Contagious Radar report: 70.9% believe generative AI will radically disrupt advertising and marketing over the next five years

Contagious, a creative and strategic intelligence service based in London, has today published its annual Radar Report. Surveying over 100 of the industry’s top C-suite marketers and agency executives, the research reveals the challenges and opportunities in advertising and marketing in 2024.

Survey participants included Benjamin Braun, Samsung’s Europe CMO, Tiffany Rolfe, global CCO at R/GA and Martin Weigel, CSO at Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO.

As in 2023, it’s clear that generative AI is still front of mind within agencies. 17.5% believe its greatest opportunity is ‘limitless creativity’. Over half of respondents (50.5%) anticipate that generative AI will cut out the grunt work and leave more time for creativity, while 70.9% consider the technology to be the biggest disruptive force of the next 5 years, a slight increase compared to last year (68.5%).

In the context of financial headwinds, the question of budget reveals a vast discrepancy between the perspective of clients and agencies. While a staggering 80.8% of respondents from agencies think agencies are underpaid, only 34.5% of clients agree. Meanwhile, less than a fifth (15.4%) of people from agencies think agencies are paid enough, against over a third (37.9%) of clients.

When it comes to the impact of advertising and creativity, over half of respondents (52.4%) don’t believe adland understands real people, however almost half (43.7%) don’t feel that advertising needs to reflect the real world. Equally, the report finds a significant shift in the industry’s output, with over three quarters (85.4%) of creative leaders considering the output of the industry to be ‘average’ – a 4.8% increase from 2023.

Says Patrick Jeffrey, managing director of Contagious: “It’s no surprise that AI dominated this year’s Radar responses, but the variation in opinions was fascinating: some leaders called it ‘the most disruptive force since the internet’ yet others are treating it as a simple productivity hack. It’ll be fascinating to see how that divergence plays out in 2024.”

Further details can be found in the report, available for download here. In addition to the survey, the Radar Report also features commentary from leaders at agencies and brands about their focus for 2024.