Ask Marla Kaplowitz about her outlook for the agency business in 2025, and she’ll begin by reminding you that ad agencies operate in a constantly evolving environment.  In fact, they often do their best work and deliver their greatest value during periods of significant change. She does have several critical items on her New Year agenda. First among them is an agency “compensation reset” that goes beyond the standard Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) model.   This month also marked a redesigned 4As website with new features and an updated logo.

Bob Liodice, the ANA's chief executive officer, is bullish on AI. Not only has the term been chosen three times as the "Marketing Word of the Year" through voting by the ANA membership, but he believes that GenAI has the capability to help his members become better marketers. 

"AI," he says, "will change the entire productivity scale. Marketers are learning rapidly that our work can be done much faster, more easily, and more productively. ...The beauty of AI is that it is a tool that not only promises something but also delivers quite a bit. We have seen data that suggests the overall increment in productivity is nearing 10% in the two years that GenAI has been in the market."

Brian Wieser is one of the few people who can outline a career with such roles as investment banker, equity research analyst, long-time agency executive, and developer of two of the global advertising industry's most widely relied upon data sets.  His firm, Madison and Wall, operates at the intersection of how trends in media spending and advertising budgets affect marketers and investors.   He’s an ideal person to discuss the pros and cons of the announced Omnicom—Interpublic (IPG) merger and the industry outlook for 2025.

Ask Ruth Bernstein about her concept of Brand Beacons, and she’ll tell you they set the next standards in business.  While that may sound like a monumental task or an extraordinary description of a brand’s potential, after a 30-minute conversation, I was convinced about the power of beacon status.   Ruth Bernstein is the CEO and Co-Founder of Yard NYC, an independent creative company that helps inspire cultural and emotional connections to brands.  She proves that brands can transform companies, communities, and causes—and that’s just a start.   
Today, we discuss some of her foundational beliefs and some of the brands that achieve the highest aspirations of beacon status.

Eighteen months ago, former Omnicom Vice Chairman Tim Love released his award-winning book Discovering Truth: How to Navigate Between Fact and Fiction in an Overwhelming Social Media World. Drawing inspiration from renowned business leaders, Discovering Truth explored how today's social media affects trust in institutions and divides an increasingly polarized society. Tim Love is now devoting his efforts to what he calls “grave concerns about a dangerously wide-open internet” and especially to the potential impact on children.   

We discuss those concerns and his tips for Navigating Between Fact & Fiction.

Surprisingly, few books are dedicated to how marketers can bring out the best in their advertising agencies.  

Joanne Davis, a renowned expert in client-agency relationships, has just released a new book through Internationalist Press entitled How to Get Your Agency to Run Through Brick Walls—Without Paying More.  With humor and wisdom, she provides a concise yet impactful volume that delivers a compelling message for clients seeking to unlock the full potential of their agency partnerships.

Dave McCaughan, Expert on Age and International Culture, Explains What Brands Get Wrong about Older People Dave McCaughan is a storyteller, marketing expert, consultant, and public speaker passionate about understanding the interconnection between people and brands.  He spent three decades with McCann throughout Asia, developing the Strategic Planning practice and working with a stellar roster of global clients. 

Ten years ago, he created a fascinating consultancy called BIBLIOSEXUAL for “marketing what matters to people” and joined two partners in establishing AI Agency, which uses artificial intelligence to track the narratives important to building brand stories.  

Today, he turns his attention to another favorite topic — life stages, redefining aging, and the potential this offers to brands.

Women’s sports have been soaring in popularity, yet they still receive as little as 5% of sports media coverage. Ally Financial took a pioneering step in May 2022 by committing to spend equally on men’s and women’s sports within five years.  Ally also scored a huge early win by working with CBS to move the National Women’s Soccer League’s championship game to its first-ever prime-time slot. This decision paid off. 

Not only was viewership up 71% over the previous year, but the game became the most-watched match in the league’s history. Ally’s 50/50 pledge is now changing the way brands consider their investments in women’s sports.  We discussed this groundbreaking effort with Bridget Sponsky, Ally’s executive director of brand and sponsorship marketing, and Mariana Dimitrova, Managing Partner & Executive Director at EssenceMediacom.

Hiki is the world’s leading app for friendship and dating in the Autistic community. It stands out from other dating apps because of its mission: to enable the Autistic community to connect with each other.  Autistic people are 4x more likely to feel lonely than others. A contributing factor is that false assumptions and misinformation have created biased images in media and advertising that misrepresent those on the autism spectrum.   Hiki aimed to challenge these limiting views and drive genuine representation of the community. Sef Cavendish, Social Media Coordinator at HIKI, and Rachel Lowenstein, Global Head of Inclusive Innovation at Mindshare, talk about this important initiative.

The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that one out of every thirteen people have enough hearing or vision impairment to depend on captioning and descriptive audio for their media use.   By 2050, WHO also anticipates that 2.5 billion people will be living with some degree of hearing loss.  While these statistics may seem overwhelming, the Ad Access Alliance, a group led by ISBA and Union des Marques, under the aegis of the WFA, with founding member Procter & Gamble, is joining foreces with others in the advertising ecosystem to ensure all ads are accessible to people with hearing or visual impairments.

Today, Taide Guajardo, Chief Brand Officer Europe at P&G, and Phil Smith, Director General of ISBA, or the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers, discuss an ambitious program to make all content more accessible.