We review our 2025 predictions & map the playbook for 2026

Haydn Woods-Williams: 0:08

Hello, we are back from a short hiatus while we got our marketers of the universe ducks in a row. My name is Hayden Woods Williams. I'm the digital marketing team lead here at Blue Digital. I'm here with my co-host Tom Innis to talk about everything that's happened in 2025 and everything that we predicted at the end of 2024, how our predictions went and what we predict for 2026. This is going to be our final podcast of 2025. So hopefully we can come back in a year and say, God damn, we are good at this. Or we can come back in a year and say, God damn, we need another job. For now though, let's crack on with the podcast.

Tom Inniss: 1:20

A little bit concerned that you think we might need to find new jobs if our predictions aren't very good, because I have got the list of predictions, and the only person who got a prediction wrong was me. But we will get to that a little bit later because I think I was done dirty. So as Hayden said, we are looking back at 2025 predictions before we jump into 2026. And I thought, Hayden, the easiest way to do this would be to just play the predictions that the team made last year and then get your reactions. So I'm gonna start with this one from Nasha.

Nasya Nasseira: 1:56

Hey, Nasha here, Paid Media Manager at Brew Digital. My marketing prediction for 2025 would be how everything is going to be all about short, impactful content and smarter tech. We can see how within the B2B space, LinkedIn has started rolling out short form videos similar to YouTube Shorts. So B2B brands and leaders are going to get really, really creative with storytelling in under 60 seconds or less. Let's see if my prediction hit the mark this time.

Haydn Woods-Williams: 2:34

Did it hit the mark? I think it did hit a mark. I think there's there's there's mixed mixed points here. Firstly, I think um there are some incredible creators now. I'm thinking specifically at LinkedIn um from a B2B perspective. And one of the things that that's been really impactful over the last 12 months and that Nash predicted, or or no, LinkedIn had released shorts from video at that point. So maybe it was like a a catching like the crest of the wave rather than predicting. Uh sorry, Nasha, but we're seeing much more creative content come onto LinkedIn, which is really nice. There's still a lot of slot on there, but there's some really, really creative, forward-thinking ways of of kind of delivering a B2B message. And that is is brilliant for our industry. There is obviously a an influx of of more kind of like Gen Z and younger people coming into the industry, and I think that has helped push creativity and really challenge how older marketers or or people who are more experienced marketers create content and approach content.

Tom Inniss: 3:41

Do you think that this short-form video content is actually helpful for B2B businesses now? Because it always feels a little bit more taxing to watch a video than it is to read something. And perhaps I'm the outlier here, but I think it's more taxing to watch than to read. And from a creating perspective, to create video is so much more time consuming than just being able to put words on page.

Haydn Woods-Williams: 4:09

I think LinkedIn vertical videos are receiving like 84% higher engagement compared to the landscape format. So the data says that yes, it there's it can't lie those numbers. Like it's clearly good for engagement and engaging people. I think there's maybe a kind of question mark on how measurable it is, on how much of a measurable impact it's going to have on revenue and bottom line, that's a challenge marketers always have to face. Um, and I think there's also, particularly with LinkedIn shorts, there's a challenge that sometimes creators don't put the brand at the forefront. So sometimes you can be creating entertaining content, but the brand may not be um kind of shown. But I think it's really about consistency. And if you create content that is consistently engaging people, whether that's vertical or or horizontal or static or whatever it is, that's going to have a positive impact on your brand. And even though those things aren't measurable, they definitely have an impact.

Tom Inniss: 5:10

Yeah, well, we we've been saying all year that 2025 is the year of the brand, isn't it? And I suppose from a branding perspective, having those brand ambassadors or people who you can put at the forefront and really have their personality come through in video is helpful. And that is perhaps something that is more difficult to get across in writing.

Haydn Woods-Williams: 5:28

Definitely up. I mean, interestingly, I'm actually the same, the same as you in that I much prefer written content, but the numbers don't lie, man. Numbers don't lie.

Tom Inniss: 5:38

Yeah. Nasha um Hayden says you uh were successful, but he also questions whether or not it was a prediction. Next up, we have got Mark Bundle.

Mark Bundle: 5:49

My 2025 prediction will be that AI will roll back an awful lot, at least in terms of its public face. Um I think a lot of the things at the moment, people have been crying AI, AI, and then not actually getting any value from it. Uh what we'll see is more background processes adopting this and providing real value, while people aren't necessarily soaking your face and loud about it.

Haydn Woods-Williams: 6:09

AI was really a big gimmick last year, wasn't it? Like 2024 Christmas, like massive gimmick.

Tom Inniss: 6:15

Uh yes, it was. And I would say I've sort of been banging this drum that we're in a bubble regarding AI. I think the numbers now make absolutely zero sense. And from a consumer's perspective, it's very difficult to present meaningful value to what AI can do and at a level that will generate the revenue to claw back the investment and everybody's rushed to put AI into their um earning calls and into their product features. It was all just to pump the numbers. Wheels are still turning, everybody's still trying to make AI a thing, but people are now starting to question where is the actual value and the utility of AI. And we're now having to actually stop and think about how we intelligently apply AI to situations rather than just throwing an LLM into a product.

