Top 6 Marketing Tricks of 2025 (and What You Can Learn from Them for 2026)

Another year around the sun and here we are, ready for a bright new year filled with endless opportunities for those who would like to spot them. 

Before we get too excited though, let’s take a look back at the previous year, and some of the more interesting/significant happenings in the general world of business, entertainment and marketing.  

Pushing Extremes –  Kendrick Lamar – Diss Record Halftime Show: While an artist performing a halftime show is certainly nothing new, this was the moment when “dis records” reached it’s highest peak possible – being featured as the main event within America’s main event.  

An entire nation waiting for the moment one artist verbally destroys another was significant in ways that cannot be understood in the present, but will be looked back in 100 years as extremely influential. An entire nation cheering on violence, the degrading of another human, as celebratory entertainment. 

Understanding the times you live in is key to understanding “the market” aka marketing, and there is plenty to take from that one. 

Cross Pollination – Beyonce – Pop Singer Wins Grammy for Country Album of the Year: It’s never too late to reinvent yourself, as Beyonce showed by winning the Best Country Album Award for 2025. Beyonce’s jump into country music proved to be both successful and controversial, while also proving yet again that barriers and limits only exist as much as you allow them to. 

How can you take what you normally do, and flip it on its head and into another industry or direction, as a marketing ploy to further raise your profile? 

Agencies Involved: (Olgilvy and Alchemy)

Creative Collabs – Sydney Sweeney/Dr Squatch – Used Bathwater for Bathtime:  Both highly creative and highly disturbing, Sasquatch partnered with Sydney Sweeney to release a limited time offer for soap that’s infused with her “personal bath water”, Bathtime Bliss.  The product meets personality campaign was a spinoff of the viral 2024 ad featuring Sydney, so what better way to keep the ball rolling than reading the comments and taking the commenters up on their desires to “have that bathwater” haha. 

Merging personalities with products is a timeless tradition in marketing.  What personalities can you find creative avenues to bring into your products/service for a special, limited time offer/promotion? 

Agency Involved: Rain the Growth Agency (possibly). 

Testing the Narrative – Sydney Sweeny/American Eagle – Great Jeans Goes Ballistic:  Did they mean jeans or genes, and if the later, what does that mean in the larger national discussion?  This brilliant campaign featuring the simple yet provocative “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans” became an overnight success in terms of national discussion.  White not all controversy is good, the sales results for this campaign are undeniable at this point, with the stock increasing accordingly as well. 

National narratives are always available to hijack for your own use.  What current, larger discussions could you use in your marketing that could place your brand voice above the noise? 

Agency Involved: Acre (possibly)

Political/Corporate Partnerships – Trump/Elon + POTUS/Tesla – Whitehouse Shows Off Tesla on Front Lawn:  Never before have we seen a live car show on the Whitehouse lawn.  And while we’ll probably never see it again (lol), it’s worth considering the implications here.  This wasn’t just a photo op, it was product placement on steroids in a manner that’s never been done before. 

Where can you place your product, service or some symbolic representation, in your local community to gather attention and possibly media mentions? 

Unrelenting Self Promotion – Jake Paul – $100M Broken Jaw:  This could possibly be the most amazing self promotion run every witnessed, as Jake Paul has now managed to promote himself to the top grossing fight of all time, making close to $100M for getting in the ring with Anthony Joshua, and predictably losing the bout. 

Fearless self promotion can open up a ton of doors, if you can stomach it.  What self promotional stunt can you think of for yourself, that places you way over your head but will inevitably provide the type of attention that propels the rest of your business or goals? 

Agencies Involved: HSTL Productions, Elevate, Waymark (all possibly). 

Conclusion: So there we have it, the most interesting, influential, impactful and consequential marketing moments from 2025.  

Hopefully this gets your brain buzzing with ideas on how you can make some noise for 2026, and as always, if you have thoughts or perhaps some items that didn’t get included, would love to hear from ya. 

Jeremy 

Startup Street