Kantar: 10 trends you must know for success in 2025

This past year was one defined by rapid changes in AI, consumer data privacy, and the reshaping of digital experiences. Emerging technologies have been driving everything from content creation to customer journeys, while the evolving regulatory landscape continues to challenge traditional marketing practices.

Being weeks away from 2025, these shifts are likely to carry on to the new year egging marketing professionals stay agile, adaptive, and ever-prepared for transformation. In 2025, it won’t be enough to keep pace with change; marketers will need to anticipate and actively shape it.

From exploring innovative uses of generative AI to video as a form of communication, here’s what savvy marketers need to prioritise in the coming year, based off of Kantar’s Marketing Trends 2025 report.

The voyage to total video

Over the past decade, smart TVs have become mainstream, and the choice between broadcast and streaming TV has become invisible to viewers. While broadcast TV still dominates reach, 50% of people say most of their TV watching is streaming, according to TGI 2024 data.

While a net 8% of marketers globally are planning to decrease their investment in broadcast TV in 2025, a net 55% are planning to increase their investment in TV streaming, according to Kantar’s Media Reactions 2024. The answer, said Kantar in its 2025 trends report, is in diversifying the spend.

It is key for marketers to test and learn what the right video mix is for their brand and for different objectives.

“People value individuality and variety more in this fragmented media landscape: viewing habits differ across different demographics and geographies. Many people still watch broadcast TV, while consumers in some markets prefer Subscription Video on Demand (SVOD) over Ad-Based Video on Demand (AVOD), and vice versa. Marketers who take these nuances into account will be successful in 2025,” said the report.

Social media needs to up its game

Marketers’ understanding of attention is evolving, with a greater emphasis on the quality of engagement, as it has the most impact on creative effectiveness. In Kantar’s Media Reactions 2024, 31% of people globally claim that ads in social media platforms capture their attention, which is a marked decrease over last year’s 43%.

While it is easy to blame it on the attention deficit in younger audiences, this disenchantment is experienced by all generations, said the report. In 2025, attention will need to be earned continuously and consistently, and brands can’t settle with ‘suited for platform’.

So what works?

Kantar’s Media Reactions data shows, humour is the highest ad receptivity driver for Gen X and Boomers, Gen Y is equally receptive to humour and good music, and for Gen Z, music stands out. Creative innovation will be key.

Safety first when it comes to Gen AI

The conversation around Generative AI will continue, with new capabilities and claims emerging daily. This is a challenge for marketers who need to know where best to deploy Generative AI, to understand its impact, and what to watch out for.

Kantar predicts that in 2025 marketers will pay more attention to data provenance. And there will be more need for transparency in consumer-facing uses of Generative AI, which may come from consumers.

Positivity towards GenAI among marketers is growing with 68% are positive towards it, and 59% excited about the application of AI to ads (Kantar Media Reactions 2024.) But there are watchouts about lack of transparency and 36% of marketers don’t think they or their teams have the skills required, and 44% say they can tell if an ad has used AI. Meanwhile, 43% of consumers say that they don’t trust ads that are AI-generated.

Whether using GenAI to generate insights or for content asset creation, marketers need to know that the training data the models are based on are trustworthy, relevant, and reliable over time.

Sustainability will ramp up

In 2025, we will see a ramp-up in sustainability legislation in major economies that accelerates the corporate ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) agenda.

In addition, 93% of consumers globally say they want to live a more sustainable lifestyle. This will force businesses to see sustainability as a risk and opportunity.

So far, marketers have performed poorly in integrating sustainability effectively, creating meaningfully different propositions and communications that resonate with consumers.

Despite what seems like the well-intentioned failure of sustainability marketing, analysis of Kantar’s BrandZ data suggests that sustainability already contributes US$193B to the value of the world’s top 100 brands.

Kantar’s Worldpanel data projects the continued growth of the most sustainably active consumer segments from 22% in 2023, to a conservative estimate of 29% by 2030. Marketers are equally keen globally 94% say that their sustainability agendas need to be more ambitious (Sustainable Marketing 2030).

Tapping into creator community

Today creators, rather than brands, are building communities and aiming to establish trust. Goldman Sachs estimates that in 2024 the creator economy is a US$250 billion industry and could reach US$480 billion by 2027.

