• by Maarten Albarda , Featured Contributor, Yesterday

And so we reach December, and with it the need, nay, requirement to look back and look forward. Today we will look back on “what the heck happened in digital and social media?”

First we'll talk about the "soft" TikTok ban. This was the year that TikTok was supposed to be either sold or banned, and Jan. 19 was the deadline. Well, that date came and went, and then we entered the "zombie app" phase. While the administration granted extensions on the divestiture, the operational uncertainty made media planning initially very hard. But as more deadlines came and went, marketers chose to believe the app was here to stay. Brands didn’t leave TikTok. Some significant budget shifted toward YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels as "insurance" policies, but TikTok was -- and remains -- part of the mix.

Perhaps of larger consequence was the DOJ vs. Google verdict. Judge Leonie Brinkema finally dropped the gavel in United States v. Google LLC. While a mandatory breakup of Alphabet (Google’s parent) wasn't immediate, the ruling that Google maintained an illegal monopoly in publisher ad servers (DFP) and ad exchanges (AdX) started the "great unbundling." For the first time in 15 years, the "Google tax" on every programmatic dollar was legally exposed. Publishers started negotiating harder, and independent ad-tech stocks (The Trade Desk, etc.) rallied.

In even more consequential Google news: After reversing the total cookie ban in 2024, Google rolled out its "informed choice" prompt to Chrome users in 2025. Spoiler alert:  Everyone clicked "No." And while the market thought maintaining third-party cookies was a win, it wasn't. Opt-in rates of Chrome users plummeted to near-iOS levels (roughly 15%-20%). Signal loss in 2025 was actually worse than in 2024, proving that first-party data is the only safe harbor. If you're still relying on cross-site tracking, you're marketing to ghosts.

And then there is the (for me) marketing term of the year: "AI slop.” The year 2025 was the year the consumer started to say “no” after the first batch of AI commercials was unleashed, and social media and music channels started filling up with AI-generated content. There was Coca-Cola’s Christmas ad (the previous one), Vedka’s Fembot Superbowl and OpenAI’s Superbowl ad. Booking.com, Microsoft, Google, Salesforce, and GoDaddy also featured AI in their spots. We are now well into backlash territory, and "AI fatigue" is and should be a measurable metric in brand effectiveness and sentiment analysis.

Brands that lean too heavily on generative video/imagery often got roasted for "lazy" marketing. McDonald’s Netherlands is the latest advertiser to pull an AI-generated ad, which you can see here -- no understanding of Dutch needed, as the ad is entirely in English. Conversely, campaigns and other content that highlighted "shot on film" or "created by real artists" saw a lift in engagement.

And finally, we have to mention the unstoppable growth of retail media networks. In 2023-24, every grocery store and gas station launched an ad network. In 2025, the consolidation began. Advertisers refused to manage 45 different logins and attribution models. We saw the rise of RMN Aggregators and the quiet shutdown of smaller, ineffective networks.

We will continue our review of 2025 next week. What were your highlights and low points?