12 brand trends to watch in 2025

We voted. There were about 4 billion people – almost half the world’s population – eligible to participate in an election. We experienced global conflict, either firsthand or as an observer from afar.

On a lighter note, there was an inescapable sports frenzy with the Paris Olympics. The new First Couple of the NFL. And… Coconut trees. Brat. Demure. Hip hop going country with Beyonce and Post Malone. Hip hop going to war with Drake and Kendrick Lamar.  

As marketers, we saw a more concerted push towards operationalizing AI, especially with Google launching its AI search functionality. An increasing consumer preference towards consuming content and shopping at the same time on social platforms. A lack of consensus on how brands should talk about DEI initiatives due to perceived backlash. Uncertainty around how to market sustainable offerings. But, certainly, certainty around the power of brand to unite, inspire, and move businesses forward.

Now, with 2024 (and all that we’ve learned) in the rearview, it’s time to opine on what’s to come. As strategists, designers, and change agents, we’re always keeping an eye on what’s next. Here’s what we think is in store for 2025 in the world of brand strategy, customer experience, design, marketing and beyond.

Design trends often blur across disciplines—graphics, fashion, interiors, and architecture—making their origins hard to pinpoint. While the playful nostalgia of postmodernism has dominated recent years, organic modernism has quietly emerged as a counterpoint in interiors and architecture but has yet to make a significant impact on branding. For brands where the simplicity of modernism makes sense, expect to see designs being juxtaposed with warmer, softer color palettes and the selective use of curvilinear elements, updating the timelessness of modernism for 2025.

-Fraser Norton, Senior Associate, Strategy

The rush to greenify brands has died, but the need to go green hasn’t. Transition is expensive and, sooner or later, the customer will have to pay. Over the next year, we’ll see companies starting to embrace the reality of transition: that it isn’t overnight, that they aren’t perfect, but that getting better is the best they can do. With this, a humbler form of green branding will emerge: more honest, more collaborative, more human. Marketers who are used to bombastic claims will find this uncomfortable but need to adapt quickly. 

-Alex Paine, Partner, Strategy

With the plethora of AI generative imaging tools spitting out increasingly picture-perfect results, we may see a backlash against high-gloss and plastic-ky photography. Brands will opt for imagery that feels genuine, spontaneous and imperfect: low-fi shots that have a Polaroid meets TikTok aesthetic and are capable of establishing an emotional connection with customers.

-Dan Vasconcelos, Partner, Design

People don’t want more choices—they want to feel better about selecting among the choices they have. Brands have always known this—but 2025 is the year they will actually do something about it.

The traditional model of "choice overload" will evolve toward choice satisfaction, where brands prioritize reducing consumer anxiety over broad product variety. This pivot could make experiences more rewarding and boost brand loyalty by connecting emotionally and simplifying the path to purchase. Brands will focus on quality of choice over quantity, using data and personalization to help customers feel reassured about what they pick. 

-Tom Ajello, Senior Partner & Global Direction of Experience, Innovation & Engineering

From economic cycles to fashion trends to personal triumphs and stumbles, life’s core truth is that it will come in waves. Brand portfolios are no exception. After a year of uncertainty and headwinds in 2024 during which marketers had to constantly defend their impact (and budgets), this self-examination has led to hard questions. What is our corporate brand really for? How is it driving value above and beyond the portfolio brands? Are each of those sub-brands still as special and different as they once were? This soul searching will bring us a 2025 where the corporate brand will enter its next wave of strength, rooted in what makes it authentic to connect across audiences and lift all boats for the business.

-Rose Baki, Senior Partner, Strategy

While e-commerce and B2B shoppers might find you thanks to Google, they won’t discover you there. You’re discovered on social media, via word of mouth, or on good ol’ video and audio advertisements, then shoppers go to Google and search for your brand. Don’t give branded search any attribution in your MROI models, but do treat Google like the fantastic middleman it is and invest in SEO-perfected content to get every single shopper searching for you by name.

