From the growing importance of TikTok shop for brands to the rise of digital audio and AI, leaders from TikTok, Spotify, Meta, X, and Thinkbox appeared at Bonded’s Future Advertising Trends Festival in London to share their thoughts on the latest trends shaping the advertising sector.
Hosted by Bonded on 13 November at Everyman Broadgate, the event kicked off with a talk from Chris Treacy, head of vertical sales at X. On the platform’s UK focus, he said the social media giant’s “mission and vision” hasn’t changed since its former Twitter days and is still the “global town square”.
With over 9.4bn conversations happening daily on the platform, despite the US and UK elections being a hot conversation topic, sport still dominates particularly with both UEFA Euros and the Olympics in 2024.
Sport has become a “superpower” for X, and Tracey explained the platform offers millions of people the opportunity to connect with an event and others watching in real-time. As for 2025, Treacy predicts the Women’s Euros, Eurovision, the final of Strictly Come Dancing and I’m a Celebrity will be the biggest topics on X.
“The magic of bringing everyone together still happens on X, regardless of what you might read about the platform in the news,” he says.
X’s users are spending more time on the platform and using it as a news source too, which the social media giant believes its down to its algorithim. X’s audience is getting younger too, with Gen Z now the “fastest-growing audience”.
Earlier this year, X conducted research and discovered that the reasons why people use X are the same reasons why they used Twitter. Users want to be kept “up-to-date, they want to be informed and entertained”.
The platform’s community notes feature has a global community of 800,000 contributors who add context to content, which he explained is to ensure accuracy and trust.
But when should businesses add X to the marketing mix?
1) To launch something that is newsworthy. X has lots of different services including high-impact formats which take over the trending news section, which has been used by the likes of KFC to launch new fries, Netflix to launch new shows, and helped the likes of The Telegraph launch new ad campaigns.
2. To connect. When big cultural moments happen, X is the place that audiences “flock to”. X invites advertises to leverage the power of the platform to connect with these moments, especially with video-first content.
A big trend heading into 2025 is how AI is going to make advertising “more effective” by improving relevance and learning. X’s version of Gemini or ChatGPT is Grok, which can be accessed by premium users to curate content, check out key marketing trends and even surface more content to users.
The platform has seen a boost to click through rates and increased conversions thanks to AI but X is taking steps with AI “slowly” to make advertising more effective.
Brand safety is a key topic for X, with “numerous tools” to ensure ads placed on the platform are done with brand safety in mind.
Naomi Chapman, Spotify
Next up was Naomi Chapman, senior client partner at Spotify, who took to the stage to share her insights and advertising trends for 2025. With the highly anticipated Spotify Wrapped finally landing this week, it is one of Spotify’s “biggest events” and the “most popular time” on the platform.
Beyond music, she explained how users see Spotify as an “essential app” which is “everyone’s companion throughout the day” with 92% of users using the platform everyday. But those who haven’t used Spotify to connect with audiences may think it’s all about audio – and it’s not. Spotify has become “essential” for brands as a crucial part of the media mix and there is a “huge visual element to the platform”.
The platform has become a discovery tool with a more holistic, personalised element to the app, which builds unique user data that Spotify can use when planning marketing campaigns, allowing for more targeted advertising, or to share information with advertisers on how to reach audiences.
Spotify knows the age, gender, location and other signals of the user, helping advertisers with more targeted and efficient content. She then shared how Gen Z audiences, which is one of the fastest-growing audiences on the platform at the moment at 60%, are craving authentic connections.
And with the introduction of podcasts, which is one of the “fastest forms of media” that users are consuming, she believes digital audio will “keep growing” but the future of audio will be both sight and sound.
She explained how around 75% of Gen Z audiences and Millennials have reported that they use podcasts to learn things they wish they learnt at school, so from a brand perspective ads can be placed around podcasts.
This offers more opportunities for advertisers to reach the right audiences, receive more attention as users are more engaged when listening to podcasts, which ultimately generates more awareness and sales.
