A snapshot of what has gained traction, investment or interest - for better or worse - over the past 12 months, and what has fallen back.
The
From Currys to M&S, Higgs LLP to HMV, brands have been making the most of in-house experts and those who know their products inside out. This has been seen through brands' social accounts, store-specific pages, and even employees' own socials. It looks to be a trend following into 2026.
Employee
influencers
Rather than tackling pay inequality, this year progress stalled. Marketing Week’s 2025 Career & Salary Survey found female marketers are paid on average 17.8% less than their male peers, up from 16% in 2024. Marketing’s ethnicity pay gap is at its highest level since 2022 at 13.3%, while the socio-economic pay gap is stuck at 15.3%.
Action on closing
pay gaps
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Commerce media is the next stage of retail media as non-retail companies, such as those operating in travel and finance, recognise the value of monetising their data. Companies including Expedia, Uber and PayPal have all expanded their own media networks to capture a share of growing ad budgets this year.
Commerce media
It’s all change in adland. Omnicom and IPG completed their merger deal in November, almost a year after it was first announced. The businesses are cutting around 4,000 roles and axing iconic agency names DDB, FCB and MullenLowe. Meanwhile Group M rebranded as WPP Media in May, marking a big change for the embattled holding company.
Agency consolidation
There has been much talk of the need for brands to engage with consumers differently, with advertisers investing in both virtual and real-life “experiences” designed to capture consumers' attention. Coca-Cola has talked about shifting to an “experience-led” model, while Cadbury has emphasised the importance of online experiences, including Worldwide Hide.
Brand experiences
From Unilever pledging to up influencer marketing to Asos committing to creators, brands from all sectors are noticing the value of influencers for reach and conversion. Paired with recent research from the IPA solidifying influencer effectiveness, 2025 has truly seen brands tap into the creator economy boom.
Influencer marketing investment
Speak to any recruiter and they’ll tell you it’s a buyer’s market, with many marketers out of work and struggling to get back in as brands hold back on hiring. This, coupled with the fact marketing team restructures are at a three-year high, makes for an uneasy time for marketers’ job security.
Job security
If 2024 signalled the beginning of
the end for brand purpose, then 2025 was the final nail in the coffin. Donald Trump's second term as President
saw a host of brands roll back on
DEI initiatives, while Ben & Jerry’s
co-founder left the business in September accusing former purpose proponent Unilever of refusing to let him speak on social issues.
Brands taking
a stand
If you are the kind of person who considers 'password' to be a good password then the news of the data struggles at high street retailers Marks & Spencer and Co-op would have been enough to send you into palpitations. Costing M&S in the region of £136m and Co-op near £206m, the spate of cyber attacks in the summer was an ample reminder to brands that your comms strategy to deal with them needs to be in place.
Cyber attacks
© MWCR MMXXV
Requiring less human input than large language models (LLM), agentic AI can make decisions, plan and take action to achieve goals in scenarios such as dealing with customer complaints and managing large-scale data. With 23% of businesses scaling an agentic AI system, according to McKinsey, and an additional 39% beginning to experiment with AI agents, the use of agentic AI has quickly gained pace this year.
Agentic AI
Ad wastage is not a new topic and despite progress in cleaning up ad spending on the open web over the last few years, wasted ad spend in programmatic media buying increased 34% in the last two years to hit $26.8bn (£20bn), according to an Association of National Advertisers (ANA) study.
Ad wastage
If you are the kind of person who considers 'password' to be a good password then the news of the data struggles at high street retailers Marks & Spencer and Co-op would have been enough to send you into palpitations. Costing M&S in the region of £136m and Co-op near £206m, the spate of cyber attacks in the summer was an ample reminder to brands that your comms strategy to deal with them needs to be in place.
Cyber attacks
