2024 at a Glance

2024 brought more changes to both the media landscape and consumer behavior. Google changed course, consumers felt the pressures of a pricing squeeze, and social platforms continued to embrace video. Through it all, contextual commerce media continued to be one of the most effective ways to market to consumers in the moments that matter: pre-shop, mid-shop, and post-shop. 

For Chicory, 2024 brought growth, product expansion, and new partnerships.

A Few Highlights

  • Launched Partner Portal, a self-service reporting platform providing recipe publishers with actionable insights to optimize Chicory’s performance on their site, enhance content strategy, and drive revenue.

  • Executed our largest sponsorship ever at Groceryshop, meeting with more than 240 industry players.

  • Spoke at key industry events, including  Retail Media Summit, highlighting why contextual commerce media should be a key part of a marketer’s plan. 

Expanded Product Suite to Accelerate the Buying Journey

Our product team kicked off 2024 by transitioning three new ad formats out of beta into our product suite: Chicory Portfolio, Chicory Reach, and Chicory Aisle. These solutions allow advertisers to influence consumers across the broader recipe page to build brand awareness, increase consideration, and drive conversion. 

Additionally, we launched our new Digital Circular feature, making it easy for retailers to promote weekly deals at scale across a network of brand-safe, contextually relevant content. Digital Circular can be integrated into our ad formats like Chicory Portfolio and Aisle.

We also rolled out a first version of Chicory video to help our customers drive more brand awareness. This new ad format combines the power of contextually relevant content and ease of shoppability with the attention-grabbing impact of video. 

These new ad products leverage our proprietary contextual targeting and allow advertisers to reach consumers across the entire purchase funnel. With these additions, Chicory evolved into a full-funnel media solution. We’re excited to continue to innovate and bring more products to market in 2025.

Trends to Watch in 2025

Online Recipes as Essential Grocery Planning Tools

Online recipes continued to be critical tools for grocery shopping and meal planning in 2024. 

In this year’s edition of Chicory’s State of Online Recipe’s report, we uncovered that 91% of consumers use recipes to guide their food choices. This reliance on recipes continues to increase year over year. 

Equally interesting was the amount of respondents who highlighted just how important recipe pages are for inspiration.

Chicory worked with a network of over 5,200 recipe publishers to transform recipe pages into contextually relevant environments that streamline the path to purchase. 

With 75% of shoppers referencing recipes on mobile devices while they’re in an actual grocery store, the importance of recipe pages can’t be overstated.

The Rise of Private Label Brands

Amidst a pricing squeeze, private-label brands started to rise in prominence as shoppers re-evaluated their purchasing habits. 

Most financial experts have stated there is little to no concern regarding a recession in the near term. However, in our September consumer survey, we found stark behavioral changes in grocery shopping habits — in large part due to anxiety around a recession. 

Economic uncertainty pushed more than half of consumers (55%) to switch from name brands to private-label alternatives, with 63% willing to try private-label products they hadn’t purchased before.

Nearly half (47%) of shoppers believed private-label products were comparable in quality to brand-name goods. Pantry staples, fresh produce, and dairy products were among the most common items consumers opted to purchase from store brands, reflecting a pragmatic shift in buying behaviors.

Going forward, getting a temperature check on how people are feeling at the turn of the year will be crucial. With a new political landscape and the growth of retailer-owned brand products in 2024, it will be interesting to see if consumers are still leaning on private-label. To get ahead of this, CPG brands can leverage recipe pages as critical environments to build brand equity.

Health and Wellness Dominate New Year Resolutions

According to Chicory’s New Year, New You survey, 67% of shoppers are adjusting their grocery and meal planning habits to prioritize healthier choices at the start of this year as well.Respondents noted buying more fresh produce, lean proteins, and plant-based alternatives at the turn of the year, as well as making adjustments to their diet by choosing products with clear nutritional benefits and opting for healthier cooking oils. 

 
 

Recipes play a central role in this transition. Nearly 70% of respondents searched for healthy recipes online more frequently in January than in other months, relying on digital tools to plan meals aligned with their new goals. Recipe sites and blogs are the most popular sources for these meal inspirations.

This perennial shift provides a key opportunity for brands to connect with consumers as they look to make changes in their routines as we head into 2025.

Looking Ahead to 2025

With a focus on innovation and continued growth, Chicory is well positioned to help grocery and CPG advertisers navigate shifting consumer preferences, behaviors and the ever-evolving media landscape in the year ahead. 

Want to learn more about how brands and agencies are leveraging contextual commerce media? Read here about Chicory’s innovative ad suite for advertisers, or reach out to set up a time to chat today

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