Haydn Woods-Williams: 7:10

Yeah, it's it's interesting, especially if you look at it from two different hats on, tinfoil hats, if you will. Um, you've got from a marketing point of view and from a kind of commercial, not commercial, corporate point of view, where there is definitely a a kind of rollback of the visibility of people using it. Like people are definitely using it, but they're shouting about it less. And and and as Mark predicted, people aren't outwardly saying that they're using AI to create stuff as much anymore because people are starting to really suss out and see the trend, like the the ways that certain AI platforms uh format things. So people are getting much better at recognizing what AI is. There is more work being done where people are kind of using it in a more stealthy way, and people are using it for tasks in the back end, or for improving efficiencies, or for kind of being able to deliver on scale, which is where I think it's has a really positive impact.

Tom Inniss: 8:11

Yeah, I think the the practical uses of AI to increase efficiencies and um operate at scale, that is where AI has always shown the most promise. I think actually you we are gonna come and touch on that a little bit later as well.

Haydn Woods-Williams: 8:26

The thing that's really important is that if you are using AI, is that you maintain the human element as well. Um, because it can be so damaging to your brand. And and I think if you are a B2B brand or a even a kind of consumer brand that's that's kind of on the smaller side and doesn't have that brand equity, you need to make sure that you are ensuring that it is human, that you have a human side, that anything that is going into AI and is being kind of like generative and creative is well considered and well researched so that you don't just turn out the first thing that comes out and then share that.

Tom Inniss: 9:05

Next we move on to Debbie, our senior social media manager, who talks about that authenticity.

Debbie Gacutan-Jardim De Oliveira: 9:14

My 2025 prediction for social media B2B is that we will see more video, but authenticity over aesthetics. We see this a lot with B2C, with Instagrammers, uh, with a lot of influencers, wherein you see really handheld cameras um type of video, um, very much not edited, not super branded. I think this is gonna creep in to um B2B type of marketing, wherein you will see more of behind the scenes and customer stories and really more genuine type of content.

Tom Inniss: 9:51

There we go. It's basically everything we just spoke about.

Haydn Woods-Williams: 9:54

Yeah, although how terrifying is it that AI can now take a video of me and change my mouth movements and have me say something that I didn't say, or you know, a brand can create uh an influencer that is totally AI that's pretty believable and have that as their kind of brand ambassador is it's it's pretty terrifying. And Debbie's completely right, but I feel like AI has also like she obviously mentioned that the lo-fi video and the authenticity is going to overtake, you know, those those kind of big studio shot things, but actually like AI caught up very quickly to do it. I do agree, I think this is something that is happening, and again, that kind of like TikTok um experience and the short form content we've already spoken about all kind of feed into this. Um, I think there's a big lesson though for B2B brands generally, in that you know, to be creative, you don't have to go and spend loads on the studio. Let's try and ignore away from AI. For example, on TikTok, I think there's like a 32% higher watch-through rate on lo-fi ads, which is a trend that's kind of happening at the moment, compared to like Polish studio kind of counterparts. And I think on TikTok that that makes a lot of sense because you're basically when you're running paid ads and ad content, you're trying to look as natural as you can in that environment. And if you're creating ads that look like TikToks, then you're going to stunt stand out by blending in, if that makes sense. And I think that's where I'd I'd want to look at this stat that I kind of just said and try and understand actually on LinkedIn is that the case? On YouTube, is that the case? Because I think there's there's a lesson in that lo-fi ads are good and they have their place. Um, but also there's a lesson in making sure that you're running ads that look like social content.

Tom Inniss: 11:55

Yeah, it's about looking native to the platform that you're advertising on.

Haydn Woods-Williams: 11:58

I love that you said that in five words, in what I said in like 20 sentences.

Tom Inniss: 12:05

I try tried to cut through the noise. Uh because I wasn't born into marketing, Aiden. I've just been adopted. So authenticity over aesthetics, another win for the marketers. We'll now move on to our next prediction, which comes from Shinru, who is our senior SEO manager.

ShinRoo Chao: 12:27

So for the 2020 prediction on SEO, definitely uh AI is a hot issue. I know in every industry or in every marketing channel, AI is the hot topic. So for SEO AI is still evolving. So there's not it's not like something done. It's still kind of what we learn from what we observe. Uh keep going, um pay attention, um, uh user intent on the keyword expert. And they're trying to use question uh-based way, kind of a conversational way to create your content that would be more helpful.

Tom Inniss: 13:15

Stick to user intent and use key uh question-based conversational approaches to content creation. I think 100% correct. We've definitely seen that evolve this year.

