Brands face heightened uncertainty in 2025, echoing the disruptive conditions of the pandemic era
We’re in a moment that feels a lot like 2020, but worse in a few ways. Back then, we didn’t know what was coming. Now, we do, and it’s still hard to move with speed. Brands are stalled. Advertising teams are stuck, waiting for clarity on trade policies, platform rules, and economic direction. It’s a bad place to be, especially when everyone around you is also pausing.
The trade war initiated by the Trump administration has triggered new levels of unpredictability in global markets. Supply chains are changing. Costs are shifting. And marketing budgets are back under the microscope. For many organizations, the initial response has been to pull back, diverting funds from brand-building into low-cost, direct-response channels. That might make sense in the short term, but it builds nothing long term.
During the early pandemic, we saw this same hesitation. While some brands leaned into digital aggressively, most hesitated. They waited, lost time, and later struggled to regain traction. Risk aversion delayed their ability to benefit from platforms growing beneath their feet, platforms that are now dominant.
The real issue here isn’t a lack of opportunity. It’s a failure to act when the landscape shifts. There’s plenty of growth available for brands willing to commit to consistent visibility and relevance. Sitting still during change is not a winning strategy.
David Cohen, CEO of the IAB, got this right when he said, “Now is not the time for fear. Now is not the time for hunkering down and short-termism.” He’s right. Long-term thinking beats reactive moves every time. And in a market that’s evolving fast, brands that default to low-performing channels just to feel “safe” will likely exit this cycle weaker, not stronger.
The media landscape has become increasingly complex amid accelerated digital transformation
The media world today isn’t the same place it was five years ago. The pandemic accelerated everything, consumer behavior, content platforms, advertiser expectations. Digital media didn’t just grow, it splintered. And with that, the structure of internal marketing teams fell behind.
What used to be a manageable setup, maybe a digital manager and a media lead, has gotten complicated. Now, you’ve got people focused on retail media, search, organic social, content, influencer, traditional media, and more. The idea of owning a “channel” has become obsolete. What marketers are really managing now is context, how a message behaves across dozens of different environments at once.
Sorin Patilinet, who led marketing effectiveness at Mars, described this shift well. He said that in the past, it was simpler. Today, he noted, brands are juggling managers for search, retail, and organic, all layered on top of what used to be traditional roles. That’s the reality today, more platforms, more complexity, and more risk of teams operating in silos.
What this means for you as a decision-maker is simple: cohesion matters more than ever. Distributed media roles can’t function without clear strategic alignment. Fragmentation opens the door to inefficiencies and wasted spending if not closely monitored. Integration isn’t optional, it’s critical.
The complexity isn’t going away. But teams don’t need to chase every new platform blindly. What they need are flexible systems, clear workflows, and the right performance metrics to prioritize and scale what works.
The problem isn’t that there are too many options. The problem is alignment. Smart executives will focus on building capability stacks that bring these layers into view, structured, visible, accountable. From there, scale is just execution.
TikTok has redefined social media content and engagement, reshaping brand advertising strategies
TikTok didn’t just arrive, it took over. It changed the way people use social media, changed how content is discovered, and forced advertisers to rethink everything from production timelines to storytelling approaches. At its core, it eliminated the traditional boundaries of the “social graph”, the old idea that your feed represents who you know. Instead, TikTok made content discovery algorithmic. Relevance took priority over relationships.
In 2020, TikTok became the most-downloaded app globally. Pandemic conditions amplified its reach, but the user experience and content model are what gave it staying power. Short videos, delivered by an unpredictable but highly personalized algorithm, turned the platform into a high-engagement space almost overnight. Brands soon realized they weren’t just advertising, they were participating in culture, in real time.
This shift came with operational challenges. Creative development needed to speed up. High production costs needed to drop. Marketers had to lean on creators, not agencies. Content cycles became shorter, attention spans tighter, and brand tonality more authentic. Formats changed. Expectations changed. But the ad ecosystem took longer to catch up.
Alison Mayes, Managing Director at Apollo Partners, summed it up well. She noted that traditional commercial production, with long lead times, no longer fits. The pressure to be fast, relevant, and real outweighs traditional media polish. Ben Allison, EVP of Media at VaynerMedia, echoed this, stating TikTok created a “stickier” user experience that drives stronger engagement and more content sharing, especially among Gen Z.
In response, ad dollars followed. In 2021, TikTok claimed about 3.7% of U.S. social media ad spend, around $2.1 billion. That share more than doubled the following year. By 2024, WARC projects the platform will bring in $11.8 billion in U.S. ad spending, about 13.5% of all social media spend. At the same time, Facebook, once the leader by far, dropped from 65% market share in 2020 to around 49.8% in 2023.
