Every year we talk about how dynamic marketing is but the past three years have witnessed the most rapid transformation for businesses in marketing history. Millions of businesses have been forced into “adapt or die” situations, where the businesses that can adapt and improve survive, while the “slow” ones fade out. 

To help businesses thrive in this era, I have put together the most important marketing trends you need to pay attention to for the next 12-15 months. 

Video or Nothing

The rise of video is not really a new concept if you have been paying attention to content, marketing, and advertising in the last few years. Users are going all in on video, creators are going all in, and businesses and advertisers are obviously also going to dive in (in fact, they already are). 

I’ll bore you with some stats. According to Statista, the number of Nigerians using YouTube is expected to hit 12 million in 2025, compared to around 5.3 million in 2021. When you consider the rising rate in Africa as a whole, you’ll easily see how much video is dominating marketing (and this isn’t stopping anytime soon).

Platforms like Instagram and, most recently, Twitter (X) are quickly becoming video-first platforms. Instagram now prioritises reels over every other content type, and Twitter is pushing videos in front of more and more people. Then there’s TikTok, which, as of May 2024, has 1.04 billion monthly active users worldwide—let that sink in. 

And it’s not just that it’s getting views; more and more businesses are investing in video content and video ads. Advertisers could reach 1 billion people worldwide on TikTok and over 1.7 billion people on YouTube. On YouTube, the cost per impression is also relatively cheap, and the ROI is also higher than on other platforms with the same budget.

If your business isn’t using video, there’s no better time to rethink your marketing strategy than now that more than 90% of companies are using video to power their marketing. Heading into 2025, businesses have to be video first, and this isn’t for B2Cs alone. If your business isn’t using video, you’d most probably be among the ones that will fade out. 

Generative AI

Remember 2023 when everyone was freaking out about AI? Google searches were blowing up with “Will AI take my job?” and analysts were writing eulogies for content writers. It’s the first quarter of 2025 nothing much has changed, AI didn’t “steal our jobs”, but I have to admit that it has changed how we approach work, by a lot. 

The Marketer’s New BFF

Here’s what you need to know:

• We’re coming clean, a whopping 75% of marketers are now teaming up with AI tools regularly
• Attention spans are shrinking faster than my patience for loading screens. So, marketers are turning to AI for help creating content that actually holds people’s interest.
• Even tasks like AB testing, video editing, and design that usually take weeks (and quite some money) can now be easily achieved in days, and sometimes little to no money. 

Many creatives are embracing AI-generated content instead of starting from scratch. I’d dare say that most of the content you see out there today was aided by Gen-AI at some point. This applies to everything from copy to design to entire campaign strategies. (How do I know this? Take a deep guess.)

Right now, the major use cases of generative AI includes:

• Brainstorming
• Developing or editing content and copy
• Generating images that don’t scream “stock photo”
• Data analysis, predictions, and forecasting

And this is just the beginning.

The Future is AI (And It’s Personalised)

AI is being integrated into workflows and processes at each part of the customer journey. The more it learns, the better it gets at crafting personalised marketing strategies. 73% of respondents in a recent survey by SurveyMonkey say AI plays a role in creating personalized customer experiences. We’re talking about AI that can predict almost every twist and turn from awareness to interest to conversion.

So, here’s my prophecy for 2025: AI will take your job… to the next level!

If you’re not already, the best time to start using AI tools for your marketing is today.

AI vs Search 

More people used AI for search in 2024 and usage will only increase in 2025. I recently surveyed with 130+ respondents. 37% now use AI for most of their searches, 27% use AI for complex queries only and most (67%) of the respondents would “definitely” recommend AI search tools to their colleagues. Search engines already know this, recently Google launched their AI-organized search which can now provide quick answers, summaries, and overviews for queries in search engine results pages. You might have noticed it in your search experience. It’s being called Google AI Overviews (AIOs), and it integrates generative AI into the search experience by combining their Gemini large language model (LLM) with its core web ranking systems to generate summaries for search queries.

