With 2021 subject to many of the same influences of 2020, how can marketing teams begin to recognise – and predict – their new 'normal'?

In a world where brands rely on past data to predict future sales, and past behaviour to predict future demand, the pandemic-driven unpredictability of 2020 hit marketing teams like a digital tidal wave.

Suddenly, the buying patterns we thought of as 'normal' were upended. As the waves of social and economic disruption rushed over us, some brands found themselves riding high, swept along by newly emerging digital currents. Others struggled to stay afloat or latched onto lifelines within the chaos.

For brands in every sector, 2020 resulted in the "loss of predictability", according to Adobe's 2021 Digital Trends Report. "Customers of all kinds were driven online at a rate that amounted to a jump of five to ten years in projected adoption."

In the process, close to one in two consumer brands attracted cohorts of customers that were previously unknown to them, while almost two in three experienced unusual growth in digital or mobile visitors, according to the study.

"The world will eventually return to a recognisable normal, but that normal will be digital," the report concluded.

With 2021 subject to many of the same influences as 2020, how can marketing teams begin to recognise – and predict – their new 'normal'?