TwoSides UK polled industry experts to help the industry plan for the year. Here are some excerpts. The full, insightful article is at https://twosides.info/UK/2025-comes-alive/.

Phil Rickets, Commercial Director, Marketreach 2025 is set to be a pivotal year for innovation in print and direct mail, with sustainability and impact taking centre stage. There are four key highlights: The launch of PrintGreen will bridge the gap between industry data and brand decision-making, establishing print as a genuine circular medium. At Marketreach, we empower advertisers to make sustainable choices, and PrintGreen will make real waves.

Rachel Aldighieri, Managing Director, Data & Marketing Association (DMA) 2025 is going to be the year when marketers have to get to grips with the crisis in performance marketing effectiveness and ask themselves whether increased CPAs and declining response rates are just about the economic climate or whether they could be doing anything better on the home front. Improved creativity, applied measurement best practice, and testing and learning with marketing spend are all areas that will optimise performance and help marketers defend and grow their budgets.

Mathew Faulkner, Director, Marketing & Innovation, Wide Format Printing Group Canon EMEA We recently spoke to four prominent futurists from outside the print community for our 2025 Canon Insight Report to hear their ideas about broad trends that are shaping the future of print. Several elements cut across all conversations. Notably, consumer behaviours are changing in that old brand allegiances are eroded by new ways of browsing and buying, and younger generations are choosing brands based on shared values as an extension of their identity. This challenges classic marketing practices and forces marketers to think about more nuanced and individualised ways of reaching target audiences, creating value from the customer data they hold.

Eleni Despotou, Director General, FEFCO As we begin the first few weeks of 2025, the last 12 months have been rich in activity to cope with the challenges of EU legislation, but also by geopolitical and economic challenges. The month of December was marked by the long-awaited adoption of the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR). This determines how all packaging industry actors will operate in the future, and brings challenges as well as opportunities. While the sustainable, renewable and recyclable character of corrugated packaging has been recognised, challenges may be posed during the second phase of legislation, notably in design for recycling, harmonised labelling, empty space ratio and the minimisation of packaging.

Beatrice Klose, Secretary General, Intergraf For the graphic industry, 2025 will be influenced by emerging regulations, AI and evolving market demands. The delayed implementation of the EU Deforestation Regulation provides valuable time for companies in the forest-based value chain to adapt their procedures. Intergraf will support this transition with the publication of a guidance document in early 2025. Simultaneously, the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) will reshape how products are packed, requiring packaging printers to adopt greater flexibility to meet the needs of brand owners, e-commerce and other businesses in this sector.