These AI results rank first on search engine results pages (already unveiled in some countries) which I believe will potentially affect SEO, ranking, and visits on blogs and websites in 2025. Though there has not been a significant effect in terms of the volume of users (yet), SEO experts are saying that at this pace it is only a matter of time before we start seeing the impact on search volume and website visits. 

The AI overview results also recommend relevant blog posts where readers could find more information on the search term(s). Since Google insists that users are more satisfied with their search results when they contain AI overviews, expect more of these features in the coming months.

The biggest question for blogs right now is, “How do I get my website to be used and featured by Google AI.” the straight answer is that Google has not provided any guidelines on getting featured in AI overviews but to be on the safe side, just maintain best SEO practices: Relevant and quality content written for humans.

Rise in Authentic Content 

Everybody loves change, everybody loves AI, or at least the concept of it. As for the applications, people are more on the sceptical side. A study conducted by researchers at MIT Sloan, senior lecturer Zhang and research scientist Renee Richardson Gosline titled “Human Favoritism, Not AI Aversion” revealed some interesting insights into how people perceive and react to content:

1. Bias Towards Human Content: People were biased to choose human-written content over AI-written content, as long as they knew it was AI-generated. For most people, consuming AI content seemed like they were being fooled or tricked. 
2. Quality Perception: Here is the twist, as long as they did not know the source, content generated by AI (ChatGPT-4) and augmented AI (AI with human assistance) was perceived as higher quality than that produced by human experts and augmented humans (humans assisted by AI).
   
3. Human Favoritism: It’s not that we hate AI content. We just really, really like human stuff. It’s called “human favouritism” – which is just a fancy term for “I’m gonna consume this instead because at least I think can connect with whoever wrote it.”

What does this mean for content? We’re seeing a shift back to the real deal; authentic, human-made, and human-focused content. The more AI, the more people want to hear, “Hey, this is me (a human) talking to you.” Formats like video content will continue winning because they feel real. It’s harder (for now) to fake a human on video than in writing.

So, marketers and content creators should focus on emphasizing the human element in their content strategies for 2024/2025. Sure, use AI to help out, but don’t let it take over your brand’s voice.

Maturing of influencer marketing

In the past few years, we’ve seen influencer marketing mature very quickly. Influencers were primarily celebrities but have evolved beyond that to include social media influencers of all sizes and niches who interact and connect with people more closely. Marketers are pouring more and more money into influencers, more than 80% of marketers now agree that influencers are important to their overall social media strategy.

And they’re not wrong since the data supports this; close to half of consumers (49%) buy products at least once a month because of influencer posts and recommendations. And 89% make a purchase inspired by an influencer at least once a year. Numbers and stats aside, a large number of Africans will agree that many of the products and tools they use were recommended by people online, and a chunk of those people are influencers. 

In case you’re thinking it; no, this trend extends far beyond physical products alone. Influencer marketing also drives product signups, online course sales, and digital services. Are seeing remarkable success through influencer partnerships. Here’s what we’re seeing shape the future of influencer marketing in 2025:

Focus on Micro, Nano Influencers, and niche influencers.
Most brands are now hiring smaller influencers, and you should, too. Their engagement rates often outperform mega-influencers by 5x, and their recommendations feel personal and trustworthy to followers.

Content Co-creation is taking Center Stage
Instead of asking influencers to promote products alone, brands are involving them in everything from strategy planning to content creation and community engagement. Startups like Cleva are one of the brands getting it right with co-content creation. Bamboo Invest also did this with its stock market course 2.0 series.

What this means for Marketers in 2025:
Budget allocation will have to be more strategic. Investment in marketing might need to be increased by most brands. Marketers might also need to directly get involved with influencers at different stages of the partnership 

Influencer marketing in the continent will see a continuous increase this year, but the key to reaching people through influencers in 2025 will not just be about large audiences, but creating authentic content.