Haydn Woods-Williams: 13:26

Big winner, massive, massive winner. Like Google launching AI mode in March, um, which would admittedly was terrible when it first came out, but it's actually got better and better and better. Is pretty much exactly what Shinri predicted here. And from an SEO point of view, taking all that into consideration and really optimizing for getting into those AI search results is more important than ever. I think on mobile, which you know is most of search these days, um, I don't have an exact percentage, but I think I I read a stat that's they've seen uh a 77% increase in zero click rates. So people's traffic is dropping, but that is fine. But the way people behave on the internet is totally different now. And if you're being referenced by an AI answer, that has as much trust as being top of the SERP results. The biggest difference is there is a chance that because people don't intrinsically trust AI, that people can then navigate your site from there to basically vet you as an authority. And if you kind of pass that vetting, then suddenly you've got um kind of brand equity with someone that you wouldn't necessarily have from a SERP page click.

Tom Inniss: 14:50

I am a little bit more concerned about this increase in zero click rates. I think it can or has and will continue to pose quite a lot of um difficulties for businesses. I mean, I'm coming at this from a more journalistic side, that is my background, and I think just having your content scraped and presented is very damaging. You also get you don't have that same control over your audience data, you don't get to build that relationship with your audience in the same way you are now even more reliant on Google firstly presenting you as a source in AI and then hoping that people click through. Um and yeah, building up that brand trust is very important. But as you said, 77% of searches are now um ending with zero click rates. And I think for anybody but businesses that need to sell things online, if people aren't actually clicking through to your website, that is going to have an impact. But it it is just the reality of the internet now because it is controlled by these giants who have a vested interest in essentially keeping people on platform. And we need to find a way of navigating that as marketers, but we also need to find a way of communicating that to our audiences that, yeah, your traffic rate is going to drop.

Haydn Woods-Williams: 16:15

I think your perspective is really interesting. Um, I don't know if I fully agree. Um I think there is there is a marketing, um, and I've worked with journalists as well, and journalists love this as well. This, like, oh, I've had X number of visits to my article, and that's that's kind of like a an easily measurable uh sorry success thing, KPI. There you go. Um, I think we as marketers need to just let go a little bit of this obsession of uh tracking people through their journey to to buying from from us. Um we obviously mentioned uh in in all of last year or a lot of last year about the importance of brand and the fact that you had to create content that had to rank on Google really bloated so many websites. Like one of the perfect examples is recipe websites, right? And I think people like companies' websites, if if you strip back a lot of that fluff that is around everything, that is pulling people who maybe will never buy your products onto your website, and those people instead stay with Google. Um, I don't love Google being this kind of like Emperor Zorg character, but it reduces the number of irrelevant people on the site and it hopefully allows you to drive people who really have intent, people who really understand your brand and people who are more likely to buy. It feels bad because numbers look like they're going down, but trust in it and understand that you're you are having an impact by building brand and being visible where it's convenient for people.

Tom Inniss: 18:00

Yeah. I suppose we'll just have to wait until there's more research into the numbers to see whether or not this is driving down conversion rates in businesses at least. But I know from a journalist perspective, it is definitely difficult. So if your business model as a journalist is on page view selling ads, yeah, mass art, that is, I would say, also the fault of all of these journalistic endeavors that failed to properly monetize their content in the first instance and were happy to be subsumed by Google in the early days, and now this is just coming back to bite them. But there we go. Lessons from the internet we should have monetized earlier. Anyway, platform exodus. Uh this prediction came from McKelley, and I'm gonna say in advance, a pretty easy prediction to make, and he was very vague.

Michele Rafaelli : 18:55

I do see exodus from certain type of platforms. That's something that may happen more often next year, where the user slash consumer will have more power. And I do expect a couple of new platforms coming out very strong. Um I have a couple of names that I monitor recently, but I don't want to mention them. So I won't affect this change.

Tom Inniss: 19:23

Like, firstly, I love that Michaela believes that his word will impact the trend of social media growth. Uh, but secondly, I don't think it was a particularly risky bet to say that there will be some platform exodus, considering that we had seen X, formerly known as Twitter, now known as the Everything app, uh basically shit all over its brand equity and its users and uh the trust and safety of the platform over the course of the year. Yeah. Not a not a um huge surprise to see that it has continued to consolidate, let's say.

Haydn Woods-Williams: 20:00

Yeah, this this was this has been a conversation that's been happening basically since Elon Musk took over X, right? Um and while it is a hot mess, it's still a hot mess that exists. And it has its platform and it has its users, and I think they're probably a lot more male and right-leaning than they were 10 years ago on Twitter. Significantly more. But I think we're we're maybe I I'd almost say this is this has actually been wrong because X is still existing, and you can't even say that it's not doing okay.

Tom Inniss: 20:38

Well, we don't know.

Haydn Woods-Williams: 20:39

That's the thing, it's been taken private. That's one of the parts why you can't say it. And I think there's just becoming more places for people to exist. Um where there are communities of people that are similar thinking, that is a challenge in itself. It's actually probably quite good for the B2B marketers because it's easier to identify where your audience is going to be. But it probably creates more echo chambers than we've ever had before, creates more division than we've ever had before. Um but I don't think we've necessarily seen the big exodus because I think that had already happened with X.

