2025 MKTG Word of the Year

For the past few years, I’ve chosen a word to help keep my priorities and the bigger picture in perspective for that year. In 2023, it was "Focus"; in 2024, it was "Discipline"; and in 2025, it is "Imagine".

In that spirit, I started thinking about what the word of the year could be within a marketing context.

Something has been missing from many marketing strategies for at least the last 5 years. The pandemic and lockdowns impacted how we interact with customers, and we accelerated into an age where there's so much focus on performance metrics and product-focused ads to drive short-term growth. Many brands across categories have lost the opportunity to connect with consumers on a deeper level, which will hurt them in the long run.

When it comes to who you are as a brand, it's not what you say it is or what you think it is. Ultimately, how people experience your brand is your brand.

Below are five experiences to consider within your strategy, along with examples. There are plenty of links to click through for further research. At the end of the newsletter are three guiding questions to help you incorporate  experiences within your marketing strategy this year.

Brand Experiences to consider within your strategy

1. Brand narrative: The most basic experience is the story you tell. How many brands can you recall from the product ads you've seen scrolling through your social feeds or websites lately? Exactly. Product ads are not memorable without storytelling to complement them. As humans, we have very basic- primal- needs that drive much of our behaviour and decision-making. Tell stories that tug at those primal instincts that will move the audience. Every industry stands to benefit from taking a look at the luxury category. Luxury brands are masters at crafting stories and worlds that consumers aspire to be a part of.

2. Transmedia storytelling: Create worlds and extensions of your brand narrative across the channels you're present in. Dig deep, get creative and expand to the relevant channels. AppleTV, for example, had a pop-up ahead of Season 2 of Severance- with the actors as their characters!- to drum up excitement. Creators on Tiktok talked about Season 1 recaps, easter eggs and other mysteries within the show to jog everyone's memories. Now, AppleTV is using LinkedIn to extend Lumon- the ominous organisation in the show- with corporate posts.

3. Real-world experiences: With so much time now spent online, people crave to be around others, interact, and connect more. What events are on your marketing calendar, and how can you make them more experiential to connect with consumers? It's not just limited to B2C. I visited Beautyworld Middle East last year to observe if and how brands create experiences for B2B customers. One brand was awe-inspiring: Sisology, a Korean fragrance brand. They had a very tiny stand, but how they showcased everything from the brand story to the actual product was well thought out. The experience was so memorable that it's the only brand I can recall from the Beautyworld exhibition.

4. Social brand experiences: Many brands have gone back to talking to people on social media instead of building community with people. Do you want people to keep using your app? Build a community. Do you want people to keep buying your product? Make them feel they're part of something bigger. For example, I launched social media for Henkel's Persil Abaya Shampoo, and between 2010-2013, I grew it into a fantastic community of women who love abaya fashion. Combined with an integrated marketing strategy, Persil Abaya Shampoo became top of mind and category leader. Why am I telling you this? Because if a detergent can build a great social experience for the community, any brand can.

   Don't know how to build a community or unsure you can/need to sustain it? Tap into existing communities- be it other brands or creators- to create something more meaningful than just them talking about your product or launching a limited edition. For example, Netflix partnered with Duolingo to promote Squid Games 2. Duolingo creates the most unhinged content on TikTok and has over 14 million followers. Squid Games is an unhinged concept. The show is also in Korean; Duolingo is a language app and an excellent choice for this partnership.

5. Digital experience: UX/UI, good copywriting, easy user journeys, features that add value to the experience (e.g. a fit assistant for a fashion site). This one is foundational. If you create great experiences for consumers but they end up on a slow website or app that is not intuitive, they will probably abandon your site or app. Any potential conversions from all that hard work you put in will be lost. Make the digital user journey an enjoyable experience from first click to check out.

Take action

Examine your marketing strategy and ask:

1. Where can I add a meaningful experience?

2. Which experiences fall short, and how can they be enhanced?

3. What experiences are my customers lacking or are looking for?

Contrary to popular belief, creating experiences doesn't have to be expensive. I say this with complete confidence; it is possible to do it on both shoestring and million-dollar budgets. However, it needs the right mindset- a willingness to invest and commit to creating and maintaining a meaningful long-term brand experience. 

Happy Strategising,

Nagham