What to Watch for in 2025 – Episode 1

TRANSCRIPT:

Doug Simon, CEO, D S Simon Media: We decided to ask some of the top people in the industry what their take is on some of the changes that will be happening, the trends, and what PR people and communicators need to be doing to be successful. Here’s what they had to say.  

Bradley Akubuiro, Partner, Bully Pulpit International: Misinformation and disinformation are going to continue to be a factor, and in fact, generative AI is only going to make that more of an issue as we move forward. And comms leaders are going to have to think about how do we actually establish trust because a lot of these things aren’t solved just by telling the truth. It really is more about trust than it is about truth. 

Renee Mailhiot, Senior Vice President of Earned Media, Edelman: As we look ahead to 2025 as PR practitioners and media experts, we should really think about diversifying our media landscape and embracing more of those human-first platforms like podcasts and social platforms, where we can put company executives and thought leaders forward in a way that’s a bit more authentic and longer form to speak directly to their consumers.  

Raoul Bhavnani, Chief Communications Officer, Betterment: 2025 is going to be the year of the return of the human and human interaction. I see by the end of 2025, there’ll be a much better balance between the new technologies that we’ve been working and harnessing for the last several years, since the pandemic and the interaction in real life. The interaction of communicators with the media, with their colleagues, and with their partners who help us to tell the message.  

Julie Murphy, President, Sage Communications: One trend that I’ve noticed that I think is only accelerating is that marketing is getting as close to 1 to 1 as possible. And what I mean by that is you can’t put out really broad messages and hope for them to resonate in the same way. People really want to be understood. And that means that you need to speak to very sort of specific issues that really impact their world. And with the technology between AI and the other emerging technologies that are coming out today, there’s no reason why you can’t do that for your audience.  

Mike Doyle, Global CEO, Ketchum: What does it mean to show up as a brand right now? What is the tension between shareholder expectations and stakeholder expectations? What does it mean in terms of the way we’re presenting creative or developing creative? We have never been more necessary in terms of credible communications, but the only way that’s going to work, certainly in 2025 and in the years to come, is if we are truly students who are applying the learnings that we are seeing in real-time as it relates to American consumer beliefs and behavior.  

Emily Teitelbaum, Chief Communications Officer, Libra Group: I think this is the year of the podcasts, the blogs, the substacks, the very, very, diversified and very, highly attuned audience content. And I think that communicators are going to have to learn now more than ever, how to influence the people that are influencing these micro audiences and how to tell one cohesive story while doing so.  

Saul Hafenbredl, Partner at CB&A, A FINN Partners Company, in the Global Education Practice: I think the big trend that we’re seeing is an expansion of and a refocus on state-based campaigns in the education field.  

Monique Kelley, Associate Professor of the Practice at Boston University and CEO & Founder of Monique Kelley Consulting: In 2024, we saw a lot of consolidation. On the agency side, we saw restructurings, we saw billion-dollar mergers. And whereas we’re going to continue to see decreases on the agency side. I’m noticing an increase in the demand for independent consultants. Brands are continuing to have to prove the value of leveraging communications to support business objectives, but more now than ever, they’re looking for independent consultants. 

Shauna Keough, President, U.S. Public Relations, Syneos Health: My prediction for 2025 is HI. What is HI, you ask? It’s human intelligence. We have spent all of last year really focused on AI, and now it’s time we put all the human back in to really harness the power of AI.  

Blake Simpson, Senior Vice President, Chief Communications and Corporate Affairs Officer at Adtalem Global Education: So, I think we are going to find as communicators that we need to be able to be agile and quick to pivot, to jump on these new things when the moment strikes, and then jump off. We won’t have the time to play catch up, because by the time we’re looking to catch up, they’ll have moved on to the next. 

Mike Doyle, Global CEO, Ketchum: 2025 needs to be the year, the season, the moment, where we genuinely shed our own personal bias. We can still hold on to what we believe in, but if we’re going to be credible consultants, we have to pay attention to what’s actually really happening in this country and turn that into actionable recommendations for our clients. 

Doug Simon, CEO, D S Simon Media: We’re excited to be presenting this series of what PR’s top pros have to say about advice, trends, and predictions for 2025. I think the top key that people may not be paying attention to is the value of earned media, and I base it on Trump’s successful presidential campaign. There’s a lot of talk about his use of podcasts, and while they were valuable, they were an example of earned media, which will continue to be important across all platforms, including local broadcasts.