PR trends for 2025: navigating the hybrid world

It’s the time of year when we apply our learnings from the past 12 months to shape the next 12.

Our prediction for 2025 is that we’ll ride in on 2024’s coat-tails. And, far from being ragged and tatty, 2024’s coat is remarkably well maintained. For starters, it was the first “normal” year post-Covid, which is in no small measure due to light at the end of the tunnel when it comes to load-shedding and to our government of national unity living up to its promises.

Overall, there’s a marked upswing in optimism and stability that should kick-start a socioeconomic uptick. Within this context, the communications industry needs to be ready to play its part.

Here are four more trends that merit discussion:

1. Communication and business strategies are aligning: The lines between the comms delivered by agencies and their clients’ business goals are converging, with corporates giving their agencies more oversight of their strategy than ever before. In turn, this is enabling the measurement of return of investment in terms of both spend and strategic success. Another benefit for companies that are being more transparent with their agencies is that this return on investment measurement will stand them in good stead when it comes to delivering award-winning work. But more about that another day.
2. AI is learning its place: My standpoint on AI tools like ChatGPT hasn’t been overly positive. These tools are hyped as the solution for more creative output, faster, but the simple truth is that they don’t deliver on creativity and the tools curtail our ability to apply free, new thought. Instead of generating original content, they regurgitate existing ideas and present them well. So, I’m pleased to see that usage has moved away from content creation and towards saving time and money. Need research? Want to streamline processes? Need to pull the main themes out of a two-hour planning session? AI is your friend but the human overlay is crucial, with the combination of efforts being important.
3. Hyper-targeting is delivering spot-on results: The ability to laser-focus on delivering the right content to the right people, at the right time, is critical. And the clear leader in this race is LinkedIn. While the platform falls under “paid media”, its value is justifying the spend, and bolstering the gains from “earned media”. LinkedIn is here to stay. Does this mean that other social channels will fall by the wayside? Time will tell. But it’s my opinion that agencies which don’t use LinkedIn to its full potential are likely to see the wayside up close.
4. Video is killing the radio star: As our first digital-native generation grows into a targeted group of consumers, savvy communicators are realising the value of video content. This generation is adverse to reading and consumes the overwhelming majority of the information that influences their decision-making via video — be that reels, Instagram or TikTok.

In the traditional media space, publishers that combine video and print are more likely to last the course.

Overall, PR and its practitioners are in a positive space but 2025 is going to demand less same-same and more up-your-game.

Kevin Welman is a director at ByDesign Communications.

The big takeout: 2025 is going to demand less same-same, and more up-your game.