Five fast moving trends critical to the race for success in 2025

In the race to grow our brands and businesses, hasn’t this year felt more like a marathon than a sprint? And the stakes could not have been higher for available media inventory, meaningful attention and crucial click throughs. The Paris Olympics. The U.S. presidential race. And now the seasonal scramble of the holidays as retail brands try to make their year in the tightest of sales windows. So, we can feel relieved, I think, to hear the bell ringing for the final lap of 2024. But as marketers jockey for position and race toward the finish line, it’s worth noting that the road ahead in the New Year is anything but wide open. We’re already seeing signs of a complicated landscape for marketers ahead. Rapid AI strides; break ups, start-ups and collaborations in the media; and new pressures from both increasing regulatory scrutiny and escalating consumer expectations. So, as all of this takes shape on the horizon and you work with your agency – or consider a new partner to help with the journey ahead – what’s important for us all to keep our eyes on? What are the bigger trends that are going to shape strategies and demand action in 2025? Here’s how I see it.

1. Google's Generative AI and the Coming Revolution in Search Advertising

First up:? Google’s integration of generative search is the first step towards a new search landscape, but the much anticipated introduction of Search GPT will accelerate change beyond anything we’ve seen. And things have already changed a lot. The rapid jump from acceptance to expectation of AI-curated search summaries, and the accelerating demise of the scrolling search. Consumers aren’t fully there yet, but when they are, it will mean a deep impact on organic search results and possibly a reduction in marketers’ ads to be seen. According to Search Engine Journal click throughs from traditional search ads could decline by 10-15%, demanding marketers and their agencies rethink ad formats while they also prioritize creative, interactive and immersive content to retain engagement.

2. Rising Regulatory Oversight and Privacy-First Marketing

The world wants privacy. From the GDPR in Europe to the CCPA in California, data privacy regulations are tightening, and 2025 will bring more. Gartner actually predicts as soon as this next year, 80% of marketers will abandon personalization that relies solely on third party cookies, as regulations continue to close the aperture of available consumer data. Marketers may want to accelerate first party relationship marketing and work with their media or retail agency to gain access to more sophisticated analytics tools that can make the most of the datasets that do exist. Interestingly, while privacy concerns drive events at the macro level, 82% of consumers state they’re concerned about data privacy (PwC) but 59% say they’re still willing to share some personal data if it results in personalized experiences. So there is an obvious opportunity for the brands that get this right and work within consumer privacy concerns. The New York Times, for example, grew its mostly digital subscriber base of 11 million readers by 60% in 5 years by unlocking premium content for users who provided emails and demographic data. This in turn fueled increasingly tailored content recommendations and continues to build reader loyalty. Marketers that can balance this kind of information trade between consumer and brand could win repeat business and loyalty in 2025.

3. The Power of Personalization and Regionalization

Isn’t it time everything was personalized to us? Consumers think so. According to a Salesforce survey 73% of consumers now expect brands to understand their unique needs and expectations and from those that do, 48% can expect to exceed revenue goals (Deloitte).? From 2023 to 2024 brands increased their personalization budgets by a whopping 30%. And the results are in. Take Burger King for example. The brand used AI to deliver hyper personalized ads at scale as part of its Million Dollar Whopper Contest, based on geolocation, user behavior and purchase behavior to dynamically tailor offers and messaging to individuals – and skyrocket sales. Expect more of this strategy on the marketing menu in the coming year and for good reason: personalized ads can deliver five to eight times the ROI of traditional versions. Regionalization, of course, is the other part of the personalization trend too. As AI accesses local census and other geo data, we’ll see more cost-effectively versioned creative for narrower geographies and community demographics. Work with your data agency to understand just what is possible and the nuances of executing in market.

4. Private Programmatic Marketplaces are the Future

By 2025 global programmatic ad spend will reach $700 billion – and be increasingly sold and bought on private programmatic marketplaces. The advantage is simple. These invitation-only digital ad platforms are a secure environment for both publisher, to control their ad inventory, and for brands to gain access to premium content in a trusted and transparent marketplace. According to Forrester Research, 60% of all programmatic ad spend will occur on PMPs in 2025, and when brands like ESPN now do 95% of their programmatic ad business this way, the PMP market will scale rapidly. Navigating that evolution increasingly requires expertise in analytics and negotiations. Consult now with your media and programmatic agency to determine strategies for the year ahead.

5. Cross-Platform Measurement: chasing the dream

The upheaval and fragmentation of many media platforms is creating opportunity for brands and marketers, but measurement and reporting continues to be problematic and complex. eMarketer suggests that as many as 76% of marketers cite cross platform as their top challenge. To tackle this, make sure you and your agency partners are looking at the following strategies:

-? ? ? ? ? Integrate audience metrics across platforms – combine data from TV, streamers, social platforms and digital advertising into one unified framework with tools that measure reach, frequency and effectiveness across all media types.

-? ? ? ? ? Leverage first-party data wherever possible – as privacy regulations limit third party data collation, put relationship marketing strategies in place to bolster data sets.

-? ? ? ? ? Adopt people based measurement – shifting from device-led measures to people based measurement strategies will help to build complete pictures of reach and engagement with audiences in an increasingly fragmented device landscape.

-? ? ? ? ? Invest in analytics and AI – if you haven’t done this so far, it’s definitely time. For those already building their data approach – accelerate it.

?For brands, marketers and the agencies they choose to help them connect with consumers, media never slows down. So, as we cross the finish line at the end of this year, by all means take a look in the rear view to assess what worked and helped to accelerate your business. But quickly focus on the road ahead. There are a lot of things coming at us fast.

SPECIAL NOTE: Read about agency trends in my December column.

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