2025 Lookahead: What to Expect in Consumer Trends

The 2024 presidential election made one thing abundantly clear: New media is more powerful than ever, while traditional media is less so. This dynamic will inform how nearly every brand operates moving forward, as will the tone that a new Donald Trump administration takes toward certain corporate initiatives like ESG investing, which is expected to be hostile. 

Accordingly, 2025 is likely to be defined by a general feeling of “back to basics,” with companies relying on broadly popular content formats and hammering home their value for the customer in external messaging, rather than looking to push the envelope with experimental or issue-centric campaigns. 

Fewer brands will dive into the cultural fray in 2025

After an all-consuming election that saw record ad spending, multiple assassination attempts and a last-minute candidate swap, consumers are feeling fatigued with politics.

But their malaise also extends to the private sector: Post-election, a large majority (64%) of Americans of every age, gender and party affiliation think companies should “stay out of politics entirely.”

Amid such an environment, brands may temper investment in areas that could be perceived as politically-tinged, such as diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) — a trend that already picked up steam this year even under the Biden administration — or be hesitant to take bold stances on hot-button cultural issues. 

Instead, expect more standard tentpoles like price and quality to be the name of the consumer communications game in 2025, especially considering that ongoing dissatisfaction with the economy was a driving force behind the outcome of the election.

Though Trump’s victory was decisive, his unique divisiveness means a large swath of Americans, especially women, have been left feeling disappointed, disheartened and even “scared.” From this, self-care may once again emerge as a major consumption motivator, just as it did during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Sports’ star is on the rise

Outside of the presidential election, sports — both recreational and professional — dominated public discourse in 2024. Run clubs became the new dating apps. The WNBA was one of the year’s buzziest brands. Pickleball leagues continued to surge. The Paris Olympics captured record viewership numbers. The NFL’s popularity among women hit an all-time high. 

And while league and athlete sponsorships have always been a sought-after marketing medium, a declining appetite for corporate advocacy makes them much more so.

In 2025, sports properties will become increasingly attractive for their ability to offer brands a largely nonpartisan promotional space — and also for their ability to attract diverse, young audiences. As consumers clamor for more off-the-field content, individual athletes will experience a continued boom in cultural relevance, too. 

Ultimately, brands of all kinds would be wise to get in the game while they can — that is, find ways to tie their message(s) to this broad enthusiasm around athletics.

Old and new media lines will keep blurring

Elections and sports may have occupied nearly all of the cultural conversations this year, but who was leading those conversations? Online content creators — and they will keep doing so moving forward. 

Recent Morning Consult research finds that, for large swaths of Gen Z adults, these creators are now go-to sources of information on just about everything — from health and finance to news and current events. In other words, influencers are no longer just expert product pushers; they’re also expert agenda-setters leading conversations around much weightier topics, like what issues deserve Gen Zers’ attention.

To prevent internet stars from totally eroding their market share, traditional news outlets will likely look to collaborate with, or even formally hire, talent with large, well-established digital audiences. (Through its acquisition of the ‘Pat McAfee Show,’ ESPN has provided a reliable roadmap to this end.) 

Of course, hiring influencers of a certain magnitude can get quite expensive, so newsrooms will also look to make their content more mobile-friendly through smaller-scale innovations, like video reporting or clip-sharing capabilities.

But who knows — 2025 may just bring the first TikToker-news anchor multihyphenate.