10 Predictions for 2025 — My extremely professional, well researched, and data-backed predictions for the marketing & brand world this year.

1. After months of us talking about entertainment>marketing, 100 brands will release tv shows. Only one (the first one) will be good.

2. Lifestyle brand(s) will launch board game nights, chess clubs, and pub quizzes as a natural extension to the analogue community growth trend. Chess clubs will be 2025’s run clubs. (Maybe this is your brand – I would love to get this brief)

3. At least one major fashion house will stream a runway show on Netflix.

4. I will receive 200 identical briefs about the relaunch of an “iconic” product from a “heritage” brand targeting “Gen Z” asking for “something we’ve never seen before”

5. Brands will continue to cast creators in OOH whilst also paying over the odds for celebrity social posts. Stop it.

6. Employee Generated Content goes from strength to strength. Yes, I’m way more interested in what Derek in Sales has in his Meal Deal than hearing about your latest sale. Reel me in! Give me people and weirdness and reality!

7. Big Tobacco’s stealth marketing will continue to (a) succeed and (b) go unnoticed. I’m sorry but smoking cigarettes has become cool again and nobody seems to be having this conversation.

8. Big year for tailoring and #menswear, bad year for streetwear and sneakers.

9. Obsession with 2000s culture will not die (I wish) and there will be a renaissance of supposedly obsolete tech from the era – iPods, Nintendo DS, janky digital cameras – in an attempt to disconnect from phones more.

10. AI WiLl cHaNGe yOuR liFE yOu b3TTeR geT oN ThE grAVy tRaiN nOw!!!!111!!!!1! !

Author:

Ira Batukaeva, resale industry expert and consumer behavior researcher.