Tom Inniss: 21:21

Yeah, definitely. Uh I will say that in other conversations and other podcasts, he did say that threads was also a lost cause. And that has just proven to be completely wrong. I always believed that threads had a lot of potential because it's a meta product. And the reality is meta know how to growth hack. If absolutely nothing else meta know how to growth hack an app if they're that way inclined. And by putting threads into Instagram, which has not seen any particular drop in numbers, I think I believe actually it has seen continued growth alongside Threads. I would say that Threads is kind of coming out here as a bit of a winner in all of this. Obviously, Musk has X now and it's bought him the influence and it's got him his right wing leaning trolls. And um, LinkedIn has consolidated its position as the business thought leader area, even though it's moving into short form video content. But Meta kind of has that full complementary suite of video, short form text content, and you know, Instagram's core use, which was originally imagery and is now, I suppose, video as well. And Mastodon and Blue Sky have kind of they're not really anywhere now. Nobody is talking about Blue Sky or Mastodon in the same way they were when Musk first bought X. I think everybody sort of signed up, got an account, and then never used it.

Haydn Woods-Williams: 22:55

Completely. I think um I think the one that we're we're we're all ignoring um is Reddit. Like we've we've not mentioned it there. It's it's probably the the most relevant from a B2B or most relevant growth platform from B2B. And actually, you know, user-wise, they've grown significantly in 2025. Uh revenue-wise, they've grown massively in 2025. Or had revenue, they've grown massively in in 2025. I think 68% year on year in quarter three, which is huge. So people are going to Reddit to advertise more and more and more. And it's definitely the time now to try and tap into that while it's still in its kind of infancy. Um, and it it's basically for the exact same reason that I I said a minute ago, like with communities. Uh, and I think that is the the benefit that Reddit has now that maybe an X or a Blue Sky or even a Fred's has is X is for a certain type of person. LinkedIn is for B2B people or working people. Threads is for people rebelling against X. It's not that simple, I know. Um, but actually on Reddit, because of the way that they've built it, you have everything on there. You have communities that literally everything, and that's really powerful.

Tom Inniss: 24:20

Yeah, it definitely adds to that authenticity angle. Although I will say I have noticed more and more bot accounts appearing on Reddit recently, which is a bit of a shame. And I think in their pivot to monetize and to AIFI all of their users' content, we lost a lot of knowledge by people diluting their accounts. But yeah, no, Reddit is definitely a dark horse in all of this, I would say. Because I thought I was never going to go back to Reddit when they made all of those community changes and I'm still on there every day. Every day.

Haydn Woods-Williams: 24:54

Yeah, and no one's basically social media either. No, you like I uh I don't use social media, and uh they've got eight hours of Reddit on their phone.

Tom Inniss: 25:04

Anyway, I'm very conscious of time. We have got four more to get through. So we're moving on to yours, Hayden, now, uh, where you spoke about strategy.

Haydn Woods-Williams: 25:15

With the tightening of purse strings uh across loads of businesses with kind of political pushes and budget tightenings and taxes and whatnot, um, we're really gonna see companies that don't have defined business objectives, that don't have AKRs or KPIs, that don't have defined marketing plans. I think 2025 is the year that you see the gap between those that do and those that don't drift further apart, particularly with the growth of AI and the implementation of AI. How do you feel about that now, a year later? I think whoever said that is an absolute genius.

Tom Inniss: 25:51

I mean he got it right.

Haydn Woods-Williams: 25:52

Yeah. Um and I think I think it'd be interesting, and I I should have looked at this beforehand, but to see how many businesses actually went into administration in the last 12 months compared to the previous. And obviously, yeah, I think the state of the world on top of this kind of um will will have impacted that as well. But I really do think that people who have kind of particularly jumped into the AI too quickly without having a plan, who have jumped between channels without a plan, I think they are we're starting to see them really start to fail and and and kind of drop out. Um yeah.

Tom Inniss: 26:38

Yeah. You can't go half-cocked anymore.

Haydn Woods-Williams: 26:41

No. No, and and actually because AI is so easy to use, and let's be honest, people continue to be lazy. The companies that are actually doing the research, whether using AR or not, but actually putting the hours in to understand the environment, to understand their business, to understand their customers, and to plan around that, are doing a hell of a lot better than those who are existing by the seat of their pants and marketing day by day.

Tom Inniss: 27:13

Yeah, 100%. You say being lazy around using AI, I would say actually it's being efficient. At this point, you can't really afford to not use AI for some of those high-level data analysis bits of work. They will help you identify the trends and the patterns that you might otherwise miss. Um, or they will take off the administrative load to allow you to do that high-level strategic thinking. So it's now at the point where if you're not using AI, you are you are gonna fall behind. And that to play into your strategy.

