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Marketing, design and content trends for South African businesses in 2025

2025 trends towards another year of change, fueled by constant AI improvements and technological advancements.

The world of digital marketing, design and content creation has undergone a huge shift as AI has taken over many daily tasks. Marketers have handed over much of their Google ad responsibilities to Performance Max, their blog content creation to a robot and their design to an AI generation tool. All of these influences shape what we see trending in 2025 and beyond in digital marketing.

Design trends flow in and out like waves, irregular and ever-changing. In marketing, following design trends can be dangerous for brands, where a consistent, strong corporate brand identity is vital.

South African businesses must keep up to date with constantly evolving trends and apply them only where relevant to keep their business current.

I would like to let you in on some marketing and design trends emerging in 2025 to lean into for your digital marketing endeavours based on my research.

TREND 1: Personalised, non AI content

Create content for customers: Keep your focus on genuine, personalised, human content

Both search engines and users are looking for quality content. We have all seen the AI-generated articles, that are good but just… off. As customers in 2025 we don’t want to be lied to. We don’t want to see perfection. We know perfection is not real. So show your customers the truth. Honest reviews and videos with the occasional “um” filmed in a home office setting really are the in thing.

Another way of creating genuine content that we see trending as we start off 2025 is employee-generated content (EGC). Flicker Leap explored this in 2018 and we are still seeing the benefits today. Each of your employees has different skills, a different take and a different way of explaining your products and services. Leverage these differences. An employee may not be a blog writer, but that does not mean they cannot assist with podcasts or user guides. Utilise the skills you already have in-house for new and authentic content.

TREND 2: Customers over influencers

Collaborate with your consumers: Honest and authentic reviews

Brands often feel they need an influencer on board to get customers. We suggest rather asking your customers to vouch for you. Consumer reviews have been recognised as an important element of digital marketing, but they are often neglected as they seem difficult to come by. If your product or service is good, that should not be the case. Look for strategies to increase your reviews and build content from your actual customers.

TREND 3: Location advertising

Connect with your community: Leverage location marketing tools to find customers in your area

A: Product based business: 2024 saw the launch of Amazon in South Africa and a barrage of Shein and Temu products flooding the market. Your business needs to stand out and one way to do this is to focus on local marketing. Many people understand the damage international products can do to the South African economy and are committed to buying local. Environmentally savvy shoppers are looking for local products with smaller environmental impact. Consumers are looking for the business down the road rather than fast fashion and plastic knockoffs shipped over international waters.

B: Service based business: While online video calls via Teams or Zoom are just part of the day, many businesses are looking for local suppliers who understand them and understand their context. Suppliers who speak the same language. In our digital age, there is a shift back towards real connection.

In 2025, it is vital you get your Google My Business profile and targeted advertising working for you. If your business is global, remember we talked about personalisation? Create location (or country) specific landing pages for your audience. Look at translating your content and ensure the currency and delivery information is correct and clear across multiple locations.

TREND 4: Brand consolidation

Consolidate your communication on all platforms: Ensure your “fun” and “formal” communication work towards a unified brand message

People are on various devices and platforms throughout the day and night, interacting with businesses in all formats. Keep your brand messaging consistent. Keeping LinkedIn more formal than Instagram is ok as long as it does not seem like a completely different company. Creating a strong CI document, outlining how different communication still fits under the same holding brand voice will help. The reliance on AI tools over the last year has resulted in brand dilution. A trend in 2025 is towards carefully considered corporate identity across all brand touchpoints.

TREND 5: Non AI generated designs

Craft considered creativity: Human-made and authentic wins

There is a marked interest in purposefully adding some realness to designs in the form of grit, handmade or hand drawn elements and imperfections. A purposeful sign of artwork, posts and content being authentic and human. Design trends for 2025 are leaning towards simplicity in the form of clean, clear messaging. Your AI tool may spew out a ream of clever content for your latest ad. Do not use it all.

Overall, the trend for 2025 we suggest South African marketers follow is to bring the human back into everything you do to market your business. But not without the help of AI. Use 2025 to find AI tools to automate and improve your process, data analysis, content creation and design.

We are looking forward to a year of learning and evolving! Bring it on!

Looking for a digital solution?

hayley

Hayley is Flicker Leap's Creative Director and heads up the Creative team.

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