Nielsen has released its seventh Annual Marketing Report, revealing how marketers are taking action to adapt to changing market trends and how they are embracing evolving technologies such as AI and shoppable advertising.
The report, which surveyed global marketers, identified three trends in advertising, providing crucial insights to deal with an uncertain and constantly changing marketplace.
Connected TV (CTV) and Retail Media Networks were two areas that marketers saw opportunities in. Overall, 56 per cent of marketers reported a planned increase on over-the-top OTT/CTV spend, a rise of three percent year-on-year, and almost two thirds (65 per cent) said that retail media networks would play a growing role in their media strategies this year.
Interestingly, whilst new budgets do still predominantly go to digital channels and overall budgets are less this year, more marketers are planning increases to their traditional media budgets compared to 2024. Indeed, 16 per cent plan to increase their out-of-home budget by over 50 per cent this year. When it comes to AI, almost three quarters (71 per cent) of brands with large ad budgets ($1B+) see AI for personalisation and optimisation as the key trend likely to impact their business in 2025.
These findings were all offset against a trend that sees marketers preparing for a leaner 2025. Over half (54 per cent) of global respondents said they were planning to cut ad spending in 2025, a figure which was even higher in Europe (60 per cent).
The second trend is the decision that marketers are making between growing bottom-of-funnel revenue versus developing top-of-funnel brand awareness. The report uncovered stark regional differences. Marketers in North America and Asia-Pacific are balancing a near-even split between brand awareness (48 per cent and 50 per cent respectively) and revenue growth (47 per cent and 52 per cent respectively), whereas in Europe, 59 per cent of European marketers put revenue growth at the top priority, compared to just 37 per cent for brand awareness.
In Latin America it is 46 per cent compared to 41 per cent in favour of brand awareness. Another balancing act for marketers to master is around the share of paid marketing budget going to digital versus traditional channels. Almost a quarter (24 per cent) of global marketers said digital would be their priority, whilst almost a third (32 per cent) said traditional would be their focus. The majority (44 per cent) though gave a balanced answer with Latin America having the most even distribution.
Finally, the third trend uncovered is how success is measured in a constantly changing world. The majority of marketers are struggling to bring digital and traditional channels into a holistic measurement framework – only 32 per cent of marketers globally say they measure their media spending holistically across both digital and traditional channels today, and this is even lower in Latin America (29 per cent) and Europe (23 per cent).
There are also numerous challenges to calculating ROI of cross-media campaigns. These include issues with data, weak tools, too many vendors, and a lack of transparency across new channels, such as retail media networks, which are exciting but add complexity.
“Our latest Annual Marketing Report has uncovered that, despite difficult economic uncertainties, marketers are demonstrating their inherent agility by embracing new touchpoints like Retail Media Networks and CTV, optimising media mixes, and leveraging AI,” said Alison Gensheimer, SVP, marketing, Nielsen.
“To truly capitalise on these advancements and align media investments with objectives, reliable and comprehensive measurement is paramount and, at Nielsen, we are committed to ensuring measurement solutions keep pace with the complexities of modern cross-media advertising, supporting growth now and well into the future.”
This is the seventh annual marketing report Nielsen has produced and the fourth to be global. The report leverages survey responses of marketers across a variety of industries whose focus pertains to media, technology and measurement strategies.
For this report, Nielsen engaged 1,400 global marketing professionals who completed an online survey between Feb. 25, 2025, and March 6, 2025. In terms of seniority level, global brand marketers at or above the manager level were engaged, all working with annual marketing budgets of at least USD$1 million (AUD $1.6 million), and two out of three with budgets over USD$10 million (AUD $16 million)
