An increasingly saturated social media marketing landscape is making it more difficult for marketers to create relevant, impactful ads. As we enter 2025, brands must stay ahead by embracing paid social trends driven by consumer behaviour and technological advancements.
The digital marketing landscape has become increasingly competitive, with consumers experiencing growing ad fatigue as they are exposed to more and more ads every day. As a result, marketers can face greater challenges and demands to craft relevant, enticing content that truly resonates with their target audiences.
This year, it’s crucial that marketers and brands stay on top of evolving trends driven by technological advancements and shifting consumer behaviours. This article will explore some of the top creative trends shaping the social media advertising landscape for 2025.
Scaling Ad Creation and Personalization with AI
AI has been a dominant trend in the marketing space for a few years now and will continue to ramp up in 2025. With 56% of marketers saying their company is taking an active role in implementing and using AI and 51% using AI tools to optimize content, it will reshape processes and outcomes in the marketing industry. AI-powered ad creative, in particular, is becoming an essential tool for marketers, allowing for increased image and video generation while saving time and resources.
AI can be a cost-efficient way to increase creative diversity and volume in advertising campaigns, which is becoming increasingly important. Creativity is no longer limited to the capabilities of an individual graphic designer or video production team, introducing unlimited potential. Additionally, AI allows for increased personalized campaigns at scale by leveraging data-driven insights and improved efficiency in ad production while being highly cost-effective for brands.
With generative AI tools, brands can input customer insights and ad performance data, enabling the AI to analyze the information and generate ad creative and copy tailored for optimal success. The primary advantage of generative AI lies in its ability to produce copy and visuals, including photos and videos, that resonate with specific target audiences. AI can also analyze multiple audience segments, allowing for the creation of customized content uniquely suited to each group.
With new programs emerging, a growing number of AI resources and tools are available for marketers to leverage, such as Motionapp.com, Midjourney, and Jasper.ai. These platforms’ ability to efficiently generate a high volume of personalized content can allow brands to stand out and stay ahead of the competition.
While AI allows brands to create content more efficiently and at scale, it is important to ensure ads remain focused on building trust and fostering a genuine connection with consumers. Creating content that looks low-quality, amateurish, or is easily identifiable as AI will not generate trust with your audience; emotional and human-centred approaches remain essential.
Content Creation with AI Influencers and Virtual Personalities
AI influencers are set to revolutionize the marketing landscape, offering brands an innovative way to connect with audiences. Brands can leverage AI-generated personalities to produce creative, trend-driven content quickly and at scale while aligning with evolving digital trends. Their innovative nature can resonate with younger, tech-savvy audiences who are drawn to fresh and engaging online experiences. More and more brands are experimenting with AI influencers, with Hugo Boss partnering with Imma and Nobody Sausage, and Prada introducing its own AI model, Candy, as the face of its perfume line.
Powered by technology, AI influencers can produce high-quality, audience-tailored content, promote products, and endorse brands for marketing campaigns, all while achieving impressive engagement rates due to their novelty and unique appeal. They offer brands innovative and highly targeted ways to capture the attention of diverse audiences and niche markets, reshaping how brands connect with consumers. Their key appeal lies in their low-cost scalability, as AI influencers can produce content around the clock and engage with a global audience without limitations, including language barriers. However, without the authentic, emotional connection that human influencers offer, there can be a sense of disconnect with the audience. As AI technology continues to evolve, these influencers will play an increasingly central role in shaping the future of marketing.
Another growing trend is leveraging virtual personalities in UGC-style content to produce low-cost, lo-fi videos for advertising. Brands can craft viral video scripts tailored to their performance goals and use AI programs such as Arcads and Captions to select AI avatars modelled after real people to deliver the message in a way that mimics organic content. By combining these virtual personalities with brand-specific UGC elements, companies can produce authentic-looking videos at scale and at a relatively low cost compared to typical human-generated UGC.
As AI influencers and avatars continue to evolve, it’s crucial for brands to prioritize transparency by clearly disclosing AI-generated content and sponsored messages in their ads. This helps build trust with audiences while adhering to ethical marketing practices.
Connecting with Authentic, Relatable, and Human-Centered Ads
As AI imagery and influencers begin to fill social media feeds, consumers may be drawn to experiences that feel more authentic, personal, and emotionally engaging. Brands may be able to stand out from their AI-using counterparts by running ads that evoke emotions through real-person storytelling and personalized experiences that foster deeper customer loyalty and leave a lasting impression.
