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Last update: Jan 4, 2025
Reading time:
7 Minutes
Happy New Year, for some companies 2025 will be the most innovative year to date…
For others, this could prove a year full of challenging changes.
This email will outline what’s coming so you can plan accordingly and make the most of your 2025.
The last few years have been some of the most innovative years in human history.
Remote work has taken over, social media has only gained popularity among all ages, AI has shifted the way businesses operate, and communication has adapted to fit this new world.
Here’s what you should be paying attention to for 2025:
AI is advancing every day, but there’s more to it than you might know.
More on that below.
The amount of ways AI is becoming a practical everyday solution for business grows daily.
Recent innovations like Sora now allow video generation from a simple text string or even based on an uploaded image.
While these videos are still far from perfect, it’s undeniable how much progress has been made over the last year.
This will continue in 2025, so video generation will become openly accessible for even the most novice users.
On top of this, the most interesting adaptation of AI comes in the form of Agents.
AI Agents are essentially artificial staff that are educated and crafted for a specific purpose.
While this functionality is still new (and not without its issues) here’s how companies are already using them:
These are some of the ways you probably aren’t using AI already, not to mention all the obvious opportunities around communication efficiencies.
Here’s the challenge
Everyone is using AI for the same things:
The problem with this is that when everyone is doing it, we start to pick up patterns.
You’ve probably read something in the last few weeks and been struck with the realization that an AI probably wrote it.
You are not the only one.
Everyone is tuning into AI now. You can’t get by having AI write everything and expect no one to notice.
There’s an instinctual reaction of resentment that triggers when you realize you’re reading something from an AI.
Because we crave unique insights and personality.
By using AI in its entirety you’re telling the reader that you don’t care enough about them to share your own expression with them.
The best way to use AI in 2025 is unorthodox.
Don’t do the basics that everyone is doing, be authentic, do things manually; stand out.
However DO use AI, and implement new and innovative strategies while looping your audience into the situation. Tell them how you’re using AI to help them better.
Not to be the face of your business.
Piggybacking off the previous section about AI it’s important to understand how the flood of generated content has changed marketing.
When everyone else Zig’s you should Zag.
What that looks like right now is Manual Marketing.
Doing marketing that is so obviously real that no one could even question “Was that AI?”.
While most companies are looking for “efficiencies” with the use of AI, people are getting tired of it.
We crave real authentic communication.
The only way to truly provide that experience to users is through unmistakably real campaigns.
These are all examples of content that can be used to express obvious authenticity.
They are all also the most impactful marketing from Q4 2024.
This will continue and likely only increase in 2025.
Slow, unscalable campaigns win hearts & minds.
Over The Top (OTT) refers to advertising that’s done through non-traditional television services.
Examples:
If you look at the data, traditional TV advertising has consistently trended down since the creation of social media.
Every year consumers watch traditional TV networks less and as a result, advertising dollars have consistently pivoted toward social media.
However, the new era of streaming platforms is here.
During the hyper-growth stages of Netflix, Hulu, Disney+ (and other competitors) these platforms were notoriously cheap and featured little to no advertising.
You could watch unlimited amounts of shows & movies ad-free.
The cost?
These businesses were losing money every day, billions over the last 10 years.
This was all in an effort to be early to market and gain as many customers as possible, knowing they’d eventually have to change the way they monetized.
Well in 2024 that finally came.
Across the board, all of these platforms increased their subscription costs & introduced tiers of their subscription that include advertising in exchange for a lower monthly fee.
The supply of people watching ads during shows & movies has never been higher.
As a result, ad costs have been driven down and the performance of these platforms is even better than they used to be with traditional TV ads for one reason.
Data.
With traditional TV advertising, all you could do was pick a channel or program that you believed was relevant for your target market & run ads on it.
No real way to know 100% that you were reaching the right people.
But now, streaming platforms know a lot more about the people watching than TV networks ever could.
Name, email, phone number, watch history, interests, and in some cases, they can also collect/use off-platform data from other places (Meta, Microsoft, Google, etc)
This means if you want to run OTT ads to 18-25 year old single mothers who live in Detroit, you can do that.
Not a single ad dollar goes outside of your desired audience.
These ads can then run on any piece of media that the consumer chooses to watch.
No more picking programs or channels. Full coverage.
This has created a huge opportunity in 2025 for brands that take advantage of it.
Many businesses have given up on TV, not knowing there’s a new high-performance way to approach it.
In a few years, this will be common knowledge and the competition will rise.
Those that start in 2025 will be ahead of the curve (while it’s still a good opportunity).
Are you approaching 2025 strategically?
Going into 2025 thinking you’ll just keep doing what you’ve always done might help you grow a little bit, but if you want to be taking advantage of the massive opportunities…
You need to think big. Big change. Big innovation. Big results.
Need help applying this sort of strategic thinking to your company?
You can chat with a digital marketing expert by clicking the button below.
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