Patterns and Predictions for 2025
What the future holds at the intersection of brands, business, and culture
As 2024 winds down, here are my thoughts for 2025 at the intersection of brands, business, and culture:
The end of marketing as we know it
Revenge of the uncool
The Great Pivot of the middle-aged
The 90-10 rule of the new economy
Voice as interface
1. The end of marketing as we know it
In 2025, brands must fundamentally change their marketing approach.
Marketing used to be about creating attention, awareness, and emotional connection. Marketing wasn’t about building trust. That needs to change.
The 2024 Presidential Election highlighted this: the Harris campaign spent almost $1.8 billion, while the Trump campaign spent $1.4 billion. The Democrats had attention but lost due to a lack of trust and differentiation.
This footage, shared by Cass Horowitz, the social media guru of the UK Prime Minister, shows Trump dictating his posts to fire out during a Kamala speech. “Definitely a rare approach for a world leader,” says Horowitz, and Ed Elson, co-host of Prof G Markets, notes that “people are the new brands.” This might indicate where brand marketing is headed: a more raw, more frequent, more personal approach that builds Trusted Differentiation.
Prediction: In 2025, Nike will spend heavily on marketing, including celebrity athletes, but it won’t do the trick and the stock will remain below $100. As of Dec 20, 2024, it’s $76.94; the all-time high was $177.51 on November 5, 2021. A meaningful comeback for Nike won’t happen until the summer of 2026, around the World Cup in the US.
2. Revenge of the uncool
What do a language app, fried chicken, and functional apparel basics have in common? They were never trendy or cool.
During COVID, luxury brands soared. After the pandemic, luxury lost its soft power, as Ana Andjelic, a brand executive/sociologist/my co-host of the Hitmakers podcast, argues.
In addition to brands losing their cool, we’re seeing the revenge of the uncool.
A language app is as utilitarian as any other. In this sector, Duolingo has amassed an impressive following (3.5 million Instagram followers; 13.9 million TikTok followers) with its sarcastic owl character Duo.
Another brand the cool crowd would ignore is Raising Cane’s. It’s a Louisiana-born fast food chain famous for chicken fingers. The chain has been around since 1996 and is gaining steam recently, with close to 100 new stores opening in 2024. This year, over 100 NYC retail stores closed—unless they sold coffee or chicken.
Prediction: By the end of 2025, Fast Retailing, the holding company of UNIQLO, will surpass H&M to become the second-largest apparel retailer after Inditex, the holding company of Zara.
3. The Great Pivot of the middle-aged
From 2022 to 2024, we witnessed a white-collar recession. Aki Ito of Business Insider argues that The Great Flattening and a war on middle managers are here to stay.
That means that in 2025, The Great Pivot will force many of us in white-collar industries to transition, especially if we’re middle-aged.
Prediction: LinkedIn and Substack will have their best year ever, as experienced professionals lean in on content creation on those platforms.
Side note: “Rethinking Work,” a new book due February 2025 by
is a great read for those who seek relevance in the age of AI.
4. The 90-10 rule of the new economy
The 90-10 rule: 90% quality at 10% cost. This is the future direction of many white-collar industries.
One small example: I needed a legal document translated and notarized. I contacted a vendor I used before who quoted me $320 and a 3-day turnaround with a human translator. I found alternatives: one was $90 and another $60, both with a 24-hour turnaround. Not quite the 90-10 rule yet but we can see where this is headed.
Software and AI won’t replace humans entirely. They’ll raise expectations for humans to do more work with fewer resources and money.
Prediction: Professional video production for social media is where this will be most obvious.
5. Voice as interface
The last major interface paradigm shift was the release of the iPhone in 2007. Before the iPhone, smartphones existed, but it convinced billions that the touch screen was a viable interface.
Virtual reality and the metaverse were expected to be the next frontier, but they weren’t. Apple tried to make Vision Pro the next computing paradigm and called it spatial computing. We’re still waiting.
Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri haven’t been great (especially Siri). Large-Language Models (LLM) are improving voice recognition and Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR), making voice interfaces a reality for the rest of us.
Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses may be the first hardware product that the company is creating from scratch and succeeding. It embedded audio/voice capabilities via Meta AI, allowing interaction with the glasses through talking instead of gestures.
Prediction: In 2025, voice will become mainstream as an interface paradigm. By Christmas, Meta/Ray-Ban will sell millions of units (currently about 700,000). Apple will announce Apple Vision, a smart-glass, non-VR version of Vision Pro, to compete with Meta/Ray-Ban.
To summarize, here are the Patterns and Predictions for 2025:
The end of marketing as we know it: Nike isn’t back yet.
Revenge of the uncool: UNIQLO surpasses H&M.
The Great Pivot of the middle-aged: LinkedIn and Substack see their best year.
The 90-10 rule: Video production for social media feels the pressure.
Voice as interface: Voice becomes the next interface. Ray-Ban/Meta glasses sell millions. Apple Vision is announced.
"I needed a legal document translated and notarized. I contacted a vendor I used before who quoted me $320 and a 3-day turnaround with a human translator. I found alternatives: one was $90 and another $60, both with a 24-hour turnaround." >>> Former translator here. Question is, is the quality of the $60 & $90 offers as good as the quality of the $320 offer? If so, bargain. If not ... well.
90-10 rule and voice as interface — very prescient.