One popular way for brands to develop authentic, storytelling messaging is with user and influencer-generated content. Creators are becoming an increasingly important part of a brand’s strategy, allowing businesses to foster genuine connections rooted in real customer satisfaction. According to a Nielsen study, 92% of consumers trust earned media, such as user-generated content from friends and family, above all other forms of marketing, highlighting its potential for brands.
According to Meta, campaigns that combine partnership ads (boosted creator content) with business-as-usual (BAU) ads drove 53% higher click-through rates and 19% lower cost per action and had a 99% probability of outperforming BAU ads alone. Creator content will likely continue to be a significant asset for brands due to its strong performance, versatility, and cost-effectiveness, especially as the demand for higher volumes of content continues to rise.
Another increasingly popular way to create authentic, relatable ads is incorporating low-fi creatives. “Lo-fi” or “low fidelity” content is intentionally unpolished, mobile-shot content that projects relatability and authenticity. While it may lack the polish of high-production content, lo-fi content resonates with audiences because it feels real and blends seamlessly with social platforms’ organic content from users.
A standout reason authentic lo-fi content can perform well is the genuine and relatable nature of the content, which feels native to social media platforms and resonates with audiences.
Embracing authentic, relatable, and human-centric ads will be key for brands moving forward. By prioritizing personalized experiences by delivering tailored and diverse content, and putting customers first, brands are able to foster genuine connections and build trust with consumers.
Short-Form Content Gets Longer
Short-form video has become the dominant trend in organic social media and beyond, with multiple platforms prioritizing it in their algorithms. Short-form videos generate 2.5x more engagement than long-form content, with 36% of social media marketers reporting that short-form videos deliver the highest return on investment among all ad formats. Additionally, with 90% of consumers watching short-form videos during their free time, this format can drive results and integrate seamlessly into consumers’ daily lives.
In 2025, the length of short-form content is changing. Short-form videos on sites like Instagram and YouTube Shorts have traditionally ranged between five and 90 seconds, though it has been increasing in length in response to user engagement.
In late 2024, we saw YouTube extend YouTube shorts from 1 minute to 3 minutes, citing that it was a “top-requested feature from creators.” Any video uploaded to YouTube that is under 3 minutes will now show up as a Short. Similarly, Instagram has increased the length of IG Reels from 90 seconds to 3 minutes, following feedback from creators who felt that 90 seconds was just too short. Meanwhile, TikTok, the leading platform for short-form content, continues to extend video length and currently supports video content of up to 60 minutes long.
Longer short-form videos allow for better storytelling, keep viewers engaged for extended periods and offer the opportunity to more deeply explore a topic or foster stronger connections with viewers. Longer content can also allow for more varied content types like tutorials, Q&As, or behind-the-scenes footage, offering more flexibility for both creators and brands. Despite the extended length, longer short-form videos still remain cost-effective, as many brands opt for lo-fi, authentic content, including influencer-driven or user-generated material, to maintain a budget-friendly approach.
As short-form videos remain dominant, emerging technologies will continue to shape their evolution. AI will enable more targeted and personalized ads, while interactive features like polls and shoppable links will boost engagement and return. Augmented reality will also allow for a more immersive ad experience through gamified ads, virtual events, and showrooms, and cross-platform tools will streamline content adaptation across short-form video platforms, enhancing efficiency and consistency.
Increased Need for Ad Diversity and Ad Volume
The push for diversified ad content is set to grow even more prominent in 2025. Both Meta and TikTok’s ad auctions prioritize delivering the most relevant content to individual users. As consumers are exposed to an increasing number of ads, ad fatigue becomes a significant challenge. This highlights the importance of brands offering fresh and diverse creative options to maintain engagement and achieve optimal performance.
Ad creative plays a crucial role in targeting. If a brand runs 5 similar ads, they may all be served to a similar audience, limiting the reach and impact. To maximize effectiveness, brands should diversify ad creative to target different audiences in different stages of the buying process. Both the key messages (benefits, us vs them, founder’s story, stats, etc) and the formats (Reels, carousel, single image, catalog) should be tested. Increasing both the diversity and the volume of your ads can not only improve a brand’s success but also help reduce creative fatigue for consumers.
As the social media ad space becomes increasingly competitive and saturated in 2025, brands will need to diversify their strategies to stay ahead. We can expect to see more innovative ad content driven by AI, creative collaborations with influencers, and advancements in technologies like augmented reality.
