With 2025 just around the corner, WS’s very own Darcy Pawlik, Stephanie Ostermann, and Maz Tannir gathered to discuss what marketing trends, tools, and challenges await in the new year.
Darcy Pawlik: The biggest trend I’m seeing is aligning marketing strategies with sales tactics and customer interactions. A strong marketing plan is only as effective as the team executing it.
At WS, we prioritize discovery sessions with our clients’ sales teams to understand what they’re seeing in the field. This insight helps shape our marketing messages, which we then test with actual customer segments. By closely integrating marketing with on-the-ground feedback, we ensure campaigns are more impactful and lead to stronger customer engagement.
Stephanie Ostermann: AI is definitely here to stay, and I’m excited to see more transparency around its use. Smart disclosure will allow us to use AI to increase efficiency while making it clear that it’s a tool enhanced by the human touch.
Another trend I’m thrilled about is the rise of social shopping. People are becoming more comfortable making purchases directly from social platforms. For our direct-to-consumer clients, we’re focusing on creating authentic, influencer-driven content to drive these purchases. Platforms like Meta make it easier to build and execute these strategies effectively.
Maz Tannir: The rapid growth of retail media is a particularly exciting development. Platforms such as Amazon and Walmart are increasingly integrating advertising solutions, making retail media an essential strategy for brands looking to connect with shoppers through targeted, data-driven campaigns. This convergence of media and commerce is reshaping how brands reach and influence their audiences.
Another trend gaining momentum is the focus on niche communities. In an algorithm-driven media environment, brands are finding success by engaging smaller, highly connected groups through authentic storytelling. This approach allows brands to cut through the noise and build stronger, more genuine relationships with their audiences.
Darcy Pawlik: AI will continue to be a major game-changer. While these tools existed before, they often required hands-on adjustments to achieve the desired outcomes. Now, with improved usability and transparency, they are driving greater efficiency.
For example, we’re leveraging AI to enable quicker campaign cycles—shifting from year-long campaigns to shorter, more dynamic ones lasting a month or two. This flexibility allows us to maximize impact without increasing budgets.
Stephanie Ostermann: I also think the tools we already have will continue to improve, becoming smarter and more affordable as competition grows. AI, in particular, will help us handle routine tasks that take up time without contributing directly to campaign success. By freeing up resources, we can focus on higher-level strategy and creativity.
Maz Tannir: Artificial intelligence is rapidly becoming a cornerstone of media planning, personalization, and content creation. Brands are now leveraging AI to optimize campaigns in real time, deliver dynamic, hyper-personalized experiences, and predict customer preferences with remarkable precision.
This capability allows for deeper, more meaningful connections between brands and their audiences, elevating the impact of marketing efforts.
Darcy Pawlik: At WS, a major part of working with AI is clearly understanding data ownership. It’s a matter of being in the know and constantly on the lookout for policy changes, regulations, updates, and so on.
As AI evolves, we see it enabling more personalization for our clients, although that might be challenging with those who are traditionally cautious. I do believe that this will introduce a new level of It gives them the confidence to explore new horizons while staying meaningful and impactful for their audience.
Stephanie Ostermann: AI is great for achieving high levels of personalization at scale, which would be nearly impossible for individuals or small teams to do manually. However, it’s crucial to use it ethically—avoiding plagiarism, ensuring transparency, and disclosing AI’s role in the process.
I don’t think we’re at a point where we can fully trust AI to handle everything, but it’s a valuable tool for identifying patterns and making data-driven decisions. Ultimately, it enhances what we do, allowing us to deliver better results without replacing the human element.
Maz Tannir: As Stephanie and I discussed earlier in the year, AI personalization offers incredible opportunities for scaling tailored experiences, but it must be used responsibly. Transparency and consumer trust are key. Moving into 2025, the focus will be on balancing personalization with privacy, ensuring that customer data is protected while delivering meaningful, relevant content.
Darcy Pawlik: There is currently a surge in tools and solutions that streamline internal agency operations, allowing teams to accomplish more, often expanding their roles. This means agencies must adapt quickly and collaborate transparently with clients, using these tools to create shared value.
At WS, we focus on forming true partnerships with our clients, where tools are used jointly to enhance outcomes rather than creating silos. By working together, we can ensure both sides benefit from innovation and efficiency.
Stephanie Ostermann: The current state of the economy is a big challenge, with added pressures like tariffs and tighter budgets. To help our clients maximize their resources, we’re focusing on repurposing content across multiple channels and refining what’s already working.
We aim to be more strategic—creating versatile content that delivers results while being cost-effective. This approach ensures clients hit their goals despite economic challenges.
Darcy Pawlik: We’ve achieved a lot in the past year, but perhaps one of my favorite examples is a campaign we did for one of our relatively new clients. We looked at their customer base and asked ourselves: “How can we triple this?”.
As a solution, we found a few new ways to speak to their current audience but also branched out to connect with several of their adjacent audiences. By refining our approach and tracking every step, we exceeded expectations—achieving significant growth in new site visits, purchases, and overall brand presence.
Stephanie Ostermann: Two examples come to mind, both involving technically demanding projects.
For CADARO, a US-based company specializing in digitally integrated solutions that deliver accurate, real-time data on bulk dry material handling and processing, we developed a calculator that allowed potential customers to input their unique parameters and see the ROI of integrating the technology into their operations. It has become a valuable tool for their sales team and a great way to engage with site visits.
For Kula Bio, a producer of sustainable, biological solutions for modern agriculture, we created an interactive, animated website that showcases their innovative technology. It was challenging, but the result was a site that not only highlights the product’s cutting-edge features but also provides farmers with the practical information they need to make decisions. These projects pushed us creatively and technically, and they delivered strong outcomes for our clients.
Maz Tannir: In 2024, we were very fortunate to work with an incredible client in the e-commerce space. Right at the start of the year, we had really high expectations. As we come to the end of the year, we’ve seen that we’ve driven the ROAS (Return on Advertising Spend) over 8, which is really impressive in today’s market, considering all the changes that are happening. I am very excited about what we managed to do and what we’re going to do with this client in the future.
Darcy Pawlik: We’ve historically been very lucky to have a lot of clients in both Canada and the US. And in 2025, many new projects are taking us internationally, particularly to European markets. This has already started and will be a tremendous opportunity for us to learn and explore, exercising our strategically disruptive approaches globally.
Stephanie Ostermann: We’re seeing more clients focus on automation and digital enhancements for their campaigns. While traditional methods are still part of the mix, there’s a growing demand for strategies that leverage data—whether from site visits or email interactions—to drive optimization.
What excites me most is how digital allows for quick, impactful adjustments. Small tweaks can lead to significant results, giving us the ability to deliver on client goals efficiently. This focus on optimization and automation perfectly aligns with our vision to stay innovative and results-driven.
Maz Tannir: In 2025, I’m really looking forward to where we’re going to go with search AI. We’re seeing a bigger trend right now moving towards people doing their searches through chatbots and AI chats. There are no more pages and pages of information; they get one response.
And so watching how that trend is going to evolve, how we can incorporate a paid version of that so that we’re sponsoring certain responses from these chat bots is going to be a really interesting place in 2025.
Connect with us to leverage the skills and knowledge Darcy, Maz, Stephanie, and the rest of the WS team offer for the marketing success of your project.
