Media Trends and Predictions For 2025: Retail Media, Social Video, Media Trust and More

There's little chance of media's ever-speeding evolution losing momentum in 2025.

For advertisers and media agencies, then, the challenges remain much the same as they ever were with challenges to be overcome. Not least among these are the future of TikTok, the ongoing difficulties of newspaper circulation and the shift in TV and audio consumption. 

According to GroupM’s latest This Year Next Year report, advertising spend this year will continue to experience global growth with a forecast of 7.7 per cent overall on last year’s total of $1.04 trillion excluding political advertising. Within that, pure-play digital advertising will account for 72.9 per cent.

For marketers the challenge of customer attention will remain just as tough, underlines Tom Langley, partner and head of retail media, John Lewis.

“In modern life as people's attention is pulled upon in so many different ways, whether that's scrolling or the always-on inbox, this in part has led to the mass fragmentation of media channels, particularly in digital, which in turn makes it hard for brands to talk to customers in an effective way.”

Here are some insights on the current media landscape that may help advertisers decide where to focus attention across ]this year.

No more underestimating Out of Home

Last year offered the perhaps surprising revelation that out of home had overtaken traditional TV for reach, according to the IPA’s Making Sense of Commercial Media report. It claims that OOH leads the pack, reaching around 90 per cent of UK adults on a weekly basis, totaling over 2.5 hours of exposure a day. This seems unlikely to change in the short term.

“In today’s world, outdoor has now overtaken TV as the medium that has the broadest reach and the highest number of exposures… Now outdoor has become the only way you can reach everyone,” stated adam&eveDDB’s group head of effectiveness, Les Binet while speaking on the Uncensored CMO podcast.

According to GroupM’s forecast, OOH spend increased by 7.4 per cent last year, and will grow another 6.4 per cent this year due to the ongoing digitization of the sector.

Digital OOH alone has been forecast to achieve a rise of 8.4 per cent, making up over two-thirds (68.1 per cent) of revenue this year, and wll continue growing.

Retail media will continue its march

The expansion of retail media means it has now scaled, with the IAB predicting it to drive revenue over £1 billion (excluding Amazon) in 2025. This is expected to reach  £7 billion 2028, which highlights the level of growth that has still to be achieved in the space.

Globally, according to WARC, it has expanded to be worth $154 billion.with a further 14.8 per cent rise expected in 2025 as new commerce platforms emerge.

Already major UK retailers such as ASDA, Currys, ASOS, Ocado, Co-Op, Ebay and B&Q have launched their own media offers, with many more yet to join the fray.

John Lewis’ Langley, explains that the powerful allure to advertisers is that it can catch customers when they are either shopping to purchase or in consideration move, with an opportunity to build brand awareness and drive conversion.

“Retail media can work through the funnel, especially when utilising the physical environment. The best retail media should bring the best of both brands together to create engaging customer experiences,” he adds.

The space is expected to overtake AV (TV, BVOD, and CTV) and become the third-largest channel by the end of this year.

And in an era where trust is hard to come by, measurement and accountability in digital advertising will remain a focus for marketers who are under growing scrutiny to justify their budget spends and understand what worked, and what didn’t.

“Being very dependent on a complex measurement world, with MMM, Attribution models etc., retail media can offer a simpler closed loop directly between the media and the customer purchase, helping to better understand and optimise media spend over time,” says Langley.

Streaming getting smarter

TV remains the second largest media channel, with GroupM forecasting 3 per cent growth globally on last year’s total of $5.9 billion. Within that, streaming will continue to be the fastest growth channel, accounting for 30 per cent of TV ad revenue, while linear spend will continue to decline.

With Netflix and Amazon Prime making a success of the introduction of their ad tier subscription products, there is still plenty of innovation to come in that space, believes Mike Florence, global head of planning, Gravity Road.

“Netflix is ditching basic ads and bringing tech so sharp it feels like it knows you better than your ex. Ads will pop up at just the right moment – like when you're watching Emily In Paris and suddenly, a Renault ad makes you want to road trip through France,” he explains. “Amazon’s taking it further with ads that don’t just show products – they get you. AI will turn your scrolling into an art form, serving ads that feel custom-made for you, even before you know you need them.”

Meanwhile, Joe Smith, strategy partner at AMV BBDO, predicts that with a plethora of streaming platforms in play (Tubi, Pluto, ITV, BBC iPlayer, All4, etc.) with each fighting for audience attention, mergers will soon be on the cards. Until then, he thinks, there will be a lot of experimentation with different revenue models and pricing.

“Sport will also be a key battleground. Despite the farce of the Logan Paul v Mike Tyson fight on Netflix, the streamers know that sport is essential in bringing the live TV audience over to their platforms,” continues Smith.

Connected commerce, Social shopping and video remain on an upward trajectory

With the short-lived ban of TikTok in the US, competitors such as Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, X, Snap, and plenty of other emerging alternatives have been attempting to vie to be the next platform to potentially attract its user base. In the UK TikTok has amassed around 23 million users, making it the most used social media app in the country.

“Predicting anything relating to Elon Musk feels like a foolish exercise, or at least one that I’m ill-equipped for, but it would surprise me if many advertisers returned to X in 2025,” says Smith. “The platform is showing no signs of becoming a safer or more attractive environment for brands, but don’t expect millions of consumers to flock to Bluesky instead.”

While social media's inexorable growth is impossible ti ignore, for advertisers brand safety will also remain a major problem.

In 2023, mobile retail generated £92 billion in ad revenue with more than half (53 per cent) of the 55 million social media users in the UK shopping through social platforms. That will have risen last year.

Social retail has been predicted to make up 17 per cent of global e-commerce transactions and is expected to breach the $1 trillion mark by 2028.

According to TikTok, the social commerce market will be valued at £16 billion over the next three years. The platform found that more than half (56 per cent) of UK users have made a purchase directly through social media, either by clicking a link on shoppable content, or checking out directly within an app.

And as digital shopping matures, connected commerce is the focal point many agencies want to improve their offer across, with a growing demand from clients to cover each touchpoint - on and offline - of the purchasing funnel. Publicis Groupe's acquisition of Mars United Commerce last autumn was a major indication of that need.

"Publicis is uniquely positioned to help our clients understand both existing consumers and future prospects, and connect that knowledge at an individual level to the new media channels that work hardest for their business: Connected TV, Commerce and Creators. All of this, in clients’ own ecosystems, giving them control over their customer relationships and transparency in their investments and outcomes.," explained Publicis' group CEO Arthur Sadoun at the time.

There's no stopping AI's influence

The advancement of artificial intelligence and its adoption across the advertising industry, not least within media, is proving revolutionary.

“Technological advancements, particularly predictive and generative AI, will drive hyper-personalised campaigns and streamline workflows. Retail media networks and platforms like TikTok Shops will enable targeted strategies, blending entertainment with commerce while balancing personalisation and privacy,” says Jamie Dunlop, managing partner of Total Media.

Meanwhile, Peter McKenzie Jones, technology and customer experience director for Grey London, expects to see the use of Gen AI capabilities to be adopted at scale by agencies and advertisers, while attention has already begun to look towards the potential of Agentic AI.

“We have already seen AI tools starting to get rolled out in mainstream devices such as Apple Intelligence in the iPhone, whilst ChatGPT and other similar tools have been adopted into the daily lives of many people. AI players are starting to build on their models’ multi-modal capabilities with tools, or agents, that can interact with the device to get context or even take action. OpenAI is rumoured to be launching an AI agent in the new year which will likely be able to interact with a device and take actions on behalf of the user (with permission and safeguards hopefully built-in),” he outlines.

Now brands are considering with AI acting as a performative tool, how can advertisers utilise that technology to influence consumers and help them make decisions?

Hope for better news

With Meta removing its moderation in the name of ‘free speech’, there is a potential opportunity for tried and trusted news brands to regain some market share and bring advertisers back into the fold.

However, news brands still face a trust issue from advertisers with regard to brand safety and ad filters – even though nine in 10 young people consume news and almost three quarters (72 per cent) engage with news brands regularly.

Heather Dansie, insights and research director at Newsworks, contests the myth that young people are not engaged with news content.

She says: “Young people do not consider themselves to be news avoiders but rather consider themselves to be an engaged and knowledgeable generation who value the truth and want to understand what is going on in the world.”

Channel 4's CEO has also called for joint industry action to protect younger people from false online information.

“We must start thinking about objective truth and validated news as a public good,” Mahon said. “We need to ensure they are present on new platforms, rather than see them as compensating for a market failure that we regulate for on the old platforms," states Mahon.