Digital 2025: how people discover new brands
Overall, GWI’s research shows that the typical adult internet user discovers brands and products through an average of 5.8 different sources.
That figure has remained relatively stable over the past 3 years, but there have been some interesting – albeit subtle – changes in the sources that have the greatest influence.
Searching for success
At a worldwide level, search engines remain the primary source of brand awareness for the world’s connected consumers, with 32.8 percent of GWI’s survey base saying that they discover new brands and products via online search.
TV ads aren’t far behind though, with 32.3 percent of respondents citing this channel.
Word-of-mouth recommendations rank third, with just under 3 in 10 respondents selecting this answer option, while social media ads come a close fourth, at 29.7 percent.
Brand websites round out the top five sources of brand and product awareness, with 25.8 percent of respondents citing this channel.
And just for clarity, note that respondents could choose more than one answer option in this survey question.
Bigger and better
Interestingly though, while the average number of sources has remained relatively stable at around 5.8, the number of people citing each of the top 5 has actually increased steadily over the past two years.
For example, the number of people who say that they discover brands and products via search engines has grown from 30.6 percent in Q3 2022, to 32.8 percent in Q3 2024.
That may not sound like a huge jump, but that 2.2 percentage point increase equates to a relative increase of 7.2 percent.
And we see similar trends for TV ads, word-of-mouth recommendations, social media ads, and brand websites.
Amongst these sources, social media has seen the most significant increase over the past two years, with the current 29.7 percent a relative 11.7 percent higher than the 26.6 percent figure we saw in Q3 2022.
The mix is the fix
But the key takeaway for me in this brand discovery data is that no single source introduces brands to more than one-third of adult internet users.
Even the top source – search engines – is only cited as a source of brand awareness by 32.8 percent of respondents, meaning that it’s imperative for marketers to embrace a mix of different channels in order to achieve their objectives.
Moreover, the data suggests that marketers should continue to balance both online and offline channels and activities.
GWI’s latest data indicate that a combination of digital advertising across channels like search, social media, online video, and banners will only introduce your brand to about two-thirds of the world’s internet users, so – even amongst connected audiences – digital advertising isn’t a panacea.
Awareness generation
But it’s critical to note that the relative importance of different marketing channels varies meaningfully by age.
For example, social media ads are the number one source of brand awareness amongst internet users aged 16 to 34.
However, despite the channel taking top spot, fewer than one in three respondents in this age group cited social media ads as a source of brand and product discovery.
For perspective, search engines rank second in this age group, while TV ads place third.
Things start to look different once audiences pass the age of 35 though, with search engines topping the rankings for internet users aged 35 to 54.
TV ads rank second amongst this cohort, while social media advertising starts to slip down the rankings.
Meanwhile, TV ads top the rankings for audiences aged 55 and above.
And while search engines remain near the top of the ranking for this demographic, social media ads fall quite a bit further down the list.
Indeed, ads on social platforms only rank sixth amongst audiences aged 55 to 64, and they don’t even appear in the top ten amongst audiences aged 65 and above.
Mixing things up
So how can marketers go about building the most robust mix of channels?
Of course, there’s no “one-size-fits-all” answer to that question, and every marketer needs to explore and understand the behaviours of their specific audience.
And critically, all of our research shows that people’s behaviours vary meaningfully by geography, by age, and even by gender.
So, here are a few suggestions of things you might want to consider:
Influence: Which channels does your audience say have the greatest influence when it comes to discovering and researching brands, products and services? You’ll find data for both these kinds of behaviour in our local country reports, but be sure to explore differences by age too (GWI’s tools can also be a great help here).
Time: How much time does your audience spend using each channel? For example, on average around the world, people aged 16 to 24 spend more than three times longer using social media each day than people aged 65 and above do. Conversely, retirees spend more than 1.5 times as long watching television each day as teenagers do.
Platform: Within each medium, which specific “platforms” does your audience use or prefer? For example, young people are more likely to identify Instagram as their favourite social media platform, whereas older generations are more likely to prefer WhatsApp and Facebook.
Needstate: Which platforms offer the most conducive environment for you to deliver your specific marketing messages? Things to think about here include the advertising formats that each platform offers, where and when in their lives people might be using the platform (e.g. sitting on the bus, or relaxing on the sofa), and the audience’s likely “state of mind” when using that platform (e.g. “escapism”, “curiosity”, “outcome oriented”).
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This article is a sub-section of our Digital 2025 Global Overview Report.
Click here to access the complete report, and to read our comprehensive analysis.
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