Still, there’s hesitation around measurement and ownership. TikTok has improved its analytics tools, but early limitations and lingering concerns about Chinese ownership have slowed full adoption. The U.S. has twice postponed decisions about forcing a sale of the platform’s U.S. operations. Those questions haven’t gone away and may return with urgency soon.
Despite the uncertainty, the short-form, creator-centric model that TikTok pioneered is now embedded in the system. Other platforms are copying it, trying to match the engagement. And advertisers are no longer asking if TikTok matters, they’re asking how to do it right.
Connected TV (CTV) is gaining traction as a flexible, real-time planning tool
Consumer behavior in video has shifted permanently. During the pandemic, people moved faster than the platforms. Cord-cutting accelerated. Viewers wanted control, what to watch, when to watch, and on what device. As a result, connected TV (CTV) surged in adoption, and it’s now a key battleground for both content and advertising.
For brands, this change unlocked a different kind of flexibility. CTV allows marketers to allocate budgets in real time, not lock them up in 12-month linear TV contracts. It also offers targeting precision, contextual, location-based, behavioral, that traditional TV simply can’t match. For small and mid-sized advertisers, especially those previously priced out of national TV, programmatic CTV levels the playing field.
But growth hasn’t been frictionless. Measurement is still a problem. Unlike legacy TV, which relied, flawed as it was, on consistent ratings systems like Nielsen, CTV is fragmented. There’s no standard methodology that advertisers universally trust. It’s a mix of platform dashboards, third-party reports, and incomplete reach and frequency data.
Jamie Rubin, Chief Media Officer at 22Squared, noted that platforms are aggressively acquiring premium live content, especially sports, to capture attention and ad dollars. That effort is paying off. Streaming platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video are no longer just about content, they’re also building serious ad-tech stacks to compete directly with traditional broadcasters.
Alison Mayes added that the real value of CTV lies in its planning agility. Budgets can now be shifted by the week, even daily. The old way, committing thousands or millions up front, is outdated. She noted that even quarterly planning can feel too slow now.
The scale is growing. Digital video, which includes CTV, will account for 60% of total video and TV ad spend by the end of 2024, up from just 30% in 2020, according to the IAB. CTV spending reached $15.6 billion in the U.S. last year, compared to nearly $56 billion for linear TV. But the balance is shifting steadily. eMarketer expects CTV to overtake linear TV spend by 2028.
That said, accountability still lags. Rubin emphasized that the industry’s historical dependence on reach and frequency is now being tested. CTV can’t fully deliver on those legacy metrics yet. Initiatives like the ANA-backed “Aquila” project may help create cross-platform measurement standards, but these solutions are early-stage.
For executives, CTV is no longer optional. It’s a core channel. But winning in this environment depends on more than shifting dollars over. It requires strong data infrastructure, transparency from partners, and creative suited to how people actually watch content on streaming platforms. The opportunity is clear. The challenge is precision and consistency in execution.
Retail media networks have surged post-pandemic yet suffer from opacity and fragmentation issues
Retail media has become one of the most aggressive growth areas in advertising. It accelerated in 2020 when physical retail took a hit and e-commerce became the core channel to reach consumers. As shopping behavior shifted online, major retailers began building their own ad networks using first-party data from digital transactions. What you see now is the result, hundreds of retail media platforms, all racing to scale.
Advertisers moved quickly to take advantage of this closed-loop environment. It offered clear purchase signals and direct links between ad spend and sales outcomes. For many brands, retail media became a bottom-funnel priority, one that made CFOs and procurement teams comfortable. But fast growth also created operational bloat. Too many platforms, inconsistent measurement, limited visibility across channels, it’s a fragmented system that breaks easily under scrutiny.
Alberto Leyes, SVP of Go-to-Market Strategy at Guideline, noted that COVID-19 created the necessary urgency for retail-first companies to finally stand up their own media networks. These networks had been discussed prior, but this was the first time the incentives aligned with execution. Since then, advertisers have flooded in, chasing precision over visibility.
According to eMarketer, U.S. retail media spending is expected to grow 20% this year, reaching $62.35 billion, with projections pushing that number above $85 billion by 2027. In 2020, CPG advertisers alone increased their retail media spending by 93% year-over-year. These are massive figures. But they also mask the inefficiencies that come with this pace.
The major issue lies in evaluation. Each platform operates in isolation, with its own attribution models and return-on-investment benchmarks. Advertisers can’t easily compare performance across retailers, which leaves many guessing. As Alison Mayes put it, “I want to see which retailer is performing the best. Everyone has a little bit of a different approach of how they’re getting to those analytic numbers.” That lack of consistency erodes confidence and can limit budget expansion into the channel.