Haydn Woods-Williams: 27:46

Completely. I I think um when what I meant with lazy there is um you are completely right with what you've said, and there are the people who aren't using it, the people who are using it, and then you've got the people who are using it because it can get their job done rather than using it in a planned and kind of considered way. Uh I've seen it. I've I've seen it far too often with some clients where you ask for a content for a website or content for whatever it is, or um for a plan, and something comes up and it it's just got AI written all over it. Yes. And that's what I meant by lazy, lazy usage of AI.

Tom Inniss: 28:24

Yeah. And again, it just comes back to being considered with your usage. Great. So moving on, we have got Kieran who is talking about social media and Google.

Ciaran O'Neil: 28:44

My prediction for 2025 is that Google as a search engine is gonna get knocked off the top spot in more age demographics than just the young ones now. Social media will become the default for the search engine. It will no longer be Google. And that is going to be a worry for um many businesses because they're gonna have to start really understanding how to utilize the e-commerce functions of these social media platforms.

Haydn Woods-Williams: 29:16

I think we can probably say this is correct. But you can look at it, and Google's market share dropped below 90% for the first time in in over a decade. So people are using other platforms to find out about things, more passively find out, I think. But the thing that I think we maybe don't consider with with these kind of things, and and there was a stat that said 40% of Gen Z users prefer TikTok and Instagram over Google for search, is when people are looking for a company or a brand after discovering them on TikTok or on Instagram or on any other social media channel, the likelihood is they're probably still Googling that brand. And I think that's that's those kind of things like people are are purposely attacking Google because it is such a monster, but it's so ingrained in our everyday usage that we kind of forget how much used it is.

Tom Inniss: 30:23

100%. At this, I was more confident in Kieran's prediction at the start of this year than I am now. I would say Google in the beginning of 2025 had real headwinds. Um, they were facing a lot of legal battles, they were getting absolutely trounced by ChatGPT. They were seen as flat-footed and complacent leviathans, essentially. And I would say that they have actually really pivoted. Um, you know, you said earlier about um the generative AI search results being really crap at the start of the year, and now they have turned it around. And I would say that that is wholly accurate. I think they have suddenly started to be much more considered about how they are implementing AI, and they've got a lot more joined up thinking, which has, I feel, required like an institutional shift in how Google operates because they are just a chaotic company that don't know what left hand and right hand are doing. But there suddenly seems to be a lot more joined up thinking with how Gemini is being implemented and how it's being marketed. I mean, they've managed to make um OpenAI dance in the last month or so, put them on a code red because of how good their LLMs are and how their multimodal approach to search is empowering users to search how they want. I mean, our Gen Z Gen Z nearly 40% are preferring TikTok and Instagram over Google, as you said, but that's 60% of people who don't, and falling below 90% sounds problematic, but still I think it might be around 88% um citations required. And that is massive. That is massive. Like there's no way around it. Like, yeah, we um Kieran is right that they are declining, but I would say that Kieran is wrong in terms of losing the top spot. And I I can't see a future in which Google loses the top spot unless they're broken up.

Haydn Woods-Williams: 32:21

No, completely. And and listen to the wording of that stat as well. 40% of Gen Z say treatment. Like they prefer. So they're not saying that they don't use Google, they're saying that they prefer. And and I think again, it's thinking about how people use these platforms for searching for things. Actually, thinking about something one of our old social media managers said, that they would always look for their food recommendations on TikTok. Actually, yes, you would, but then you're probably not finding the location on TikTok. You're probably having to go to Google to find the location. And I think what you've said about Google turning it around in in 2025 is is completely true. Um, and I think that's completely reflective in how they've kind of hired and fired as well. I think they had loads of kind of like voluntary redundancies or whatever you want to call it across loads of departments, but still had like a I think a 3% growth in in employee headcount. So they're just changing where they are investing in people. And I'd be really interesting to see, I don't even know if this guy is available, uh, what that kind of change rate looks like that like leave us and join us in 2025 versus any other year of Google Existence. Because I think they have just kind of, as you said, taken the problem head on and adapted, and adapted an absolute colossus of a beast.

