For years, food and drink marketers have had a blind spot. You could see exactly how your website ranked on Google. You had no idea how a viral TikTok or a scroll stopping Reel showed up in someone’s search results. That gap has just started to close.
Right now, someone is asking an AI tool which food brand to buy. Which sauce, which drink, which supplier to call. And the answer they get won’t come from a Google search. It won’t link to your website. It will be a single, confident recommendation from ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude or Perplexity and more. If it doesn’t include your brand, you simply don’t exist in that moment.
Something interesting is happening in design right now. After years of ever-cleaner interfaces, flatter logos and AI-generated everything, brands are reaching for rough edges. Handmade textures. Ink on paper. Typefaces that look like they were cut out of a magazine.
As consumer lifestyles continue to evolve, one drinks trend has moved from niche wellness circles into the mainstream: CBD drinks.
Once found mainly in indie cafés and health-led concept stores, CBD beverages are now appearing in grocery chillers, workplace fridges, bars and premium hospitality settings. This shift shows a wider move towards mindful refreshment, functional ingredients and lifestyle-first wellbeing.
So what’s behind the rise of CBD drinks? And what can food & drink brands learn from the space?
Shopper marketing has always been about meeting people where they are. In 2025 that’s becoming more literal than ever. Smaller store formats, quick commerce and dark stores are reshaping the way we shop. For food and drink brands the battleground is no longer the aisle, it’s the last 100 metres before purchase.
For years, the goal of digital marketing has been simple: get to the top of Google’s search results, earn the click, and drive traffic to your website. This model, built on the foundation of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), has been the undisputed king of digital strategy. But the kingdom is changing.
The search game is no longer about a list of ten blue links. It’s about one, single, definitive answer.
Typography. You just click the drop-down and choose something you like the look of. Simple. Serif if it’s formal, sans-serif if it isn’t. Job. Done. Well no. Typography is almost certainly the most under-appreciated element of visual design. Done well it’s amost invisible. Change the typeface on Apple, on Easyjet, on Nike or on Converse, and the entire brand is lost. It’s the tone of voice, it’s the personality, it’s the rhythm and meter of the message and it’s been that way since the earliest letterforms began organising communication, writing histories and spreading news around our world. So what should be looking out for in 2025. Read on good traveller, read on.
Typography. You just click the drop-down and choose something you like the look of. Simple. Serif if it’s formal, sans-serif if it isn’t. Job. Done. Well no. Typography is almost certainly the most under-appreciated element of visual design. Done well it’s amost invisible. Change the typeface on Apple, on Easyjet, on Nike or on Converse, and the entire brand is lost. It’s the tone of voice, it’s the personality, it’s the rhythm and meter of the message and it’s been that way since the earliest letterforms began organising communication, writing histories and spreading news around our world. So what should be looking out for in 2023. Read on good traveller, read on.
Well it’s better (slightly late) than never. Art Director Luca and myself have taken a look at the most reported (and evidenced) design trends for 2023.
The findings of which proved rather sobering for me (Andy) at least, as it turns out that the design vernacular of my childhood (90’s / rave) have now returned – nothing makes you feel so old as the confirmation that your not-so-long-ago childhood is now a fit subject for nostalgia.
If you didn’t already appreciate the importance of Google when it comes to marketing, well, where have you been? Whether it’s search, advertising, local SEO via maps, or YouTube, they’ve got things pretty much sewn up. And you can add to the list, website page speed. If you’re not already obsessing over your page speed metrics, you ought to be. The fact is that your page speed score is vital.
The lowest hanging fruit in all SEO is in the hands of the least tech savvy people. Writers.
Text on the web is perhaps Google’s favourite content as it is so easily ‘machine readable’.
With some sound advice it’s possible to take your simple blogs, articles, case studies and press releases, and super-charge them into top SEO content that will get you noticed online.
