2024’s most overhyped marketing trends, according to CMOs

Marketing can be a lot like your TikTok feed: some trends are genius, and others make you scroll right away.

As we look back on 2024, we asked CMOs and other top marketers what they believe to be the most overrated trends in marketing today. Whether it’s inauthentic celebrity endorsements or ad-tech buzzwords like “curation,” they didn’t hold back.

Here are some of their answers.

So-so celebrity endorsements

Stephanie Perdue, VP of marketing, Chipotle: Traditional celebrity endorsements without an authentic narrative…The best celebrity endorsements are rooted in authentic fandom. We only work with creators and celebrities that are true brand superfans with a public history of loving Chipotle. Consumers are savvy and can tell when celebrity spokespeople are not authentic users of the brands they are promoting.

Half-hearted brand activism

Selby Drummond, CMO, Bumble: When brands align with causes their audience cares about, it can build deeper trust and a true connection. But when brand activism lacks real substance, it comes across as performative and can quickly lose credibility. Especially for Gen Z, authenticity matters more than ever—well-meaning words and hashtags alone won’t earn trust.

Outdated creator partnerships

Catherine Ferdon, CMO, Cash App: We know that partnering with creators is effective when done right, but brands should be wary of leaning only on A-list, high-follower count brand ambassadors and assuming they’ll have mass appeal and meet each of their target audiences. With audiences’ increasingly limited attention, brands need to dig deep, do the research, and identify the right voices to connect with their customer base, regardless of broader notoriety. Consumers are far more likely to relate to what you’re marketing when the conduit has an authentic connection to your overall ethos.

Manu Orssaud, CMO, Duolingo: The traditional influencer marketing model—where brands contract influencers and creators to “sell” their products—is no longer that relevant. Instead, brands should embrace the creator model at the core of their marketing team and structure, shifting their internal focus to behave like a creator and investing in talent that can help build their brand with that creator approach in mind.

Wanda Gierhart Fearing, chief content and marketing officer, Cinemark: Influencers come to mind as an area that everyone knows is important in a comprehensive marketing plan, but not every company understands how to activate them properly. They can quickly become white noise in the saturated market unless utilized strategically in a way that organically fits into and elevates your brand.

Performance marketing

Andy Judd, CMO, Poppi: Performance Marketing. There’s a reason ROAS is a four-letter word. It lies about incrementality.

AI-generated creative and product images

Libby Strachan, director of brand marketing, Free People: I am really curious about AI in terms of fashion brands. I’m seeing a lot of vendors pop up now where they can create AI-generated images of models and clothing, and I still think that we’re going to be relying on traditional models and traditional shoot tactics to accomplish what we need.

Michael J. Miraflor, founder and independent consultant at Third City: Artificial intelligence is amazing and will continue to disrupt our industry, but I lose my mind whenever I see AI-generated creative work that is touted as being a leading indicator of our creative future. Generative AI is getting there very quickly, but it’s not quite there yet, and we should be honest about the quality of the output (better than average but not great!) vs. the amount of trade press that it currently gets.

Curation and identity in ad tech

Shiv Gupta, founder, U of Digital: This curation stuff is silly…A lot of the things that we talk about in the [ad tech] echo chamber are overhyped…Idenitity is overhyped; it’s quieted down. People care less.