Tom Inniss: 33:50

Yeah, a hundred percent. I don't have that stats a hand, but I would be surprised if you didn't see a lot of hiring in the AI sphere. Um, I know po uh during the pandemic, all of the big tech companies other than Apple really went on a massive hiring spree. And then um, I think it was Professor Scott Galloway described the reckoning that came afterwards, like the Patagonia recession, because basically they had to get rid of everybody as they realize, oh shit, no, we've overhired, this growth is not going to continue. And then that pivot to AI has allowed them to make further efficiencies and reduce headcounts in some areas where they've then had to hire experts in the AI industry to try and ramp up their efforts. And I I'm sort of jumping the gun here because I'm pulling this stat from research on another prediction, but 14.3% of US searches result in a click to a Google property. So that's gone up from 12.1% the previous year. And that again just sort of demonstrates that the power of entrenchment and Google's ability to do all of that joined up thinking because they have so many properties across so many areas, they're able to direct you immediately from okay, this is your intent. Do you want to see reviews? We've got Google Maps, we've fed reviews into that. This is how you get there. Um, we have Gemini, which is able to pull a range of information across so many different products. Like, like I said, I think that at the start of the year they lacked that strategic thinking to pull all of this together. But now that they are actually firing on all cylinders and are able to do so, they they are the ones to beat at this point. Which is why my prediction kind of fell flat. I think Apple's gonna make a search engine. I think that the DOJ will look at Apple making a monopoly, uh not a monopoly, making a search engine as an end to Google's monopoly. Because Apple, one of the reasons Apple probably hasn't made a search engine so far is because Google throws them $20 billion each year just to be the default search engine. And part of that deal is that Apple don't make any sort of search products. So now that money stops, I think Apple will be like, hey, we're gonna make a search engine, and uh it's gonna be the default, except in Europe, obviously, where we have things running a little bit differently, and they probably won't be found a monopoly because it they don't have the same market share. I was wrong in that Apple was going to make a search engine, but I think I was hamstrung here because the DOJ won their case. Google was found to be a monopoly. I'm pretty sure they also lost their ad tech case as well. Uh, they've lost the Epic case, they've had to open up the Play Store. So all of these things have gone against Google, but the remedies are such that basically they get to carry on uninhibited. Um, like, yes, they've had to change the Play Store model, but I think that was a reckoning that was coming anyway. But in terms of the search engine result, the judge has basically gone, well, this is really hard, so uh don't worry about it. You know, at one point it was looking like they might have to actually sell Chrome. They haven't even had to do that, they haven't even had to stop the deals that they've already got in place. They can continue to pay Apple to be the default. So it's like, what was the point? What was the point?

Haydn Woods-Williams: 37:11

Yeah, I mean, yeah, it was a bold, it was a bold prediction. And I wonder as well, like on top of all of the things that you've just said, whether everything we've talked around about AI and search also impacted that. Like, actually, how much of a benefit anymore is there to be the market leading search engine? And I think, you know, Apple, they're not dumb. I think there were just too many things that happened in the first three to four months of this year that completely would derail any chance of this happening.

Tom Inniss: 37:45

Apple lent more on the LLM side of things, but their AI efforts have not been particularly successful. And I think what we're seeing now is them being quite clever in essentially using all of the RD that all of these other companies have spent billions of dollars on to improve their own product. Uh, you know, Apple AI, Apple Intelligence, no good. So they just use open AI models, Gemini's coming into it soon. So they can have all of these other companies build out the models, and then Apple just gets to use it. And we don't know the specifics of like the deals that are being made, but ultimately, if people are searching using your platform, you get the search data which allowed you to continue to refine it, which was one of the arguments made in Google's case in the first instance. And I think one of the remedies perhaps is that they have to open up the search data. But again, they're so far ahead, and it is such an entrenched brand and an entrenched product with such joined-up thinking across product lines that DuckDuckGo is never going to be able to touch it in the same way.

Haydn Woods-Williams: 38:54

And even all of the AI brands launching browsers, I say all a few of the AI brands uh launching browsers, I now can't think of a single one.

Tom Inniss: 39:03

Um ChatGPT launched one.

Haydn Woods-Williams: 39:06

Dia is another. Barely made it 10. They've barely made it 10 um in this Google universe. I think what Apple does have that Google doesn't necessarily have is a certain like sexiness. Um that is where a lot of their kind of brand equity is, and there's probably some kind of um reluctance to risk losing that because if you lose that and you you put too much risk on that by chasing something that isn't that important, then you lose a hell of a lot of brand love that has been built up over years and years of being sexy.

Tom Inniss: 39:47

Yeah, 100%. I mean not to bash Apple too much, but that is what we saw when they started chasing all of the AI stuff, the launch of Apple intelligence and the promise of all of this predictive super intelligence. Enhanced Siri, that came to nothing and it damaged the brand. And there's been a lot of departures in Apple, we should say, around the AI aspects of their work. And when they made that advert of crushing creativity and all of these beautiful objects, and they just put it all under a hydraulic press and said, like, here's an iPad, it can do all of it with Apple Intelligence. That annoyed a lot of people as well. So I think, yeah, trying to chase that next best thing kind of did a lot of damage to them. And now they can now they need to just sort of focus on what is important to like the actual brand, which is product and the experience. And if they can take other people's work in this instance, talking about LLMs, and then make that into the Apple experience, that's going to do them so much more good than um just making a search engine. Our final prediction comes from Safie, who was our social media manager here at Brew Digital, and it is about basically everything we've spoken about over the last hour or so.

Saufi Mohd Nor: 41:00

My prediction for 2025 is that all social media platforms will punish posts that has outbound links even harder now. Um X or Twitter kind of made it known, they hate it. We understand it, we respect it, I guess. I mean, platforms hate it when you ask people to kind of leave their platform and go somewhere else. But what's gonna happen is it's gonna be like more competitive in the social media platform, and all marketers really have to step up um their zero-click content strategy uh in 2025. So we'll see if that happens or not.

