One Defining Shift

My one defining shift in 2025, was one that we have suspected for quite some time, that nobody trusts commercial messaging any more… but they do absolutely trust Creators!  Specifically, Creator Marketing was unequivically proven to be a powerful brand-building channel, delivering high ROI comparable to TV in the long term, as reported in the IPAs October study.  

At Ogilvy, we always talk (and excel in) brand building in a social-first world, and so it was a great affirmation for how we already treat influencer marketing…that is consideration always at the planning stage and definitely not as an add-on, assessing how well a brands’ world connects with a creator’s world, and how they can enable active participation in culture.  

Brands grow faster when they build with creators, not around them. Why? Because creators deliver what the feed economy makes scarce:  attention, relevance and trust.

To conclude, 2025 underlined that Creator Marketing isn’t simply a ‘nice to have’ any more, but rather the backbone of any sound modern, brand-building approach.

One Bold Grounded Prediction

It was the great Lee Clow that once said “we get paid like we’re doing our clients’ laundry”.  That was back in 2012 and so in 2026 I think as an industry we have an opportunity to finally lay this quote to rest.  Aritifical intelligence is a gift that could help us finally rip down the time & materials business model and it’s up to agencies to seize that opportunity, working out how we can move to a hybrid model of fixed fees, tech fees and outcome-based fees.  

Specifically this is about pivoting from cost of input to tangible business outcomes, and as AI has been able to expedite certain tasks and automate the slightly more mundane, hence freeing up more time for our amazing talents, the stage is set to put the spotlight on how strategic & creative excellence and the human imagination can deliver genuine unreasonable impact.  

Speaking of gifts, in “WPP Open”, we at Ogilvy have the power at our fingertips to deploy the world’s most powerful AI tool designed specifically for the advertising industry.  And our folks in MENA are definitely leaning in! We currently have a 70% adoption rate across the region, upskilling our talent to a new breed of what our EMEA CEO Patou Nuytemans refers to as ‘Augmented Creative Solutionists’.  This is all fuelled by our technologically advanced and growth-hungry client partners across the GCC who are cheering us on.  

And hence the end goal of leveraging human ingenuity and technology is to transition to hybrid commercial models that prove a disproportionate impact not on outputs, but on business results.  I can’t think of a single client who wouldn’t say ‘yes please!’ to that.