In an era where brands are competing for fragmented consumer attention and trying to meet the latter’s evolving priorities, staying relevant is even more important for brands in this fragmented era.
“Fragmentation isn’t just a trend; it’s a transformative force reshaping consumer behavior and brand strategy,” notes Dentsu’s DC Trends 2025 report.
Rise of “Curiosity Commerce”
In a digital age characterized by information overload, curiosity emerges as the antidote. “Brands that can effectively tap into consumer curiosity are discovering a new path to engagement,” the report highlights. Companies like Pinterest and Spotify are prioritizing user discovery journeys, introducing them to products, playlists, or ideas they didn’t realize they were missing.
Spotify’s “Discover Weekly” playlists and Pinterest’s dynamic pins illustrate how curiosity is now a key driver of commerce. “Consumers don’t just want to be sold a product; they want to explore it, stumble upon it, and, most importantly, feel like they’ve discovered it on their own,” states the report. The message for advertisers is clear: campaigns need to shift from aggressive sales tactics to soft persuasion.
Algorithms and the blues
As attention shifts away from broadcast media, the need to win in the age of the algorithm becomes more urgent.
The dominance of algorithm-driven advertising is leading to consumer fatigue with repetitive content ” Consumers are becoming wary of being confined to specific content channels. “There’s a growing rebellion against the sameness perpetuated by algorithms,” the report reveals.
“To counteract this, brands need to recalibrate their algorithmic strategies to reintroduce the joy of surprise and randomness,” notes the report. Companies such as TikTok, with its ability to create moments of surprise through unpredictable content, provide a blueprint for blending algorithmic precision with spontaneity.
“To cut through, brands must understand how to make the algorithm work for them, not against them, which means hacking a complex combination of signals
and variables, to reach to popularity. But the AI assisted platforms we’ve built to drive efficiency can compound the problem if
not blended with craft and distinctiveness,” the report points out.
There is a heavy price to pay for the dullness.
“Dull brands must spend almost £10m as much on media to cut through. That means understanding and optimizing for those signals: building brands in partnership with creators and culture makers, engaging customers through the communities and passion points that matter, and putting pace and agility at the heart of our approach,” states the report.
In this landscape, successful creators wield extraordinary power and influence. 75% of CMOs agree that influencer marketing is a vital part of the modern media landscape. The Creator Economy continues to expand as an economic force, anticipated to generate half a trillion dollars by 2027.
Meanwhile, a generation of digitally savvy consumers are also increasingly aware of making the algorithm work for them, an awareness skilfully leveraged by Samsung’s Flipvertising campaign, which prompted users to game the search algorithm in order to find their advertising and unlock rewards.
However, an increasingly algorithmic world risks not only predictability, but exacerbating the sense of fragmentation which is emphasized in the report’s
trend: “The Togetherness Deficit”. The meme-ification of everything has significant implications for brands, businesses and society; a world that runs on memes and “vibes” is a volatile world indeed, the report cautions.
Vibe-check?
In a polarized and often confusing world, “vibes” have replaced facts as the driver of public opinion, political affiliation and purchasing behaviors.
While deeply irrational, consumers instinctively trust the vibes. Economist Kyla Scanlon coined the phrase “vibecession” back in 2022, now widely
adopted by politicians and financial institutions to explain how perception of poor economic performance lags reality.
A recent study by Jigsaw, a subsidiary of Google (published in Business Insider, June 2024) suggests for example that although Gen Z are well
aware that getting their news from social media is risky, they find it quicker and easier to look to their peers for context rather than interrogate the
content. In a world of intensely polarized, 24-7 news, vibe checks have replaced fact checks. This prompted the World Health Organization to
join TikTok earlier this year to deliver science-based health information.
The internet officially overtook TV as the UK’s number one source of news in September 2024, with more than half of UK adults using social media
for news. For younger consumers, TikTok is the single biggest news source, used by 28% of UK 12-15 year olds. Similarly, a third of Americans
aged 18-29 regularly get their news from TikTok, with some 40% using Instagram and TikTok as their primary search engines.
Meanwhile “meme stocks,” first popularized in 2021, made a resurgence mid-year impacting shares from GameStop to Tupperware, although rises were modest compared with 2021’s surges. Vibes are proving to be an effective and profitable marketing tactic; according to Vogue Business “Tomato-girl summer” led to a 644 percent increase in searches for linen pants on Depop. Journalist Cazzie David illuminates, “Light-blue nails in themselves are insignificant, but label them “blueberry-milk nails” and everyone will want to eat their own fingers.”
AI creates challenges
Amidst these changes, AI generated content has shifted from a quirk to something deeply embedded in how we search, consume content and present ourselves to the world in a matter of months. Yet while Gen AI has made it easier for brands to generate SEO-friendly content at pace, it has also created new challenges.
As a result, Google’s introduction of Gen AI in search in May 2024 – powered by a custom Gemini model – means the customer’s first point of contact with many brands and queries will be generated by AI, accelerating the zero-click search conundrum, where an increased number of search queries are resolved without ever reaching the open web. Optimizing content for a world of Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) demands new skills and in depth understanding of conversational language queries, the report points out.
Moreover, in the “(almost) too impressive to be true” category, NoteBook LM’s new Audio Overview feature can turn any piece of content at pace into a convincing audio conversation, with potential to feed the seemingly insatiable desire for podcast content. Meanwhile, META have launched an Imagine Me feature in Beta that invites users to generate AI-generated images and avatars from their own photos and prompts.
Likewise, the trend for virtual avatars is evolving into virtual voice. ElevenLabs’ Voice Design 2.0 is an AI tool which allows users to generate their own voices by contributing prompts age, accent, tone or personality.
Hence, in a world where recency and frequency are rewarded, brands must sustain an always on drumbeat of communication in as efficient a way as possible, while avoiding the “dullness premium”. Intelligent, AI-assisted creativity must be deployed with craft as well as brand distinctiveness baked in.