Mumbai: Geo-political and economic uncertainty is the biggest challenge facing the industry in 2025, followed by having to do more with less and clients devaluing creativity.
36% of industry leaders believe that the most exciting opportunity for creativity in 2025 is brand collaborations.
Both clients and agency leaders overwhelmingly believe that agencies are no less valuable in an AI world, with 88.6% of clients and 84.6% of agencies saying that they are not less valuable.
These findings are a part of the latest research from Contagious (part of LIONS and sister brand of WARC) which polls 100 C-suite marketing and agency execs to get a read of the biggest opportunities and threats on ad industry leaders’ radars this year.
Each year, it speaks to the industry to find out where executives are spending their time, attention and money over the next 12 months. Alongside interviews with leaders (such as Pancho Cassis, global CCO at David, Rethink CSO Sean McDonald, and McDonald’s global CMO Morgan Flatley) it polls 100 C-suite marketing and agency execs to get a read of the industry’s attitudes to current issues such as AI, agency remuneration, and DEI.
Challenge 1: The risks and fears surrounding AI
The rapid and widespread adoption of AI in 2024 sparked dire predictions for the ad industry – in particular, creative jobs seem to be in the firing line. Forrester predicts that AI will eliminate 7.5% of advertising jobs in the US by 2030, and news of the tech-driven Omnicom merger in December triggered a panic about the imminent demise of creative agencies. How will adland fare in a generative AI world, asks Graham Drew, CCO for Grey Malaysia and Singapore, when the ‘really disruptive, amazing, Cannes-winning stuff’ represents a fraction of the output?
‘Let’s all admit that a huge amount of the work that we do – repurposing stuff, reformatting stuff, doing the toolkits – can be automated,’ he says. ‘There’s always going to be room for those breakthrough pieces of creativity, those connections that computers can never make, absolutely. But that’s not the whole business.’ The Radar report outlines how ad industry leaders are confronting fears and reframing how they think of AI to get the best out of it.
Challenge 2: Dangerous short-term thinking is on the rise
An ugly trend is on the rise again this year, and it’s ‘kryptonite for creativity,’ says Rethink CSO, Sean McDonald. Many of our interviewees spoke of a general pressure to deliver ‘more, for less, faster’ and expressed concerns about the cost of short-termism. Despite decades of research by the likes of Les Binet and Peter Field, the IPA, and Orlando Wood that show that ‘the obsession with short-term results at the expense of any medium (let alone long) term investment, is terribly flawed,’ says Elizabeth Paul, EVP/chief brand officer at The Martin Agency, ‘the immediate pressure for quarterly performance keeps the status quo in place [and] puts enormous pressure on CEOs and CMOs to yield, yield, yield without time to plant or space to let things grow.’ Our interviewees explain how mismanaging the short- and long-term is hurting brands – and how to fight back.
Challenge 3: Client-agency relationships are hanging on by a thread
Under mounting pressure to cut costs, condense project timelines, navigate new technology and deliver measurable results, clients are increasingly shopping around for the cheapest service, rather than viewing agencies as long-term creative partners. FCB global CCO Andres Ordóñez describes a ‘dangerous’ trend of agencies increasingly being seen as ‘vendors’ rather than partners. ‘[Clients] are bringing in so many other partners that don’t understand the brand,’ he says. ‘They’re just there for the task.’ And without one consistent formula for how to sell creativity, there’s always a competitor that will do a version for less.
Throw in the dwindling average CMO tenure (around 37 months) and you wonder how any long-term client-agency relationships are still going. As with short-termism, a quick-fix, chop-and-change approach to agency partners is detrimental to creativity and long-term brand building, but it’s also a surefire way to erode confidence and trust in client-agency partnerships. The full Radar report details why and how leaders are investing in long-term partnerships this year.