Tom Inniss: 41:40

Pretty, pretty emphatic win there for Selfie.

Haydn Woods-Williams: 41:44

Yeah, yeah. I mean, he's he's he's nailed it, hasn't he? Um I miss Selfie. He's uh he was a very great, very good member of the team, always with a lot of insight. The zero-click thing, we've spoken about it on the search front. We've not spoken about it on on the social front, and and I don't know if this is this year, but you look at the way that LinkedIn and Facebook are showing content that or organic content that sends people away to the to to third-party websites, and and it's harder than ever to get growth uh and and visibility on something that links away from from those platforms. So it's really important to be creating content that is native to the platform. And I think you see it in um I think Facebook is a an interesting case because actually the content on Facebook is is pretty dreadful these days. Um but you cannot click anything anymore, you have to go to the first comment. And I think that's happening more on LinkedIn. So people are trying to find ways around it, which means that actually we're seeing worse user experiences. But if you're a brand who is wanting to be valuable and be memorable, then you need to think about how you can put your content on the the social platforms natively and sh with value being provided in the feed without asking the user to leave.

Tom Inniss: 43:19

Is there an argument to be made that these social media platforms now are essentially only useful for paid?

Haydn Woods-Williams: 43:26

From a brand perspective or from a user perspective? We'll go brand. Brands, no, because people are still interested in what you have to say. And when a user or a buyer group or someone is interested in in purchasing something, they will research you. They'll research you through Google, they'll research you on LinkedIn, they might research you on Instagram to understand what it is you do and what it is you offer and what your values are. And that's where organic content is really important um in in kind of building up that that window into the business almost. Um, yes, there is less visibility than there's ever been. Yes, the chances of going viral are almost impossible these days, particularly from brand accounts, but they still are very, very important.

Tom Inniss: 44:20

So it it is treating your profile essentially as an archive of personality rather than a way of actually pushing people to your website at this point.

Haydn Woods-Williams: 44:31

Yeah, I think so. I think so. It's it's to be seen as somewhere else that your your brand exists. I think if you're measuring performance on clicks to to the website, you're years behind, it's just not going to happen. That's not how users use or want to use the platforms um anymore. It's not the way that the platforms want users to use the platforms anymore. Um, and you know, we we've kind of spoken about it with with Google earlier on, but they're all doing the same thing. It makes sense and it is better for them to, the platforms being them, to have users stay on their property rather than away.

Tom Inniss: 45:12

Yeah, I'm just always reticent to cede more control to these platforms when we've just seen such inshitification over the years, and that loss of data is ultimately what has given these platforms the power to now charge you rent to access your own audiences again. Um, and just some stats that I pulled up. Um, you know, Facebook gets double the engagement on posts that don't have links, and even LinkedIn has a 25 to 35% reach reduction on posts that have links out there. So you are essentially painting the fences of these platforms by creating content that keeps people on said platforms where they can then be monetized by the platforms from your pockets to then reach your audiences in a manner that then allows you to convert them. I yeah, I just it's a very clever business model, but I do wonder whether or not it's something that we should have a more dim view on rather than going, that's just how it is.

Haydn Woods-Williams: 46:20

Yeah, completely. I think from a moral standpoint, outside of work point of view, like I mean, I don't really use social media. Um, other than Reddit, I'm that person I was talking about earlier. Um we're all that person. Um, so I I don't intend to use it, but I think you're completely right in that in shittification. And and one thing that's been kind of consistent across most social media is as soon as brands get involved, the platforms start to die. Uh LinkedIn is slightly different because it's kind of built around brands, but even so, it is like I feel like with all social medias, it's it's a it's a big peak and then a slow, monotonous like journey towards death. We we saw it with Facebook. Facebook was the and when I say Facebook here, I go me meta, I mean Facebook as a platform. It was the 100% must advertise huge opportunity 10 years ago. Um and since then, actually, who are the people that you're reaching on Facebook? People who have to be there for work, people who are selling stuff on marketplace, uh, and then just angry people beyond that. Because of the fact that everything was monetized and every third post was an ad, for the user, it just became unusable. And I think Instagram, in a way, is going that direction, not as severely. I think Meta have learned their lessons. LinkedIn, for sure, is packed full of ads. And we spoke about the rise of Reddit earlier and the increase and growth they've had. Actually, they need to tread the careful line of not kind of over-advertising and avoiding that kind of overusage of data and and kind of selling out, if you will. To be fair, with Facebook, it survived a hell of a longer than I thought it would, considering 10 years ago it was where your parents were. Like it is it's still somehow relevant.

Tom Inniss: 48:21

Instagram. It's driven by Instagram. I mean, the blue app is what they refer to Facebook as, but Instagram, I think, is kind of where the growth engine is for Facebook, uh, for meta, sorry. And it still generates a lot of ad revenue. Like they are massive. They are massive and they are continuing to grow. And that is, I mean, that is why they're able to hire all of these AI data scientists, why they're able to burn so much money each quarter on the metaverse. Do you remember that? Like, we're so dedicated to the metaverse, we're going to change our name to Meta. Um, and that's gone precisely nowhere. It yeah, they their their ability to monetize their users is, I think, emblematic of the issue of the internet, but it is also their greatest strength. And unfortunately, that is just the economics of digital services. So they are that's I think that's why they're the second biggest advertiser on the internet after Google.

