Forecast: What's in store for brand and culture in 2025?
Written by
We talk to Laura MulcahyOpens in new tab, a cultural foresight researcher and strategist currently working as the Director, Cultural Strategy at TRAOpens in new tab; and Tully WalterOpens in new tab, a futurist, trend forecaster and Strategic Futures Director at SOON Future studiesOpens in new tab, to make some 2025 predictions (kind of).
While it’s theoretically impossible to predict the future, there are some cultural truths that we can see coming down the pipeline of 2025. The ideas of community, connection and authenticity are more prominent than ever, echoing throughout our even own 2025 strategic conversations at Tracksuit and elsewhere.
We want comfort, we want trust, and we all want to be a little less lonely.
The world is getting noisier, people are getting lonelier, and we crave community and authenticity
“We are at peak noise and peak brand saturation in 2024. Attention is scarce,” Tully says.
Our algorithmic brains are overwhelmed and overloaded on a daily basis, and brands that aren’t operating in ways to combat that are just adding to the noise. Instead of thinking about “engagement”, in 2025, when loneliness is at an all-time highOpens in new tab, you should be thinking about community and conversation.
“If we think about the brat phenomenon – the promotion of that album aimed to not only engage an audience but also invite them to join a conversation. Across socials and media, the audience played a huge part of defining and refining what ‘brat’ was, which became a master class in world-building. It’s a great example of adding value into an audience’s life, inviting them into an experience that is fun and intimate, as opposed to trying to push a brand onto them or worse ’into’ a moment. It’s back to that idea of creation vs extraction. As mounting social, environmental and economic pressures compound, in the future, brand connection and relevance will be defined by the value you add to individuals and communities alike.”
We usually think about brand connection digitally, but in 2025, brands should also think about taking that URL connection into IRL. There is a desire for experiential moments and fostering authentic connection in our physical lives.
While loneliness is at an all-time high, trust is declining across the board from government, to media, to, yes, business (and brands as an extension).
“People deeply crave honesty and transparency in the brands they connect with,” Tully says. “These are the pillars of authenticity.” Essentially, this means that brands should lean into their features and flaws to “tell it like it is.” Some examples, Tully says, include budget airline RyanairOpens in new tab’s “we’re in on the joke” social strategy, which has helped it amass a following of over 4 million followers. “This warts-and-all authenticity cuts through to audiences craving transparency,” she says.
“Even part of why Moo Deng felt especially resonant… She is so cute and joyful but also her little bursts of anger and live flops online feel incredibly relatable. There’s a “she’s just like me” factor,” Tully adds.
You should aim to better understand your audience’s interests – even if it’s not directly related to your brand
“It really comes back to knowing the adjacencies around your customer,” Laura says. “Look at the overlapping interests within your audience – focus on the outside in, rather than the inside out.”
TRA’s recent study, ConnectionOpens in new tab, explores how people connect to brands, which challenged brands to ask about audience interests rather than solely focusing on the demographics. “It’s great that your audience is a female between 20-30 and has a certain amount of money, but they might actually have just as much in common as someone who’s outside of their age group, and outside of their traditional demographics. So even though it feels counter intuitive to ask about interests not related to your brand, it is actually really revealing and will spark inspiration of how you could talk to them in a more relevant way.”
While age discourse dominates discussions about trends – we never stop talking about Gen Zs in the marketing world – Laura asserts that there are “enduring themes in culture that people can connect to, no matter what their age.”
Another thing to watch out for in 2025 is the temptation to think that what’s having a moment in your algorithm is what everyone else (including your audience) is talking about too. That might not be the case.
“There’s going to be less data available for brands to publicly see the conversations that are going on online. There will be more private spaces – we’ve recently seen a huge exodus from X to Bluesky, for example – and what is shared on those public spaces are probably a watered down version of what people are truly feeling like. So for brands, you can’t think that the discourse of public online culture is the end of the conversation. I think brands will have to work harder.”
Sometimes, even if it feels like your whole timeline is talking about brat, you have to remind yourself: speak to real humans. What is top of mind for a marketer is not on the top of your audience’s mind.
The creator economy isn’t going anywhere
The growth of the creator economy is inherently linked to our search for connection and authenticity. Forming these relationships is a way of accessing that – even though some creators may resonate with consumers more than others in 2025, depending on their presentation of relatability.
“I think the 2024 Olympics demonstrated a paradigm shift in the creator to brand pipeline in terms of connection. Across social media, Olympians gave us a peak behind the curtain to a once gate-kept experience. Sharing room tours, cardboard bed ‘hacks’ and muffin reviews, we were let into one of the most exclusive environments in the world. Ilona Maher gained almost 3M followersOpens in new tab after sharing her sometimes awkward experiences in the olympic village including changing in public dressing rooms and asking for a picture with Snoop Dogg,” Tully said.
“This is reminiscent of the cult following of Amelia Dimoldenberg’s in her YouTube series Chicken Shop Date. The relatable and slightly awkward format creates a familiar mix of discomfort and excitement resembling a first date. These candid moments stand out online, breaking down celebrity walls for genuine conversation. When people relate to imperfections and awkwardness, likeability and trust grows. This is a learning curve for gate-kept brand messaging.”
Basically, creators can be an effective way at growing consumer likeability towards your brand, and, again, a way of making them feel like they’re participating in the conversation.
It’s a fool’s errand trying to predict micro trends – think about what you know is coming ahead
Instead of trying to predict fast-moving trends, think about key themes and stories that are coming up for your audience and lay that over what we know for sure is coming up in 2025.
“As a brand marketer, there are macro events in the calendar you can look ahead to, then work back to understand. For example, we have a new president in the White House, and that has ramifications for many different industries. It has ramifications for what is culturally acceptable. So I would look at bigger things and go, ‘OK, how is our audience feeling about that? How are we, as a brand, responding to the bigger things that are ahead, that are certain, and that we can prepare for?’”
An example of a macro event would be a big calendar sport moment – like the Olympics, or the Superbowl. “They tell you a lot about how people are relating to entertainment and how they come together as a community,” Laura explains.
“Film is something else I keep an eye on, because that tells you a bit about the zeitgeist of what’s on filmmakers and directors’ minds.”
For example, we all know we’re in an era of nostalgia (think Wicked and Gladiator, both of which are remakes), partly thanks to our reaction to instability and uncertainty. We’re in turbulent times!
“Nostalgia experienced a resurgence following the 2008 recession, as reminiscing about the past with a sense of fondness appears to offer comfort amid uncertainties or fears about the present and future,” Tully says. “Nostalgia helps people find meaning in their lives by primarily increasing social connectedness.”
You can use AI, but remember you (and your consumers) are human
Neither of the cultural strategists we talked to are anti-AI, but there is a difference between content and slop, Laura points to an idea writer and artist Nick Heer summarises as “Not all content is slop, but all slop is content.” Everything gets harder to distinguish between thanks to AI.
The rule is that, when using AI, you have to ensure there’s some brand DNA that you’re using. “It's a little easier for brands that have a heritage or have a backlog of content to revisit through AI for it to not seem so sloppy. But there's also brands that I think are just pressing the button with AI to try and unlock more attention from their audience. But I think everyone is just so attuned to that kind of slop that it will actually make audiences retreat away from the brand,” Laura says.
Tully reiterates this sentiment, saying that, “what the rise of AI means to a brand and their customer’s world needs to fit within the ethos of the brand – it’s not just about throwing yourself at this tool believing that the noise is a cultural moment.”
The rise of AI is also, naturally, seeing some people turn away from the digital medium. SOON’s Future Cities 2024 reportOpens in new tab found vinyl sales rising year on year, while according to Bloomberg, the hottest Gen Z toy is the “very unplugged” Jellycat plush.
