2025 is shaping up to be massively disruptive. Here are ten content trends we're seeing implemented directly with clients in New Zealand and Australian corporates.
According to the NZ 2025 Business Outlook survey, 60% of businesses plan to restart halted projects this year. 46% of NZ companies saw AI as their biggest tech opportunity, and 29% said cyber security was their biggest threat.
This corresponds to what we are seeing in the field. Here are our 10 big outtakes:
The Feb '25 OCR update may seem like good news, but there are enough fishhooks to slow down CAPEX investment in website rebuilds.
Instead we are seeing digital marketers ‘sweat’ their existing web assets, as in the case of Westpac Australia, by focusing on these high-performing areas.
If 2024 was the year television suffered a "death by a thousand cuts," then content grew by the same proportion.
Our first content project was Westpac RedNews in 2015. Since then, we have seen a steady increase in content hubs, such as Genesis Climate Change hub, Westpac Business Base, Fonterra Dairy Nutrition hub.
But as the term 'Content Optimisation' enters the vernacular of CMOs, things are ramping up real fast. Here’s what you’ll see more of:
Most writers now use AI natively. However, the degree to which AI is deployed depends on the desired outcome.
Towards the end of last year, BOW kicked off a major partnership with a client to explore AI vs human writing.
Based on our insights, we believe in future there will be a distinct difference between Prompt Engineers/Writing Editors and Expert Human Writers - and BOW will offer both.
This is important to wrap your head around: The difference will lie in the type of content, the purpose, and the thinking involved: left-brain logical processing versus right-brain creative intuition. Let us explain:
We call this AI first. This involves using a Marketing AI agent, like Jasper AI, for a secure end-to-end marketing and content creation platform. A good marketer, project manager, or writer who enjoys the logical side/SEO of writing will use one.
Prompt Engineers will start by inputting the brand tone, the brief, SEO requirements, etc. Then, the AI agent will walk them through a series of prompts before generating an article.
The generated article may require curation by a writing editor to refine the content and ensure it aligns with brand goals. SEO will be inserted into this process.
So, it’s essentially a left-brain process where AI comes first and writing second.
We call this writer first. A human writer will approach using AI differently, using intuition first and logic second. They will start like good journalists by researching an angle and interviewing experts or thought leaders. They will also do SEO research.
Then, they will opt for tools like ChatGPT with Canvas—a blank sheet, in other words.
As the writer writes, AI comes along as a partner. At any stage, they can ask it to act as a grammar checker, a researcher, and a creative partner – a good all-around second voice to keep you on track.
But the point is that writing comes first, AI second.
Both will be viable options, and they will be openly discussed and planned right at the start with a robust content strategy and our own BOW knowledge of the best way forward.
Weirdly, we have seen a steady flurry of small, medium, and large Tone of Voice projects kicking off already this year. (I say weirdly because it’s often viewed as a ‘nice to have’– and now it’s become a ‘necessity’).
One reason is the continued rise in media channels, each requiring bespoke writing guidelines. But the primary reason is AI. Ironically, to create brand-aligned AI content, businesses need current tone-of-voice guidelines and a huge amount of on-brand copy to train it.
In 2025, we will see:
In the 1990s, most corporate writing was formal, with long words and sentences. By 2020, it had become friendly, user-centric, and sometimes casual.
But today, 'digital natives' (who have become married-with-two-kids digital natives) have evolved to scan highly intuitively. They want to get to the point quickly, and they have a 3-second tolerance.
There is no room for waffle (as my business partner calls it about my writing, ‘taking them on the scenic route’) unless it’s excellent storytelling, which is acceptable.
Writing styles are already highly customised to channels, and they will become even more segmented, with each channel requiring bespoke writers, such as:
We said this in 2024 and it's happening even faster this year under the Trump/Musk rollercoaster ride.
As Facebook, Instagram, and Meta cynically remove their fact-checkers, and AI increases deep fake everything, the scourge of social media misinformation will make credible website content the only trusted oasis of truth.
By embedding honesty, authority, and simplicity into the heart of website content writing principles, companies can protect and amplify their business credibility.
Customers, browsers, and users are tired of being sold to, misled, and/or misdirected. They want information, sometimes very specific information from the experts’ mouths.
Content and IA that empower browsers and make customers’ lives better, richer, and more meaningful are now the standard.
Moreover, as Google and other platforms adopt their own AI technology, they won't just scrape the metatags and H1/H2 levels: expect all 500 pages of your corporate website to have to be submitted and evaluated by super smart AI tools.
Think of it as the difference between marketing to “Mums with children” versus “Mums with children who shop online after the kids are in bed, live in Christchurch and are interested in sustainable products, travel and chocolate.” The more granular the data, the more relevant the experience.
Hyper-personalisation isn’t just about emailing someone using their first name. It’s about leveraging real-time data to anticipate needs and deliver highly relevant content and experiences across every touchpoint. (If you want to see a textbook case of it, put on your flak jackets and work on an election.)
We expect to see:
At the boardroom level, cyber threats mean a catastrophic loss in customer confidence. But the real people sweating it are the Digital Leads because they are the ones who get the night-time call.
Some lucky digital marketers will have just completed a CMS platform upgrade in 2024. They’ll be on a secure platform, the uploads are easy-peasy, and the marketing team just sent them champagne for the fast turnaround!
Nice, but not likely.
What's really happening is something we call a ‘Quick Fix until 26’'. See Point 1 for what this means this year but clients are also getting their ducks for a potential, or urgent, web rebuild in 26/27.
This means squeezing a Content Audit and Strategy out of their budget this year to enable killer business cases for when CAPEX returns.
For example, we have been working with Hato Hone St John for over two years to a) develop a comprehensive Content Audit and Strategy, b) inform a business case, and c) write all the content (200 pages) in readiness for a rebuild.
Meanwhile, legacy websites will be like the Interislander ferry—bosses can only ignore them for so long before consumers become disgruntled, competitors seize the advantage, and employees start losing sleep due to the risks of a catastrophic failure.
Wow, a lot is happening in this space. Our SEO Writers are staying on their toes this year as algorithms and platforms continually change, and Google’s dominance is threatened.
Here are the key trends to watch:
Last but not least, what will happen to writers? In a nutshell, the average ones will get better, and the outstanding ones will get more strategy work.
In the short term, the slack caused by AI writing will hit journalists hard – but not good content creators or copywriters. This is because all the above work will have to happen.
Take Content writing. The Business Outlook Survey found that 40% of companies plan to invest in data, leading to a hyper-personalisation of communication that requires... more thinking and writing.
The rise of AI agents will require Tone-of-Voice Guidelines, which will require... more thinking and writing.
80% of companies plan to restart halted projects, such as websites, fuelled by a 20% fear of cyber-attacks. Digital UX decisions involve hundreds of crossroads, which require... more thinking before writing.
Nah, we’re not going anywhere. See you in 26.
