The biggest challenges that brands will face this year: our predictions
Over the past two post-pandemic years, it's become easier and easier for people working in the brand consultancy industry to spot the signs of change. Why? Because these shifts are no longer gradual, measured — they're swift, abrupt, and unmistakable to the trained eye.
Firstly, the phenomena that defined the last two years are here to stay:
- Short-termism: the short-lived, quick-pace, of everything. We see it in consumers' fleeting interest in a brand or a product, in the alteration of brand loyalty, in the reduction of the lifecycle of brands and products, and so on.
- The commoditization of design and creative work: generated by the advance of the productivity and creativity platforms, as well as by the impact of the social media aesthetic, particularly in the domain of communication. This situation leads to less differentiation in brands, and less authenticity in branding overall, leaving the consumer numb in front of template-like designs.
- Storytelling still rules: the brands that are blessed with meaningful, engaging stories that consumers identify with, are, and will remain, in the lead.
Now, here are the main trends in branding we see impacting 2025:
1. Entering Convenience Territory
The convenience imperative is the canon in developing relevant brand positioning promises, no matter the brand category. In today's market, consumers' expectations of affordability, convenience and effortless experience prevail over the traditional appeal of the 'more choices' promise. Moreover, smart shopping ranks as the 'number one' reason in consumers' decision-making judgements.
The 'simplify everything' mantra puts a lot of pressure on brands, especially when it comes to the category of service brands (retail, e-commerce, banking, utilities services, etc.) It helps when promises of convenience are 'completed' with a pinch of emotional, multi-sensory experience. Cynically speaking: consumers want the best of both worlds!
2. Weaker Brand Loyalty
Especially amongst the younger generations. This phenomenon of volatility, driven by young consumers' curiosity and desire for self-expression and identification with their (online) peers, is what dictates their preference for the newest brand on the block — fad brands. Fad brands are transient brands, that are nonetheless adopted with enthusiasm during very short periods of time. This preference is further shaped by the impact of influencer marketing.
Young consumers, who have a dissonant relationship with time management, invest a disproportionate amount of time into meticulously reading product labels, searching for reviews, all the while voicing their right to instant gratification.
3. The Emergence of New Brand Categories
We have new darlings in branding: purpose-driven brands, cause-driven brands, green branding, etc. While purpose-driven brands are ruled in a pure walk the talk approach, guided by values of societal positive impact (clean business, 'do not harm' mantra, etc.), cause-driven brands fixate on a particular cause considered acute for humanity, society at large and progress. Green branding is the movement for a more honest, less BS and bombastic claim branding, including the ideology of less consumption, against consumerism, pro-local, and so on. It's impressive how these brands birthed another kind of brand loyalty — a form of 'passionate commitment' of consumers towards brands as cultural phenomena. The challenge? Well, walk the walk!
4. Good Design Rules — now, more than ever!
There is a new aesthetic in town, driven by the culturally-intoxicating social media channels, and especially shaped by TikTok. The problem with brands that adopt this visual mannerism in order to align with the visual comfort of their targeted consumers, is that they fail to differentiate their brand awareness and memorability.
Design is a powerful tool in building differentiation, especially in today’s commoditized commerce world. Good design is capable of generating emotional and sensorial experiences, while ready-to-apply design templates often prove futile when it comes to branding.
Packaging design, for example, is more and more spectacular nowadays, a result — and a provocation — of indie brands' freedom to do whatever they like. One of the main issues noted by us here at Brandient, particularly over the past two years, is the battle to improve the perceived quality of products through packaging design solutions — often compounded by the misalignment between perceived product quality and the look of the packaging, hm.
Furthermore, designing vast and aggressively expansive portfolios of private labels is definitely the main challenge in consumer packaged products; a solid strategic approach and a marketing background is a must in order to get it right.
We’ve also noticed less usage of flexible logos (most probably stemming from the difficulty in operating with complex rules) and more pressure on simplifying the design governance, as well as an increased appetite for applying disciplined branding; as a result, digital brand books are on trend!
5. Corporate Rebranding & Transformative Organizational Strategies
A phenomenon that started before the pandemic, and accelerated in the past two years, is that of the profound internal transformation processes carried out by big companies and corporations, less as a result of mergers and acquisitions and more as a radical organisational strategy. While their individual agendas may vary, there is a running thread shared by all invested in this venture: the novel, ‘unfriendly’ context of uncertainty and instability; the new ideological movements affecting the consuming and buying behaviour; the new competition and new competitor typologies; the new business models; the new disruptions and the new ways to reach consumers; and so on.
Transformative processes at the level of complex organizations are no longer 'just' simple training sessions to inform and align employees within the new vision or business strategy, or punctual internal communication campaigns to persuade and engage employees with a (new) purpose. They've become more of a holistic mix of HR, leadership, cultural and sociologic initiatives, requiring a solid understanding of the way people relate, live and work, and most importantly, their motivations.
6. The Elephant in the Room: AI
Of course, we cannot talk 2025 without addressing the impact of AI on the creative and design services. Yes, AI technology can improve productivity in certain domains. But as it stands, it cannot replace human knowledge, human talent, and most of all, the human drive to understand, to dream, to love, to ignore or to hate something (I mean... Branding! in a nutshell).
Applying AI in design tasks produces (for now) a lot of pollution, diminishing brand originality. However, there are more benefits to come, still under development, that we are curious to experience. How about a smart future of personalised advertising communication, driven by custom ads for each individual based on actual personal interests and expectations? There's still work to be done there.
7. Don't Fool Yourselves: Debranding is Bad
We've seen this concept popping up, and we're here to remind you: brands are part of our lives.
Brands allow us to acknowledge the good, the bad, the best. They offer us certitude and identification, and they save our decision-making time. Furthermore, brands have the power to apply pressure on producers and traders to deliver their best quality. And finally, they enable competition and performance to remain the engines of progress for nations.