ANA Names 'AI' Marketing Word of the Year

For the second consecutive year and third time in the past eight years, 'AI' has been crowned the ANA Marketing Word of the Year, reinforcing its profound and transformative impact on the marketing industry in 2024.

Since 2014, the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) has selected its Marketing Word of the Year through a voting process. The ANA staff first identifies a list of finalists and then asks members to cast their votes to determine the winner. The survey has two questions: What word should be the ANA Marketing Word of the Year? and Why did you vote for that word?

This year, the ANA surveyed its membership base between November 18th and December 2nd. A total of 284 ANA members participated in the online poll, where AI emerged as the clear winner, securing 65% of the vote. The second-place contender, 'personalisation,' garnered just 14% of the vote. In the 11-year history of the ANA Marketing Word of the Year, AI is the only repeat winner, taking top honours in both 2023 (with 69% of the vote) and 2017.

Marketers who voted for AI shared compelling reasons for their choice, highlighting the technology’s pervasive influence. “Nothing has affected the world of marketing in 2024 more than AI,” said one marketer encapsulating the sentiment of many. Additional responses included:

• AI is all over! No matter when and where, AI always comes up when talking about marketing.
• AI has 100% become a part of our everyday work life. No exceptions.
• It's everywhere! Flooding the feeds and a hot topic of conversation that I think we are all a little scared by, intrigued and have so much to learn to help enable our work and lives.
• AI is becoming prevalent in all our tech stacks, tools, and essentially every app we use.
• AI and its potential to change how we work as marketers has been all the buzz. We are at the point where we have to figure out how to integrate AI into how we work, or we will be left behind.

Previous ANA Marketing Words of the Year have been inclusion (2022), diversity (2021), pivot (2020), personalisation (2019), brand purpose (2018), transparency (2016), content marketing (2015), and programmatic (2014).

With this designation highlighting AI’s transformation from a buzzword to a cornerstone of modern marketing strategy, the ANA is committed to equipping its members with the resources necessary to navigate AI successfully.

The ANA’s Artificial Intelligence practice is focused on addressing industry challenges associated with AI to ensure marketers’ voices are heard as standards are being created, and on educating and enabling members to embrace the safe and effective use of the technology to increase efficiencies, mitigate risks, and drive growth in their respective businesses. The ANA’s growing portfolio of AI resources includes:

• The AI Use Case Compendium for Marketing, with more than 130 examples of AI being actively applied in real-world cases throughout all aspects of marketing
• Research, reports, and an AI Glossary
• Training, webinars, and podcasts
• Various playbooks, including: Tapping Into the Power of Generative AI for Strategic Marketing Transformation, Generative AI in Creative and Content Generation and Generative AI for Search Marketing
• An AI for Marketers Committee that meets often where members share, learn, and prosper together

Additionally, the ANA will host a national industry conference devoted in large part to AI in 2025. The 2025 ANA AI and Technology for Marketers Conference will take place March 26-28th in Austin, Texas.