Maddie Forman, TikTok
Maddie Forman, business development leader at TikTok, took to the stage next. TikTok Shop is now one of the “most exciting things” on the platform and is a space that is “evolving incredibly fast”.
It has gone from “nothing” to an “amazing ecosystem” in the space of just three years.
To demonstrate the growth of TikTok Shop, she explained how makeup brand Made by Mitchell made £2m in just one day on the platform recently, and people are spending £11,000 on TikTok Shop – even purchasing luxury handbags on the platform.
TikTok Shop has taken off due to social commerce accelerating rapidly and by 2030, she said global commerce is expected to be worth “trillions of dollars”.
Brands and retailers need to be “agile to keep up”. She explained there are a lot of reasons for this boom, with 82% of social users now engaging in shopping-related activities on entertainment platforms. Thanks to TikTok Shop being integrated on the platform, it makes it a lot easier for users to make purchases and the act of buying is “so simple and easy”.
She provided an overview of the four different content formats for advertisers, explaining how there is a “whole ecosystem of shop ads” to support brands and retailers alongside the organic channels.
On the trends she’s seeing, she argued TikTok Shop is becoming the “standard way that Gen Z shops” with affiliates becoming “very powerful”.
Zoe Harkness, Thinkbox
Next up was a deep dive into the new trends in TV and viewing trends with Zoe Harkness, head of training at Thinkbox. There was a “massive upsurge” in video viewing during Covid but now, things are pretty stable for AV viewing, she explained.
There has also been a shift from linear viewing to on-demand viewing, with video on demand showing strong growth of 22% this year. Thinkbox predicts this will “keep growing next year”.
This move towards on demand viewing has also changed the genres we watch, with 40% of audiences viewing drama and film on demand.
When it comes to streamers, there has been steady growth but last year this “dipped slightly”. Thinkbox has also spotted a behaviour called “subscription cycling” where users sign up for a subscription, binge watch, and then unsubscribe.
She shared a number of other trends and insights including how audiences watch around three hours of content on TV every day, 80% of that is broadcaster TV with 71% linear and 9% broadcast VOD.
15% is for streamers – Netflix is the biggest at 8%, Amazon at 3% and Disney + at 3%. In 2023, audiences watched 17 minutes of video ads every day which remained the same as 2022.
With streamers such as Amazon and Netflix now showing ads, it means there are now more places to “advertise high quality content”.
Although the landscape is quite complex, she shared how there are lots of opportunities for AV advertising. Providing a snippet of Thinkbox’s recent research, she shared how advertisers can “improve ad recall” by 6.8 times if they consider six key factors: the device; whether you are watching with other people or not; type of content; mood; location; and satisfaction.
Rob Smallwood, Meta
The final talk of the day was with Rob Smallwood, Head of Industry and Media Agencies at Meta, who focused on ‘mega trends’. Unsurprisingly, one of those mega trends is AI which has already replaced “lots of manual processes” and has been a big part of Meta for the past 10 years with its vast opportunities.
According to Smallwood, Meta’s audience continues to “grow at scale” with billions of people using the platform every day.
Back to AI, he explained how the use cases of AI “are phenomenal” and gave an overview of Meta’s Ray-Ban glasses where users can ask Meta AI questions and the AI can respond and provide information on what they are looking at. Meta AI is an assistant built on Llama large language model 3.2 which operates like ChatGPT, and it is also available for users to use in the search bar on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
WhatsApp fans will soon be able to use Meta AI in WhatsApp conversations, where you can ask it for dinner or holiday suggestions in group chats.
The metaverse also remains a “big bet” for Meta, and underpinning this will be developments in AI. He explained Meta is a “big believer” in open-source technology and the “future of large language models” is open source so “the community can learn together”.
For next year and beyond, he said it will be interesting to watch how the role of business AIs can be developed within messenger.
But right now, AI on its own is “just not enough” and AI is “only as good as the data you feed it”. Although he said it’s fair to say AI will “transform the performance of platforms”, there is a “huge amount of strategic work that needs to go into it”.
