Who: Interactive Advertising Bureau UK (IAB)
Where: United Kingdom
When: 4 March 2025
Law stated as at: 15 April 2025
What happened:
IAB has published an interactive report, titled “Futurescape“, exploring the trends, attitudes and media shifts shaping the advertising sector in the lead up to 2030 and beyond. The report identifies the following as key growth areas in digital advertising: video display, gaming, digital retail media and generative artificial intelligence.
The report’s predictions include:
- Targeting: changes in traditional targeting due to shifting demographics and societal values. IAB predicts that targeting based on age, life stage or family structure will become less effective and increasingly irrelevant for advertisers, necessitating a reconsideration of audience targeting strategies.
- Shift in consumer habits: rising consumer interest in healthy tech habits, sustainability awareness and wearable tech. Agencies and advertisers need to ensure that sustainable thinking becomes an “everyday consideration” by 2030. Consumers want businesses to be “good”, which also includes being transparent and trustworthy. Brands should be open about why they collect consumer data and how it will be used to benefit the consumer.
- AI: artificial intelligence (AI) technology transforming how consumers discover brands and products and fundamentally changing the media and advertising landscape. AI will become “a key content curator for entertainment, product information and news”. The result will be brand marketing becoming more important.
- TV ads: the TV advertising landscape continuing to change, as streaming becomes more popular and linear TV viewing declines, offering new opportunities for advertisers to reach consumers. The boundaries between broadcaster and platform will continue to dissolve.
- Retail media: publishers and broadcasters collaborating or merging with retail media platforms to offer end-to-end advertising solutions, marking the end of traditional media advertising channels and the beginning of a more dynamic approach to reaching consumers so that “all media becomes retail media.”
- Content and creators: online content becoming the dominant force, as lines blur between media and channels, and publishers and broadcasters adopt a multi-platform approach. Creators, whether human or AI, will become a “dominant media channel” competing with traditional media. Brands will be expected to implement hybrid creator strategies, using AI creators for campaigns that demand extensive reach and innovation, while relying on human creators to forge deeper, emotional connections.
- Consumers first: a “people-first” approach becoming more embedded, focusing on building meaningful relationships with consumers over product-centric messaging.
- Gaming: gaming becoming more entrenched in Gen Alpha’s lives, akin to social media for Gen Z.
Each chapter provides recommendations for advertisers, media owners, platforms, and brand marketers on how to “future-proof for 2030” and adapt to the evolving landscape.
Why this matters:
The report is a useful tool for everyone involved in advertising, be they brands, advertisers, platforms or media owners, to ensure they stay ahead of the curve as the media and advertising landscape evolves.
The trends predicted by the report will inevitably change the ways advertisers and brands reach and engage with consumers. However, compliance with existing laws and regulations, not only in relation to advertising, but also in respect of consumer, data protection and AI law, will remain paramount, as will understanding and integrating any new legislative and regulatory changes introduced to keep pace with novel technologies and market changes.
