“The Industry Is Awakening to the Potential of Social-First Thinking”

We’re on the cusp of a major shift. This year, we've moved beyond paid reach reigning supreme and now creativity is the engine. Great organic content drives significant reach and valuable consumer insights, challenging the traditional reliance on massive media budgets. This has real implications for integrated marketing strategies for all brands.

Powerful, user-friendly creative tools are further democratising content creation. Between Canva’s rise and the huge advance of native creative tools in the media platforms themselves, brands both big and small can produce high-performing creative with speed and scale. 

On top of that, AI influencers are rapidly evolving, blurring the lines between human and virtual personalities. They create compelling content and are not bound by the rules of reality. As they become mainstream, influencer marketing will see a huge shake-up, including brands owning their own AI influencers. Authenticity and tangible value will become even more important, favouring creators who offer genuine expertise and build meaningful connections with their audience.

Meanwhile TikTok’s algorithm quietly revolutionised marketing – its AI serves hyper-relevant content that has fundamentally reshaped consumer expectations. Brands that understand and leverage the attention it captures are becoming the most relevant. We’ve seen examples in the toughest of industries, including high fashion, with brands like Loewe creating brilliant social media creative and placing gen z at the heart of product innovation. They’ve become gen z’s most loved luxury brand in the world by becoming deeply attuned to cultural conversation and nuance.

What I’m most excited about is how the industry is collectively awakening to the power and potential of social-first thinking. 

We're finally moving beyond treating social media as an afterthought and embracing its centrality in the modern marketing ecosystem. We’re seeing more vertical integration on social platforms outside China. Brands are building sophisticated ecosystems within platforms like TikTok and YouTube, creating seamless journeys from content to purchase. This will further fuel the growth of live commerce, affiliate marketing, and new commercial models that leverage the power of social to drive sales and build brand loyalty.

I hope to see social become the strategic foundation from which real business impact can be measured. I hope more marketers capture the power of social as the starting point for their overall marketing strategies. Brilliant organic social media generates more reach than a media buy, mitigates creative risk, and provides valuable insights that inform marketing and product. 

So if I were to leave brands with three key messages for 2025, they’d be: