Five media opportunities you need to explore in 2025

Now we're in 2025, it’s time for brands to jump on some key media trends that’ll drive growth. This year’s all about finding the right balance—sticking with what works while exploring new, diverse channels. Expect more focus on media diversity, better measurement, and building trust with consumers. This blog breaks down five key opportunities for brands to tap into in 2025, helping you stay ahead in an ever-changing media world.

Strategy

Written by Cameron Russell 07 January 2025

As the year begins, the hot topics of discussion will focus on the strategies, channels and tools that can help brands to make gains in 2025 and beyond. Unsurprisingly, conversations will continue around concepts that were centre stage over the past 12 months, such as AI applications, Retail Media growth, social media regulation and the challenge of aligning ‘purpose’ with profit.

But fresh talking points and media trends are surfacing for 2025 that will help growth efforts.

We think the following topics and issues will be important within conversations this year:

Consistency

The media world loves new ideas. Previously we’ve had the ‘Year of Mobile’ and the ‘Year of Efficiency’ (thank your Mr Zuckerberg¹) and it looks like this year we’re heading for the ‘Year of Consistency’. Instead of constant reinvention there’s an argument that marketers should hone the creative, brand assets, and channels that have consistently delivered results over several years, according to System1’s recent report ‘The Magic of Compound Creativity’.²

Columnist Mark Ritson explored these findings in his usual provocative style³ and said: “We finally have proof that consistency is perhaps the single most important aspect of marketing and advertising planning.” Expect further discussion on total brand reinvention versus holding on to and reinvesting in proven strong brand campaigns and approaches (the recent Jaguar rebrand being a much-discussed example).

Media Diversity

We next jump to the opposite extreme, from promoting consistency to championing diversity. There is no question that channels that are consistent performers should naturally remain in the media mix. But, to optimise campaign effectiveness, brands and agencies need to sift the data and dig into the distinct attributes of each channel. Too many brands are missing the opportunity to maximise the impact of their existing channels by integrating a more diverse range of channels, which will drive a much better overall result.

Consumer behaviours will continue to shift over 2025 and there’ll be more fragmentation, making attention harder to command. Mail is a channel that has unique strengths in attention and cut-through that complement the attributes of digital and social channels – the fact direct mail attracts 132 seconds of consumer attention on average gives it a unique and distinctive role in the mix. Marketers should look to create a strong blend of channels and Marketreach can provide rich data and case studies⁴to help with decision-making.

Measurement

The measurement debate is a constant and marketers are rightly demanding more robust data and insight. They’d like to see standardisation of metrics within growing channels like CTV⁵ and Retail Media, which are both grappling with this issue, alongside progress on integrated cross-channel measurement. This allows for easier comparison on metrics that are rightly assuming greater importance, such as attention and business outcomes. When it comes to business outcomes it’s already proven that mail is an undisputed leader in promoting purchases – JICMAIL data from Q1 2024⁶ for example shows mail-driven purchase jumped 43% on the previous year.

The coming year should see more cooperation between individual companies and JICs (Joint Industry Committees) across media to help surface deeper insights. Direct mail is involved and has initiatives already, including a pilot study partnership⁷ between ISBA’s audience measurement programme Origin⁸ and JICMAIL’ s mail measurement panel.

Trust

Trust is at a premium in a world where media delivery is a concern and disinformation is snowballing. Worries continue to rise around AI fakes – be it imagery or voice imitation⁹. This increasingly puts consumer trust in brands at risk; people want to see more positive behaviour from brands but are increasingly cynical that they will see it. Adobe research has shown 71% of customers in the UK¹⁰are likely to ditch a brand that breaks their trust.

Trust in advertising is on the rise.¹¹ However, advertising channels themselves have varied levels of trust and the right campaign mix can help strengthen overall brand perception and the ‘buy-in’ to your message. Mail is given a lot of credence and importantly by the younger demographic - research carried out on the impact of mail on voting intentions¹² during last year’s General Election showed mail was seen as nearly twice as trustworthy as other channels.

Geotargeting

Competing brands will be putting efforts into creating better, more targeted and engaging customer experiences (CX) in 2025 to differentiate themselves, as rising energy prices, inflation and mortgage payments all put pressure on household finances. Any factor that can help improve CX will be valuable and geotargeting as a tactic to strengthen engagement is likely to be on the agenda.

Channels that help reach audiences in specific locales with relevant messages based on data insights can drive conversions and loyalty. Digital out-of-home, retail media channels and geotargeted mail are all effective ways of personalising promotions and offers to tightly targeted audiences (and note mail can be integrated into larger retail media campaigns).

The year ahead is bound to be a mix of managing consistency while being prepared as the market throws unexpected curveballs at marketers and agencies alike. Our New Year’s advice for 2025 – hold tight to marketing and media fundamentals, including the varying channel attributes; ensure access to relevant, useful data that delivers a greater understanding of your audience while looking for innovative approaches that will deliver real benefits and value for brands.