As 2025 approaches, marketing pros should reflect on the past year and plan for the future. A crucial step in this process is creating a marketing mood board, which allows you to visually map out your brand's goals for the upcoming year and start with a clear direction. So, as we enter a new year, let's take a look at what stays and what needs to go into our marketing strategies.
Sometimes we have a vision in our head, but the second we see it on paper or right in front of us, we realise that our idea doesn't exactly work the way we thought.
This is why having a mood board is a brilliant idea for all marketers when putting together their 2025 marketing strategies — this will help you bring your ideas to life and have a cohesive feel.
Keep reading as Saads Abrahams from media update helps you create your 2025 marketing mood board.
What is a marketing mood board?
A marketing mood board is a visual representation of how your brand should look, feel and act. A mood board has a mix of pictures, textures, colours, fonts and other visual elements that will help keep your brand and its messaging cohesive.
Why do you need a marketing mood board?
If you are wondering why you need a mood board, and what the point is, think of it as a visual roadmap for your brand. It helps you and your team stay consistent in creating a marketing strategy that aligns with the brand's values, style and goals.
Whether it is a new brand or an existing one, having a cohesive message throughout your entire marketing campaign — from adverts to social media platforms — makes not only you but your brand look professional and put together.
Having a marketing mood board also helps your team stay on brand. Then even if someone joins in midway, they will have a visual representation of the brand's goals that helps them stay on brand and ensures that the brand voice never drastically changes.
Additionally, having a marketing mood board can help inspire ideas and storytelling for the brand. When you have a visual aid to start off with, it can help your marketing team develop new ideas that still fit within the feel and vibe of the brand
Key Elements of a Marketing Mood Board
There are a few key elements that are must-haves on every marketing mood board if you want it to be successful and useful.
Visual Aesthetics: This consists of colour palettes, typography and visual styles / themes.
Brand Values: Put together some quotes, keywords, or taglines that reflect your brand voice and ethos.
Market Trends: Add visual cues representing trends you want to integrate into your strategy like sustainability, AI, or inclusivity.
Audience Persona: You also need to add imagery and insights that will represent your target demographic.
Competitor Inspiration: Add some mentions of what others in your industry are doing. This way you can see what works and what you can put your own unique touch on.
Steps to Create Your 2025 Marketing Mood Board
Now let's take a deeper look at the steps you need to take when creating your own 2025 marketing mood board:
Step 1: Define Your Objectives
Every marketing campaign has an end goal, be it building brand awareness or the launch of a new product. So, make sure that you align your board with your marketing goals.
Step 2: Research Trends and Insights
You cannot create your mood board without doing any research first. Using tools such as media monitoring, trend reports and competitor analysis will help provide you with all the necessary information to guide your marketing strategy.
Step 3: Curate Content
Now you need to gather visuals, textures and data that resonate with your brand message and that you want to put on your mood board.
Step 4: Use Tools and Platforms
Find the perfect tools and platforms that you want to make use of to create your marketing mood board, such as Pinterest, Canva, or Adobe Spark for digital boards.
Step 5: Test and Iterate
Finally, it is time to present your board to the team for feedback and adjust accordingly.
Tips for an Effective Marketing Mood Board
Some final tips to create an effective marketing mood board are:
- maintaining a clear focus — do not overwhelm your board and your audience with too many elements
- finding a balance between creativity and practicality
- including diversity and representation in your visuals, and
- ensuring that it aligns with your marketing budget and strategy for 2025.
Will you be creating a marketing mood board? Let us know in the comment section below.
*Images courtesy of Canva