He explained how there is also a “shift” in marketing right now and user journeys are being disrupted from how quickly you can go from discovery to purchase with ease. Generative AI will be able to help with personalisation at scale and predicting customer behaviour.
Meta AI has also challenged traditional audiences by allowing AI “to do the heavy lifting”. Over the last 18 months, Meta has seen a “phenomenal return on ad spend” just by using automated products.
By allowing the algorithm to “run free” users can see around 80% exclusive reach on the platforms and when it comes to peak season, automation can drive “even better results”.
He explained this is valuable as it is driving incremental sales, sales which wouldn’t have happened without the technology. As for the future, he shared how Meta is now focused on providing more controls to marketers and adding value.
Panel discussion: ad budgets
Wrapping up the event, the leaders gathered on stage for a dedicated panel session chaired by Alexandra Balazs, managing director of Prolific North.
Maddie Forman explained TikTok is “becoming the store front” and key to purchase decisions when quizzed on why brands would spend on the platform. “If you are focused on driving actual concrete dollar signs, then the combination of TikTok and TikTok Shop is a great way to spend your marketing budget.”
For brands not on the TikTok platform right now, she explained how TikTok Shop is a “very accessible way to start ad spend” and is the least technical way into ads on the platform. TikTok has also become the “search engine of the generation” with Gen Z now using TikTok more than Google to search for things.
Moving onto the opportunities for brands on TV, Zoe Harkness from Thinkbox said there are “more opportunities” for targeting when advertising on demand rather than linear. Linear TV “offers the best of both worlds” if you want to reach everybody, but sometimes it may need to be more targeted.
On Meta and the wider media mix, Rob Smallwood said the platform does lots of research and has partnered with Oxford University on what he believed is the “biggest academic study into brand building”. According to findings from the research, attention is optimal and no channel should have more than 50% of a budget.
“Making sure you spread the budget is very important,” he explained. From a performance perspective, he said Meta obsesses about proving value for clients by showing incremental evidence. When done right, Meta can drive real value.
“The automation we see is only showing value back to clients. Eye balls are still a very important starting point. Creative is so important on Meta – 60% of the impact on Meta is through creative.”
Over at X, Chris Treacy said there are two superpowers for advertising – cultural connection and how important it is to purchase journeys, and reach to unique audiences.
“When you are planning your campaigns, think about the power of that audience and how they can play. X is making real improvements in the platform for SMEs and smaller advertisers.”
With over 30.3m monthly active users on Spotify, Naomi Chapman explained how accessible Spotify is and that organisations can start an ad from £250 and Spotify will craft an audio ad for free.
When it comes to trust in AI and the future of human connection, Smallwood said legislation is “really important” but it is important not to over legislate and “hinder innovation”.
“We need to understand the biases of technologies and AI. This is why Meta invests in a cognitive diverse workforce and has checks and balances such as privacy and ethical reviews to ensure that what they build isn’t developed in an echo chamber in California.”
In agreement, Treacy said trust is “extremely important” and said all platforms have a “big job to do to make sure the trust is there”. 2025 is set to be an important year for this, particularly with the Online Safety Act coming in. “This bill will give us a level playing field as everyone has to adhere to this legislation,” he explained.
Questioned on the one piece of advice the leaders would give to advertisers using their platforms for 2025, Chapman said it’s “all about testing” as results are visible in real-time. All of the leaders agreed on testing, with Treacy adding they need to keep an open mind, trust the results and data, and for advertisers to be “bold enough” to go beyond what they think their target audience is.
Smallwood said brands and advertisers need to have “clear ideas” of what they stand for with brand guidelines, assets and USPs.
For Harkness at Thinkbox, she said TV can be tested regionally or targeted via postcode before something is rolled out nationally. “TV is more accessible and more affordable than you might think.”
TikTok is “driven by authenticity”, explained Forman, so advertisers need to “keep it real” and consider the role of creators and how they can help to scale content.
