As we prepare to enter 2025 Dave Winterlich, chief strategy officer of Dentsu, takes a look at the media and cultural shifts that will impact the advertising and marketing landscape in 2025
2024 was globally an unprecedented year politically, with over 80 national elections (including Ireland) and an increase in geo-political tensions.
2024 saw advertising growth of 5% (with 3% forecasted for 2025) and a generally favourable economic climate with welcomed tailwinds in the form of falling energy prices and easing inflation.
As of mid-December, further interest rate cuts from the ECB will ultimately ease cost-of-living pressures and boost consumer confidence.
Although political unrest remains, and it remains to be seen how president-elect Trump’s future policy reverberates in Ireland, for now at least, 2025 offers much optimism.
For me, I think it’s important that we don’t focus too far ahead on long-term trends to such a degree we lose sight of the ones that are right in front of us, so I’m looking at the media and cultural shifts that I think will impact the advertising and marketing landscape in 2025.
For brevity, I’ll just pick 4 of the 12 trends outlined in dentsu Ireland’s 2025 Media Trends forecast (I deliberately left AI out of this piece although it’s covered in our broader deck).
What’s Happening Now:
In 2025, the era of talking about “attention” in media is over.
Now it’s about action! The focus shifts from theoretical discussions to real, practical strategies to capture and maintain attention in a saturated media landscape.
Attention will no longer be measured by impressions alone but by engagement that translates into meaningful impact.
Expect a shift in media buying that prioritizes contextual relevance and formats designed to hold a viewer’s gaze in the most effective ways possible.
Screen size, coverage, clutter and creativity are all drivers of attention, and your attention strategy needs to drive results, not just awareness.
What should you do next:
Attention, like everything else, comes at a cost, it’s not about chasing attention as the attention horizon means you may impact reach.
Find out what works for your brand and category, it’s worth investing in knowing what works.
While attention studies for all media can be expensive, ones that measure digital media are very affordable, and the improved efficiencies will more than cover the cost of your investment.
Apply learnings and insights from other markets for channels like TV & OOH but invest in a study for digital channels.
What’s Happening Now:
Gaming is huge and growing……..the digital media industry is at a pivotal moment.
Traditional metrics like impressions and viewability are losing relevance as they don’t always reflect true impact.
Gaming is also off the charts in terms of attention.
Gaming may not be a trend in terms of consumer behaviours but it’s definitely a hot trend in terms of % of advertising expenditure.
Today there are more opportunities within games, geo targeted to Irish audiences, and many opportunities off screen with sponsorships, experiential and social content, don’t make the mistake of thinking gaming is exclusively the territory of under 25’s, it’s not.
Today gaming is more prevalent than you may think, for all ages.
What should you do next:
Now is the time to experiment, before cost of entry and level of competition increases, but if you’re thinking of getting involved, make sure you have assets that are additive to the gaming experience as opposed to interrupting or taking away from it.
What’s Happening Now:
We’ve never been more connected—and yet, so disconnected.
A recent study found Ireland, in addition to being the most productive workforce in the EU, is also the loneliest nation in the EU.
Dentsu’s Pulse research further highlighted this, 30% of adults in Ireland feel lonelier than they did before the pandemic and 59% of adults only see their friends when it’s planned well in advance.
Social media is now just media and technology making friendships feel transactional.
“Social” media is everywhere, but in 2025, the isolation it fosters is becoming a core issue, because social media today is just media, it’s less about connecting groups around common interests and more about a mass reaching, low calorie abundance of paid notices and ephemeral, often AI generated disposable content.
The digital landscape is saturated, but loneliness prevails.
This paradox creates opportunities for brands that can foster meaningful, real-world connections or digital interactions that genuinely feel human.
What should you do next:
It’s no longer about likes and followers; it’s about emotional engagement and authenticity.
Those who succeed will tap into a craving for deeper connections in an otherwise impersonal digital world.
Think about how your brand can play a part in connecting people in the real world, to create events and experiences that are sought after, valued and feel special.
What’s Happening Now:
Remember when there were physical spaces just for being— like parks or cafes?
Around the world people are noting how those places are disappearing.
In 2025, the decline of these ‘3rd spaces,’ where people used to gather informally, is being felt more acutely as the cost of living crisis intensifies.
Whether it’s community halls or night clubs, the impact is felt across all age groups and ways in which we connect and create together.

We’re cocooning more, spending more time in our first space, at home, which is pushing people away from city centres and places where we naturally collide and interact with others.
Even businesses today, whether it’s the growth of coffee hatches, apps that allow us to pre-order and pass through and the rise of self-service cashiers, we are prioritising speed and efficiency, passing customers through quickly, shifting us from the idea that businesses were “somewhere” to a vacuous conveyer belt of “nowhere”.
What should you do next:
This leaves a gaping void that brands and media can help to fill.
Whether through digital communities, immersive experiences, support for the arts, nightclubs or pop-up events, brands can create new 3rd spaces that foster real-world interaction in a commodified world.
These spaces will be critical for creating brand loyalty and emotional engagement.
Re-think community, as brilliant an organisation as it may be, the GAA can’t be the answer to every brand brief!
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