-Chris Ciompi, Senior Partner, Marketing & Customer Strategy

In an age of information overload and light-speed technological advances, it feels more and more like brands need to pull a rabbit out of a hat to stand out — and many of them are. From truly magical moments like Tesla's Summon Mode to Nike’s self-lacing shoes, to smaller moments of whimsy like Fenty Beauty's shimmer products and Partiful's glittering e-invitations, in 2025, successful brands will use magic to engage customers with a smile.

-Bethany Lesko, Partner, Design

While the generative AI hype cycle will continue, its deflation is rapidly approaching. There’s no killer app for generative AI, evidenced by every company providing the exact same feature set, with varying levels of hyperbolic marketing. Useful, but not revolutionary. Despite spending over $150 billion across capital expenditure and investments, the reality is it’s deeply unprofitable to operate, and even the simplest query uses an exceptionally high amount of computing power.  

Generative AI does have a place, though, but as a feature or augmentation – not as a product. Conversational interfaces can help democratize access to corporate data, reducing the need for time-consuming business processes. AI image generation can help scale visual design and brand systems. While 2025 may be the year that generative AI falls to Earth, there’s still ample opportunity for organizations to develop sustainable, focused, and well-designed AI applications that deliver real business value without the hype. 

-Justin D’Onofrio, Senior Director, Experience, Innovation & Engineering

Hardware? That’s hot. As we get further into the digital age, people are wistful for life before everything was mediated by the screen. Headphones are corded, phones are dumber, people are itching to connect face-to-face – and brands are taking notice. PepsiCo is centering an organic social campaign around the promise of one lucky Flamin' Hot flip phone, and fashion houses like Jane Wade and Nahmias are pushing the past forward with retro tech on the runway. More traditional forms of advertising out of the home will be warmly welcomed, and tangible experiences encouraging folks to touch grass will take off.

-Peyton Guthrie, Consultant, Strategy

CSR and DEI focus, in companies broadly and in their brand-building efforts, were a huge (potentially outsized) area of focus for many in 2020-2022, and then something everyone was afraid to touch or talk about in 2023-2024. I expect we’ll find the right middle ground in 2025-2026.

We’ll get to a healthier place where the CSR responsibilities of companies to all stakeholders will gain recognition, and we’ll appreciate diversity as something valued for the creativity, innovation, and risk mitigation that comes from bringing together people with unique backgrounds and perspectives. In turn, brand messaging and communication around CSR and DEI will be measured and given appropriate weight in broader brand building efforts.

-Shelby Hawker, Senior Partner, Strategy

In the 1960’s, the branding world was enthralled with Swiss modernism. Brand names set in Helvetica and strict grid-based design systems gave a uniform structure to every piece of the brand’s visual expression. Back then, this was a progressive move from designers to elevate the role of design as the manifestation of a strategically focused organization. Fast forward to the 2020’s: we saw a return towards similar modernist design cues, but without the strategic intent. The result? An onslaught of minimalist, uniform, and non-descript visual identities. Even in a category as discerning as high fashion, one that celebrates the individual, bland sans serif logotypes became the norm. From Balmain to YSL, each fashion house dressed itself in the same outfit. And while the style may have felt “of the moment” none felt true or discerning.

In 2025, we’ll see many of these brands, and the multitude of others like them, wake up and realize that chasing fads isn’t a sustainable or productive way to build brand meaning, or long-term customer relationships. It’s time for brands to embrace their heritage and take an independent leap forward – playing their own game, with integrity.

-Rodney Abbot, Senior Partner, Design

As the oldest members of Generation Alpha reach their teenage years, brands will amp up efforts to earn their loyalty from an early age. That means understanding the complexities of how they engage with technology, reaching them where they are (think “blended” social/gaming platforms, like Roblox), and delivering content that resonates with their identities, passions, and values. Growing up in the wake of COVID and many social movements, Alphas are wise beyond their years about topics like mental health, inclusion, and sustainability. Watch brands join the conversation—or fail trying.

-Jordan Siff, Associate, Strategy