5 consumer trends marketers need to consider when planning their 2025 strategies

This year, microtrends like ‘Brat Summer’ and ‘Demure Fall’ made big splashes across social channels. Video, including livestreams and short-form content, remained a medium of choice for entertainment seekers. And, of course, advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) continued to shake things up across industries. Companies of all sizes were quick to participate in this year’s biggest cultural moments (and Amazon Ads offered fresh insights to help brands navigate culture). But what trends and shifts will help shape the year ahead?

As 2025 approaches, consumers will continue to welcome AI into their daily activities, such as searching and shopping for products. Earning trust with customers will be more important than ever, and creators will be essential to this effort. Viewers will settle in with longer form video such as livestreams and ad-supported streaming TV, serving as important channels for reaching engaged consumers.

If you haven’t started planning next year’s media and marketing strategies, it's time to take a deep dive into the consumer trends that will embody 2025 and beyond.

AI has long been used to help break down barriers in the advertising industry. Amazon Ads deploys AI to help advertisers unlock new efficiencies. More recent innovations in generative AI—including audio, images, and video—are helping advertisers deliver compelling creative at scale. Next year, AI is expected to play a more prominent role across the consumer purchase journey.

For many shoppers, AI-assisted search was their first foray into using AI in the purchase journey. In fact, research shows that consumers adopted AI search more quickly in the past year than they adopted voice search in the past decade. And younger adult consumers are leading the pack, with nearly one in three reporting that they use AI tools and chatbots to find information on the internet.¹

Beyond its use in search queries, AI has garnered quite a bit of trust with consumers across other touchpoints in the purchase journey, with 56% of online shoppers expressing comfort in using AI-integrated tools to buy products and services. ² AI can help provide shoppers with a more intimate, “one on one” experience reminiscent of receiving dedicated service from sales associates in stores—at scale.

When it comes to their 2025 wish lists, shoppers hope brands can employ AI to help with price comparisons, provide deal alerts, support with questions, and offer tailored recommendations. ³ If you are considering introducing new AI solutions into how customers experience your brand, now is the time.

While AI is poised to help streamline the shopping journey, the shadow of inflation may still be felt in spending habits and attitudes. Faced with rising costs, one in three consumers reported spending less money in 2024 than the previous year. ⁴

Looking at groceries alone, more than half of consumers reported that they noticed an increase in prices across their typical grocery purchases. As a result, shoppers reprioritized their spending, and price overtook quality and taste as the most important consideration when making decisions around food purchases.

Fortunately, experts are hopeful that 2025 will provide consumers—and wallets—with some much-needed relief. Since 2021, consumers’ confidence in finances and the economy of their home countries has risen 10% and 3% respectively across the globe. ⁵ Conversely, the percentage of consumers who cite free delivery, coupons, and discounts as a purchase driver has shrunk in a number of regions—which may point to a loosening of the purse strings.

This year helped teach consumers new money-saving strategies and how to prioritize essential items, which are valuable skills for any shopper to have. This may lead to more confident shoppers in 2025. Brands can embrace these evolving shopping practices by demonstrating support and empathy across messaging touchpoints and finding ways to reward fiscally conscious shoppers in the new year.

If you’ve read lists of marketing trends over the past few years, you likely know all about the importance of including shortform content in your media strategies. And while shortform content has exploded in popularity—with longform content services like Amazon’s livestreaming service Twitch developing new, shorter formats for mobile viewers—longform content still plays a large role in the lives of consumers.

With longform content, viewers can settle in, dive deep, and escape. Nearly half of longform content consumers say that longform content is of a higher quality than shortform content, and more than half agree that longform content is more educational. ⁶

Millennial consumers are especially fond of longform content, including podcasts and livestreams. However, Gen Z adult consumers aren’t far behind when it comes to engagement. Gen Z adults now report listening to podcasts more than music when it comes to audio—potentially opening new, auditory channels for brands to interact with their customers. ⁷ While shortform content is great for quick hits of engagement and shareability, longform content can be a great way to establish strong relationships with dedicated audiences. On Twitch, for example, viewers are 86% more likely than the average viewer to tune into content for community and connection.

Marketers should take a balanced approach in 2025 that uses both short and longform content to reach wide audiences and engage customers deeply in the everchanging media landscape. Consider out-of-the-box strategies like branded games that combine several of your audience’s favorite types of entertainment into one engaging experience.

