Nick Morgan.
The AdNews end of year Perspectives, looking back at 2024 and forward to next year.
Nick Morgan, CEO & Founder, Vudoo
2024 was another year of rapid growth in advertising technology. Thirty years on from the first banner ad, we’ve moved far beyond static content into an era where every touchpoint in the consumer journey has the potential to inspire action. The next big thing isn’t just AI; it’s how technology is enabling brands to create seamless, commerce-driven experiences where the checkout meets the consumer—wherever they are.
With smarter and more immersive solutions, advertising has become more than a vehicle for storytelling; it’s now a direct link to conversion. Whether it’s interactive video, shoppable content, or dynamic ad formats that integrate transactions, the line between inspiration and purchase is disappearing.
Thanks to new, innovative adtech solutions, advertising and marketing campaigns are set to become smarter and more immersive. Rapid AI advancements are also helping many brands and advertisers achieve better returns by creating highly tailored and personalised campaigns and predicting consumer preferences with greater precision. According to McKinsey, AI-driven marketing can yield a revenue increase of 3% to 15%, and a sales ROI uplift of 10% to 20%.
As technology advances and consumer expectations evolve, here are five trends for brands and advertisers in 2025.
1. Social commerce
Social commerce is rewriting the consumer journey, with product discovery blending into purchases in one go. According to eMarketer research, around 40% of Gen Z have made at least one purchase on TikTok, as have 37% of millennials. US retail social commerce sales are also forecasted to pass the US$100 billion milestone in 2025.
While physical retail will continue to play a vital role, the key for brands will be to integrate social commerce into existing strategies, perhaps with augmented reality, shoppable interactive windows (such as smart OLED tech), or in-store activations that directly connect to social platforms.
Successfully integrating online and offline experiences will be crucial for brands as social commerce continues to dominate impulse and convenience purchases.
2. Shoppable content
In a world where consumer attention is fragmented, shoppable content helps keep consumers engaged in one seamless experience, enabling them to see, like and buy a product without moving across different touchpoints.
Shoppable content is already gaining traction and is set to become a major force in consumer behaviour in the next 18 to 24 months. The likes of Are Media and Mamamia are upgrading their content commerce capabilities, curating content to capture the attention of their target audience and lead them to the checkout.
More than half (57%) of ad agency professionals think shoppable commerce is the next frontier of retail media, ahead of increased personalisation (53%), omnichannel audience tracking (52%) and in-store digitisation. Next year, we’ll likely see shoppable content evolve from a mere feature to a constant consumer expectation across all digital platforms. This shift will redefine the customer journey, making it shorter, highly interactive and largely effective for brands.
3. Enhanced voice assistance
Statista estimates eight billion digital voice assistants were used globally in 2024 and forecasts that the total value of voice commerce could reach US$164 billion by 2025.
Voice assistance primarily serves as a convenient tool for tasks such as playing music, checking the weather, turning lights on/off or reordering products, but in the near future, we'll see more versatile uses of the technology.
As AI-driven natural language processing evolves, voice assistants will offer hyper-contextualised interactions, predicting user needs with precision and delivering real-time recommendations that feel almost intuitive. This will provide brands with new opportunities to interact with consumers - boosting user satisfaction and winning customer loyalty.
We’re looking at a future where voice commerce becomes a core part of the customer journey and an integral part of a consumer’s daily life. Brands will need to build conversational, engaging and streamlined experiences that offer rich layers of interaction.
4. Smarter video
As attention spans continuously decrease, brands will need to break through the noise to capture audiences within the first seconds by blending bold, emotionally resonant storytelling with cutting-edge adtech tools.
By becoming creative-led and using data-driven insights, brands can target and personalise their campaigns for specific audiences at scale. It’ll be a scene where advanced algorithms work alongside human creativity to craft moments that stop the scroll. Using interactive formats, dynamic visuals, and strong calls-to-action, brands can put users in the driver’s seat, significantly boosting engagement, overall brand recall and even transactions. This enables brands to acquire first-party data from touchpoints in the video, greatly building on their lake of intent data.
The goal is to create relevance and value instantly, blending entertainment and information into bite-sized moments that integrate seamlessly into the user's feed.
5. Augmented reality (AR)
Augmented reality is growing rapidly and creating much more immersive brand experiences. Brands and retailers are experimenting with enhanced product visualisations and virtual try-ons, and major tech brands like Apple, Google and Meta have ramped up their investment in the technology.
Like shoppable content, AR seeks to immerse consumers in an experience beyond two-dimensional scrolling and browsing. AR offers a win-win situation – creating a more accurate and immersive experience for consumers and generating valuable insights for brands. A notable example is Sephora’s Virtual Artist, which enables customers to virtually apply makeup. The app learns from customer interactions, providing tailored recommendations and enabling users to create custom looks, which subsequently informs future product development and marketing campaigns.
Similarly, IKEA Place allows customers to visualise how furniture will fit in their homes, helping buyers make purchases without ever setting foot in a store, reducing return rates and providing IKEA first-party data.
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