The latest dentsu Global Ad Spend Forecasts, published in December 2024, show that spending in the Media and Entertainment vertical is projected to grow by 4.7% in 2025. In this article, we look at three recent trends and developments that have an impact on the industry, potentially driving greater spending.
Building shared culture
Across the whole industry, there is a growing desire for shared culture and shared experiences. We are now five years on from the start of the global pandemic, and it feels the need for connection has never been greater, a trend covered in the recent Dentsu Creative Trends 2025 report, which talks about The Togetherness Deficit.
Consumers’ desire to find community and collective experiences manifests itself in several ways – in movies through the success of big ‘event’ blockbusters like Deadpool & Wolverine, that people want to see together in a crowded theatre, in music through the success of big concert tours from artists like Taylor Swift – whose Eras tour is estimated to have generated over $2bn in 21 months – and in TV and streaming through the success of ‘watercooler’ moment shows like Baby Reindeer and Bridgerton.
But while the desire for collective culture is strong, cultivating this shared culture at scale has become increasingly difficult. In today’s fragmented, algorithm-driven media landscape, what feels massive in one person’s world may go unnoticed in another’s. Building a shared sense of cultural scale now demands a new, community-first approach.
Entertainment companies are already innovating and adapting – no longer relying on traditional broadcast means to build shared scale. Wicked (2024) delivered a $165 million global opening weekend, and that was driven by a bottom-up, collaborative brand-building strategy, to make sure they were ‘everywhere’. They marketing team strategy was to ‘be just short of obnoxious’ – with over 400 brand partnerships — including Starbucks and LEGO — the campaign didn’t just promote the film; it embedded Wicked into everyday culture, turning its release into a shared cultural milestone
This same community-led strategy was evident in Charli XCX Brat Summer, which provided a new playbook for how artist, but also brands can build cultural scale. Thinking about tapping into grassroots communities and fandoms, leaning into creators, and fuelling conversations across social platforms. Through the power of social fandom and pop-culture smarts, Brat Summer was able to grow from a niche subculture to a mainstream phenomenon.
The next frontier is for brands to lean into platforms like Reddit and community-first forums to build authentic, grassroots experiences that can then be amplified with paid media and digital platforms to drive wider reach. The fusion of grassroots engagement and algorithmic scalability isn’t just a solution to the Togetherness Deficit—it’s the new blueprint for building shared culture in an increasingly fragmented world.
The need for shared experiences is set to grow in 2025 with a wealth of new content and events, including new Mission Impossible, Avatar, Jurassic World, and Snow White movies, series including White Lotus, Yellowjackets, and Harlan Coben’s Missing You, and new blockbuster concert tours including Billie Eilish, Dua Lipa, and Coldplay.
Diverse and Inclusive Storytelling
The second trend is that globalization and inclusivity are bringing a greater opportunity for more diverse storytelling. Culture is becoming more diverse, with more openness to content that could have seemed ‘difficult’ or ‘challenging’ to English speaking audiences, like the anime shows on streaming, or even music like K Pop or Afrobeat that might have seemed ‘alternative’ a few years ago.
The second trend is globalization and inclusivity are reshaping the storytelling landscape, creating a world where diverse voices and perspectives are not just welcomed but celebrated. What was once considered niche—anime, K-pop, Afrobeat—have now become the mainstream.
The growing demand for diverse storytelling reflects a significant cultural shift. Productions like Netflix’s foreign-language, trans-led musical Emilia Perez and Disney+’s epic TV series Shogun have swept awards, signalling a global appetite for stories that celebrate different cultures and perspectives.
The growing appetite for diverse storytelling marks a fundamental cultural shift. Productions like Netflix’s trans-led, foreign-language musical Emilia Perez and Disney+’s epic Shogun have become critical and commercial hits, reflecting a global audience eager for fresh perspectives, and for Hollywood and entertainment to reflect modern society.
In 2023, dentsu entertainment launched Dentsu Anime Solutions Inc., leveraging the Dentsu network to deliver comprehensive services—content acquisition, co-production, licensing, marketing, distribution, and merchandising. This positions the company to thrive as diverse storytelling becomes central to global audiences.
Representation also makes business sense. In gaming, Horizon Zero Dawn, starring female protagonist Aloy, became Sony’s best-selling franchise launch on PlayStation 4, with the series selling over 32.7 million units globally. In sports, Netflix secured exclusive U.S. broadcasting rights for the next two FIFA Women’s World Cups, underscoring the value of diverse content.
In an algorithm-driven world, diverse and long-form storytelling offers a unique advantage. Algorithms don’t just surface content—they can fuel fandoms, creating opportunities for brands to connect deeply with diverse audiences. By embedding rich narratives across entertainment, gaming, and sports, brands can unearth new audiences, build cross-cultural communities and create loyalty and connections that previously might not have been conceivable.
By engaging audiences with rich narratives across entertainment, gaming, and sports, brands can bridge cultures, build communities, and create lasting connections in an ever-evolving digital world.
Entertainment leads the algorithmic era
The third big trend is the rise of AI and algorithms as gatekeepers within the ecosystem, choosing what content to show and recommend, driving both more engagement in content, and more advertising, especially in major entertainment platforms. This means that not only do the bigger titles and artists get even more exposure, but also new content that starts to become popular for one group – whether it be a particular demographic cohort or a particular geographical area – can then get recommended to more users and expand its reach.
Advertising works in the same way – as we describe in our 2025 Media Trends report – advertising that is popular or engaging for one group can quickly be scaled up by the algorithms to reach more users, allowing the most compelling ads to go viral to new groups.
This comes at a time when advertising is more important than ever as a way of funding content and platforms. Amazon Prime Video now has over 200m subscribers who watch ads with their content, Netflix has over 70m, and Spotify has over 380m (only 252m of its 640m monthly active users pay to go ad-free).
We expect ad spending in these areas to grow, as agencies leverage their scale and technology to deliver a unified video solution to help capitalize on this opportunity.
It is in this context that ad spend for the Media and Entertainment is set to grow; greater amount of product to promote, greater opportunity for the best content to find an audience, and a greater upside for the most successful gives a bigger incentive to spend.
Source: dentsu X