Ben Allison of VaynerMedia pointed to a growing concern around saturation. He expects a wave of consolidation, as only a few platforms will have enough scale and technical maturity to win long term. That means businesses need to be careful about overextending into too many retail media networks without clear, measurable outcomes.
Retail media has clear value. But unchecked growth with no standardization creates friction, both for media planners and financial stakeholders. Leaders who want real returns here need to push platforms for clearer metrics, more consistency, and ultimately, fewer but stronger partnerships.
Economic volatility encourages brands to favor short-term performance strategies
Turbulence in the global market frequently pushes brands toward immediate wins. With interest rates fluctuating, stock market instability, and supply chain stress rising again under new trade restrictions, companies are pulling back on long-term brand investments and leaning more into performance tactics.
Performance marketing, search ads, product placements, retail media, is appealing during uncertain times because it drives quick results. You see the numbers almost instantly. But that line of thinking, when overused, creates long-term risk. Recessions in 2008 and 2020 showed this clearly: brands that shifted too hard toward transactional strategies lost visibility. And when the economy recovered, they weren’t as strong.
Alison Mayes addressed this directly, explaining how current economic stressors, especially tariff uncertainty and volatility in financial markets, are again pressuring brands to double down on performance. But she also noted the consequences. Short-term tactics can deliver conversions, but they don’t build awareness, reputation, or loyalty. When everyone focuses on the bottom of the funnel, the top starts to decay.
Smart budgeting doesn’t require choosing one lane. You can pursue measurable transactions while still investing in consistent brand exposure. However, it requires clarity in KPIs, discipline in allocation, and a strong understanding of how channels interact. Without that, every dollar starts behaving like a cost rather than an investment.
For business leaders, the priority should be balance. Don’t treat long-term visibility as optional. It’s essential. Brands that sustain awareness through downturns often exit stronger, they retain more share of voice, build consumer trust, and return to growth faster. Over-prioritizing transactions may temporarily support revenue, but it does little for brand durability.
This is where executive planning matters most. It’s not just about reacting to signals, it’s about anticipating what’s necessary six months from now. Individuals driving marketing decisions at the highest level need to guard against short-sighted strategies that weaken their footprint in the name of short-term wins.
Disruption drives innovation, and the current environment presents opportunities for digital transformation
We’re in a cycle where change is becoming the default condition. That’s often where the best outcomes happen, when the system is disrupted, and new ideas get traction fast. What we’ve seen over the last few years is that businesses not only adapt under pressure, they evolve. For digital advertising, that evolution is still unfolding at speed.
The shift toward digital didn’t slow after the pandemic. It continued, fueled by smarter tech, more data, and new tools that simplify execution. One clear example is the emergence of generative AI. Unlike tools available during the last major disruption in 2020, AI now enables content generation, customer targeting, and operational automation at scale. It’s not speculation, it’s happening now. And those who integrate early will see productivity increase while reducing cost and creative inefficiency.
David Cohen, CEO of the IAB, pointed to this reality during the NewFronts. He reminded industry leaders that disruption isn’t a signal to retreat, it’s a pressure point that creates forward momentum. “The faster things change, the more disruption is in our world, the more that digital grows,” Cohen said. This is what happens when structure breaks: new models take over.
Most importantly, the data backs the momentum. The digital ad industry grew 35% during the pandemic years, according to IAB. That growth came from businesses investing while others waited. It came from a willingness to explore new channels, experiment with digital strategy, and move quickly when others were cautious.
Executives building budgets and product roadmaps today need to recognize that disruption doesn’t just affect market conditions, it redefines what’s possible. Trying to wait it out is the wrong move. What works in uncertain times is targeted investment in scalable infrastructure, marketing agility, and technologies that centralize control without slowing execution.
There’s no fixed formula to winning during disruption. But we’re seeing the consistent pattern, speed plus discipline unlocks margin, innovation, and eventual scale. The digital environment rewards those who act early, test often, and course-correct fast. That mindset should define leadership in this market. What worked before won’t guarantee relevance today. And what you ignore now could limit your growth two quarters from today.
In conclusion
The last five years changed media, but not in ways that make decisions easier. Platforms multiplied. Data got fragmented. Budgets didn’t grow fast enough to keep up with complexity. What we’re seeing now isn’t just an evolution, it’s a reset. The models that worked pre-2020 don’t work the same anymore, and the reality is that most brands still aren’t structurally built for this speed.
For executives, this is where clarity matters most. Short-term wins can’t replace long-term strength. Fragmentation can’t excuse lack of alignment. Tactical moves won’t build durable growth unless they sit on top of a unified strategy, and that requires direct C-suite ownership.
This market rewards speed, execution, and precision. But more than that, it rewards leadership that doesn’t flinch when the signals get messy. Don’t wait for the noise to clear. It won’t. Build systems that move fast, test constantly, and scale what works. The rest will follow.
