10 marketing predictions for 2025 as new era of productivity dawns

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10 marketing predictions for 2025 as new era of productivity dawns

From a top-level view, marketing could be bigger than ever in 2025. Global ad spending is projected by GroupM to surpass $1 trillion for the first time, with channels like streaming TV, gaming and retail media continuing to broaden their canvasses for brands.

Even as the macro picture seems robust, the people making the industry gears turn aren’t seeing a corresponding resource windfall. CMOs entered their “era of less” in 2024 while agencies felt worn down by mounting client demands and thin margins. Consolidation is on the horizon in a friendlier environment for M&A, with Omnicom’s $13 billion acquisition of Interpublic Group set to shake up the sector.

As marketers try to navigate myriad challenges, including managing data in the face of proliferating regulations, the name of the game is efficiency. Demand for tools that can help work get done with greater efficiency, including generative artificial intelligence (AI), remains high, but execution will require a degree of finesse.

“The indicators are that it’s not going to get easier in 2025,” said Ewan McIntyre, vice president analyst and chief of research at Gartner for Marketers. “The era of less is starting to move into an era of productivity.”

Many other pieces on the board could change in the next 12 months and again alter marketing’s trajectory: Will the tech antitrust crackdown, including the push to get Google to sell Chrome, continue apace? Could TikTok be banned? How will the incoming Trump administration affect consumer sentiment? Below, Marketing Dive breaks down 10 key predictions:

Brands must own their values as consumers feel unseen

Marketers have more information than ever about consumers, but are they actually listening to them? Nearly half (44%) of consumers across geographic, racial and ethnic lines feel ignored by the media and most advertisers, according to research from iHeartMedia and Pushkin Industries. Three-quarters are willing to pay more for brands that share their values, while 72% don’t want to buy products from the advertisers they feel are ignoring them.

“Consumers are clearly telling us they want brands to see them and reach them where they are,” said iHeartMedia Executive Advisor Gayle Troberman. “Consumers are telling us, ‘Don’t pander to me when you’re just talking to me. I want to know what you stand for, who you are.’”

To break through in 2025, marketers must build their brands consistently and boldly. Instead of trying to reflect back their consumers’ identities, an approach called “mirror advertising” by Paul Prato, executive creative director at agency PPK, who insists marketers should “fearlessly state brand truths.”

“When you try to force it to where [brands are] depicting who they think their audience is, or who they want their audience to be … the one thing that suffers is they don’t get to talk about themselves,” Prato said.

For example, Nike’s “Winning Isn’t for Everyone” campaign returned the brand to its core tenet: the spirit of the athlete embodied by its namesake Greek god. While that effort proved divisive, it may paradoxically be the approach needed for a contentious cultural moment.

“This is a moment where folks are really going to be leaning into their values, almost like a renewal of vows,” said Victoria Jordan, general manager of branded content and creative at My Code. “There are brands that have always leaned into embracing what their products solve and universal themes to keep from polarizing consumers.”

Generative AI gets down to brass tacks

Despite the growing generative AI backlash, marketers see the technology as a fixture of the industry that will become more important in 2025, albeit not always in consumer-facing ways. Productivity boosts around campaign briefing, versioning and production and tapping into synthetic audience data were some of the use cases identified by experts.

“The back-of-house examples are the ones that brands can quickly engage with and begin to extract value from,” said Josh Campo, CEO of Razorfish.

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