Since its emergence, influencer marketing has offered brands a way to reach new audiences, earn trust, and build relationships by entering the orbit of celebrities and creators that consumers love. As the media landscape evolves, so do consumers’ attitudes towards influencer marketing and creators themselves. To keep up, marketers must rethink their strategies.

The term ‘authenticity’ has been thrown around a lot in relation to both brands and influencers in the past few years—and for good reason. When deciding to buy a product promoted by an influencer, consumers rank influencers’ trustworthiness as more important than any discount code or exclusive deal a brand can offer. ⁸

As the edges between consumers’ offline and online worlds blur, the communities surrounding creators have become just as important as the creators themselves. In fact, consumers who follow celebrities and creators online are 30% more likely than the typical consumer to buy products and services to access the communities that form around them. ⁹ Consumers today aren’t just in the market for new products, they’re in pursuit of ideals, values, and lifestyles. This further underscores the importance of finding the right influencers for brands. If there’s any misalignment, a campaign can fall flat, fast.

Influencers are even more important to successful marketing strategies for brands seeking to engage younger adult consumers. Gen Z consumers are 20% more likely than the average consumer to follow influencers, and nearly half report having purchased a product because of an influencer endorsement in the last month. On Twitch, where 70% of viewers are between the ages 18 and 34,¹⁰ the trust between creators and community is evident: Twitch viewers are 33% more likely than the average social media user to report buying something based on an influencer endorsement in the past week.

Once you’ve earned trust with younger adult consumers through influencer marketing, your brand can express appreciation through loyalty programs and other rewards. This is already proving effective in Europe, where the number of Gen Z consumers who use loyalty and reward programs has increased 12% since Q2 2021.¹¹

In the face of shifting consumer perceptions, trust will be a critical component of a successful influencer campaign strategy. Working with Amazon Live hosts and personalities for shoppable campaigns is one way to deliver authentic brand storytelling while earning your audience’s confidence.

When it comes to consumer trends to watch in 2025, no list is complete without an update on the state of Connected TV (CTV) and streaming. As one might expect, the amount of time consumers spend with streaming TV continues to grow. Consumers now spend an average of 34 more minutes watching online TV and streaming per day than they did 10 years ago, and more than four in five consumers watch something on a streaming service at least once a week.¹²

For many consumers, diving into a new hit series is exactly what they need after a tiring day at work. New research from Amazon Ads, “Elevating Everyday Moments,” revealed that Watching TV helps fulfill consumers’ needs for enjoyment, escapism, and shared experiences with others.¹³ Live programs, such as the live sports you can watch on Prime Video, are also helping to draw viewers back into the living room.

In a nostalgic return to form, ad-supported tiers are quickly becoming the norm in the streaming world. While the introduction of ad-supported tiers comes with more choices for consumers, only one in 10 have updated their subscriptions to avoid ads. In fact, consumers now discover brands and products through this channel than they do outdoor advertising, personalized purchase recommendations on websites, ads in newspapers or magazines, or even ads seen in theaters.¹⁴

As 2025 approaches, brands should consider how they can best engage consumers on their Connected TVs. Prime Video, for example, introduced ads into its service earlier this year to help brands expand their reach to an estimated 115 million monthly viewers in the U.S. with Streaming TV ads that show up in award-winning shows and movies on Prime Video. ¹⁵ Soon, ads will be seen on Prime Video in more countries, including Brazil, Japan, and the Netherlands.

By embracing advancements in AI, prioritizing trust, and adapting to changes in content viewership, marketers can position themselves—and their brands—for success in 2025 and beyond.

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¹ GWI Core Q2 2024
² GWI Zeitgeist April 2024
³ GWI Zeitgeist March 2024
⁴ GWI Zeitgeist August 2024
⁵ GWI Core Q2 2024 & Q2 2023
⁶ GWI Zeitgeist June 2024
⁷ GWI Core Q2 2024
⁸ GWI Zeitgeist March 2024
⁹ GWI Core Q2 2024
¹⁰ Twitch internal data, Global, 2022
¹¹ GWI Core Q2 2024 & Q2 2021
¹² GWI Core Q2 2024
¹³ Amazon Ads custom research with Crowd DNA. Elevating Everyday Moments: The role of brands in quality time and entertainment. Fielded May to July 2024. Data reflects AU, BR, CA, DE, ES, FR, IT, JP, MX, U.K., and U.S. aggregated. Adults 18-74, total n=17,600. Per country n=1,600.
¹⁴ GWI Zeitgeist July 2024
¹⁵ Amazon internal data, U.S., Sept 2023