Kantar’s Creator Digest reveals that creator-led content in the US is a strong differentiator for brands, exceeding US benchmarks in brand distinction by 4.85x. Creators that have an authentic voice will be a key way to reach audiences and establish trust with consumers in 2025.

Collaboration is fundamental: brands need to align creator-led content with their larger strategy to generate resonance across channels.

Inclusivity will be key

For years, marketers have underestimated inclusion as a strategic lever for growth, despite mounting evidence of its impact.

According to Kantar’s Brand Inclusion Index 2024, the perception of a brand’s diversity and inclusion efforts influences buying decisions among almost 8 in 10 people worldwide, especially among Gen Z and Millennials, LGBTQ+ communities, people with thinking and learning differences, and people with disabilities.

Diversity, fairness, and inclusion are also more important to high-growth yet underserved populations: 89% deem it important in emerging economies compared to 71% in developed markets.

In 2025, brands will need to embrace the inclusion imperative as more than just a box to tick, to Predispose More People for future brand growth.

Slowdown of population growth

Population growth is one way for categories to grow penetration, which makes slowing growth a threat: fewer people mean fewer shoppers. Global population growth is now under one percent annually, well below the 1963 peak.

Projections are one-half percent growth at mid-century, and negative growth by this century’s end. Slowing growth is true across geographies - with a few countries’ populations already declining.

Holding market share might get easier, as slower growth means that fewer new shoppers are needed each year to stay even. But growth will get harder.

Kantar’s Worldpanel data shows that brands are 5x more likely to grow if their categories are growing. And there are other compression forces at play.

Young people are marrying later, having children later, living in smaller households. Declining fertility means lowerspending older shoppers will comprise more of the marketplace.

On the upside, smaller households mean more total households. Faced with slowing population growth, brands will need to get up to speed immediately to leverage the growth accelerators.

Pushing innovation

In 2025, we will see more brands stretching to reach new pockets of innovation for incremental growth. Examples include Oreo and Ferrero pivoting to ice cream products to grow their occasion coverage, and Oral B investigating more ways to expand their presence in the bathroom.

In 2025 we will see more brands radically stretching their boundaries. Although it is imperative for larger brands that can’t easily grow in other ways, successfully stretching via innovation is never simple; incrementality comes with risk.

Radically stretching into new territories must be undertaken with an understanding of the overall opportunity.

Retail media evolution

Retail Media Networks (RMN) encompass sophisticated retailer-operated digital advertising platforms that allow brands to reach highly targeted audiences through personalised ads on retailer websites, apps, and even in-store digital displays.

And with that, they play a key role in helping brands be more present with consumers.

Studies show that retail media will account for almost one-quarter of all US media ad spend in 2028.

RMN’s first party data enables precise targeting and personalised marketing. This means an opportunity to leverage detailed consumer insights to optimise ad spend and improve campaign effectiveness.

In 2025, we see RMNs becoming full-funnel marketing assets specifically for CPG brands – they are not just a short-term play. Kantar Media Reactions 2024 shows that 41% of marketers globally are planning to increase their advertising investment in retail media in 2025.

Some ways brands can make the most out of the RMN spend is:
-Collaborate with retailers to analyse their first-party data, allowing for more targeted and relevant advertising.
-Tailor creative content to align with the specific consumer segments identified through RMN data.
-Be transparent about the key challenges holding back more RMN investments, including improved data access, specific media measurement needs, alignment on time frames, and the ability to drive brand equity

Livestreaming is alive and kicking

Livestreaming in China has transformed commerce and brand building in recent years. Platforms such as Taobao Live, Douyin, WeChat reach half of the population for entertainment and shopping. McKinsey forecasts that live-commerce sales could comprise 20% of total retail in China by 2026, with Gen Z and millennials as key audiences.

While marketers focus on behavioural metrics, they often overlook metrics such as consumer sentiment and brand recall. Successful hosts will craft engaging narratives to retain viewers and encourage repeat purchases.

Livestreaming ads boost both short-term purchase intent and long-term brand affinity. For established brands, focus on building long-term assets such as driving ‘meets needs’ which can result in 10% to 15% uplift, while medium and smaller brands should prioritise increasing awareness (potential uplift between 10% and 23%) and driving immediate interest (lead to uplift of up to 30%) respectively.