenery. A study shows that images with both blue (water) and green (nature) obtained the most favorable response from the subjects. Hence, incorporating these visual elements can help boost mental health. - Design Trends
Adobe Stock also shared the biggest design trends that brands can explore to capture the attention of modern consumers in the digital age, which includes the following. - Soft Pop
This design trend is fun and flexible, defining human’s relationship to digital space objects and tactility. Examples of soft pop design trends include 3D cartooning, squishy appearances, and character narrative.
One example of soft pop include memes that can convey a marketing message to intended audiences with a great impact. Internet culture gave birth to memes, which are closely related to pantomime. Memes are defined in a research paper as a figure or picture that function as a situational background or template to which a related and specific written content is included.
Marketers can use soft pop, like memes, to stay in the loop within social media circles. Social media marketing strategies incorporate soft pop to deliver messages or add humor to serious topics subtly. This concept is popular in getting the attention of younger audiences and the general masses. - Neu Naturalism
Because Neu Naturalism aesthetics are modernly clean and organic, the most effective marketing visuals are significantly inspired by post-minimalism, clean living, and process art.
Professional sites, healthcare and beauty products, the food industry, and the fashion world can greatly benefit from neu naturalism. Many brands in the Asia Pacific region launch organic and natural products to meet the growing demand for ‘clean beauty’ products, wherein China is the largest market for this segment. Now more than ever, people need to go back to the basics and appreciate raw, rustic, clean, and minimalistic life.
Motion Trends
Ads and other marketing mediums should embody creative motion trends to connect with more diverse consumers.
- Metaverse Immersion
The metaverse world is exactly the opposite of people’s analog world. This motion trend inspires consumers and marketers to explore the digital space more deeply.
Metaverse immersion is trending in social media commerce. As more people prefer to buy products with the influence or directly through social media platforms, marketers should find effective metaverse immersion marketing tactics to stay competitive.
Marketers can move their target audiences to explore the metaverse by incorporating gamification. Mobile or video games play a big role in this trending creative marketing tactic. With gamification, you can increase your leads and engage with them based on their game behaviors, goals, and results. - Get Moving
Advertisers and brands should create marketing tactics that promote physical and emotional connections. Get people to move with movement and dancing, such as advocating outdoor sports, preserving the environment, and actively participating in various calls to make the world a better place.
Seeking brand ambassadors and influencers who can deliver this creative trend is a perfect strategy to get more people to stay active. Athletes, sports enthusiasts, and even ordinary people who can provide real-life testimonials are the best marketing representatives of brands wanting to advocate healthy and active living.
Adobe shared the biggest creative trends in 2022, inspiring and consumer-centric. Marketers can draw motivation and insightful strategies from these trends to stand out and capture more sales-qualified leads.