Haydn Woods-Williams: 49:19

Yeah, I mean, what's what's really interesting, just out of curiosity, I I I searched this. 2015, 968 million daily users, 2025, 2.1 billion. Like people are still using it. But why that's the big question. I'm not sure we can't. Maybe that's how we wrap things up, but why are you still using Facebook? Is it so you can buy that new guitar on Facebook Marketplace?

Tom Inniss: 49:46

Yeah. But again, don't forget, they've got threads, they've got Instagram, they've got WhatsApp, they have Oculus, they have got fingers in many pies alongside a very comprehensive advertising suite. Yeah. And they're able to continue to monetize rage. So they, yeah, they they are gonna be fine in the short term, unfortunately.

Haydn Woods-Williams: 50:14

That was a comprehensive discussion of everything that we predicted last year. Um, Tom and I spoke for a lot longer than we anticipated. How long that is on the episode, we'll we'll find out in the editing phase. But hopefully we've been brief, we've been interesting, and you've not been brief. We've not been brief. Thank you, Tom. Um hopefully we've been interesting. Uh but to keep you listening for a little bit longer, um, we have gone through our 2026 predictions um across the team. We're gonna play you out of those. Uh I'm Hayden, and I've been here with uh Tom Innes, uh, and we are the marketers of the universe.

Michele Rafaelli : 50:58

I'm ready to make my big prediction for 2026. And looking at how things are ending for this year, I've noticed a massive increase in um hyperpersonalization of marketing. What I am predicting now for next year is that these will be too creepy for users and people will stop to have this level of super personalized um ads or contacts, and uh the ethical reason and the common sense will prevail. Let's find out in 12 months if I was right.

Katherine Ogunkoya: 51:38

So 2026 predictions, um, we're actually seeing a lot of this already. Um, one is social search um will keep growing. A lot of the younger generation use TikTok and Instagram for recommendations on products and on things to do. Um, so I think we'll see a big uptick in of that in 2026. A lot of brands will really need to optimize their captions and keywords so that their content can be found um in feeds as well. Um, secondly, AI content will explode. Um, we'll want to see a lot more AI content. Um, but with that means there'll be fatigue around AI as well. Um, when everything starts kind of looking AI generated, a lot of people really start to crave kind of human content and human signals. So any brands that rely too heavily on AI really risk alienating their customers. Um, I think there will definitely be a push more human content.

Haydn Woods-Williams: 52:33

My 2026 prediction is that companies who invest more in human-driven marketing strategy rather than over-relying on AI will perform better. AI will still be crucial and can help with efficiency, but the companies who will see the most growth are those that don't rely on AI to streamline their planning and their customer research. Those companies need to take time to reassess and understand the business and its objectives and its environment, and that time spent will allow you to stand out in a world where people are speedrunning their strategy through AI. On top of that, I think, rather boringly, that consistency is going to be the strongest tool in a marketer's arsenal and we'll argue in the brand credit that's vital to getting customers to buy stuff from you.

ShinRoo Chao: 53:33

The prediction for SEO in 2026 is definitely from what we have seen in 2025. 2026 will no longer be just about being first on page one. It will be about being trusted, source that AI assistance, chat box, and search engine can cite, summarize, or even surface to the users. Those brings that master these shifts, such as combining as per content, multiple platform visibility, general authorities and the smart AI friendly optimization will definitely win. And the SEO will involve into search everywhere optimization. The user journey begins across multiple platforms, not just Google and search discovery will fragment across multiple platforms, such as ChatGPT, voice interface, video platform, uh YouTube, and uh even social networks.

Katherine Ogunkoya: 54:40

I know you asked for one, so you don't have to use this one. Um, but I'm just gonna add it. I think we're gonna see a big trend in terms of content in 2026, and that will be nostalgic content. We're already seeing a lot of 90s, early 2000s music, fashion, and pop culture making a comeback. And I think that's gonna be one of the big content trends of 2026. People just kind of like to look back. So I think we can expect more kind of retro references, more throwback content really shaping what performs well in 2026 as well.

Nasya Nasseira: 55:13

Hi, Nasha here, Paint Media Manager at Brew. Here's my biggest marketing prediction for 2026 is that Thought Leader Ad is going to be the best performing ad format. And from what we've seen this year, personal posts from executive leaders are outperforming brand page content by a huge margin. And we're talking three to six times high CTRs and CPCs dropping as low as four pounds. And when you think about it, it makes sense. People don't open LinkedIn to hear from brands. They want perspectives from real credible people they trust. So the brands that will win next year are those that can get their CEOs and leadership team comfortable on camera, share content consistently, and to leverage their own personal networks.