Cade Heyde.
The AdNews end-of-year Perspectives, looking back at 2025 and forward to next year.
Cade Heyde, Global Partner at Special.
If 2025 revealed anything, it is that advertising has a branding problem. The industry built to create and grow the world’s most enduring brands has struggled to articulate its own value and purpose.
In a year shaped by AI, automation and efficiency pressures, the industry that once thrived on differentiation started to look stupidly similar.
Part of it was speed. AI hasn't just changed how work is made. It has changed expectations. Our clients want things faster and we've all reshaped the way we work to keep up.
But somewhere in that rush, agencies started making similar decisions, solving problems in similar ways, and sounding more alike than ever before.
Our tools have become ubiquitous. Our processes are largely, too. Even the language in our decks has begun to sound interchangeable. When we all aim for efficiency, everything becomes familiar.
It’s ironic. We’ve all been telling clients to invest in difference while quietly drifting into sameness ourselves. Agencies used to have a clear point of view and positioning. But we’ve all drifted towards the middle. Optimised, but less interesting.
And the industry shifts have only amplified that feeling. The mergers. The vanishing of agency brands that once actually meant something.
The quiet retirement of names with decades of equity. For an industry that claims to build long-term brands, what does it say to clients when we seem so willing to erase our own brands? If we cannot protect our own brand equity, how can we expect clients to trust us with theirs?
But 2025 wasn’t just a story of sameness. It also showed where differentiation still exists. The independents, the smaller creative shops, the outliers operating on the edges rather than the middle. They were the ones driving cultural impact, not because they had more resources, but because they had clearer identities. They sounded like someone. They stood for something. They behaved like brands themselves. They proved that identity and positioning can still be a competitive advantage.
Maybe next year is a chance to fix this. Agency brand stories are going to matter more than they have in a long time. Not just for the front of a creds deck, but for what clients believe about us.
The question is no longer only why clients should choose one agency over the next. Because clients now have access to the same tools we do, our own point of view becomes the only true differentiator.
The question is how your agency will create more value than the machines. What is the belief or the craft your agency has that a machine cannot replicate? What makes you distinct enough to still matter.
Speed and efficiency will continue to improve. That’s inevitable. But they will not become points of difference. They will become plumbing. Useful, but not a differentiator. Clients will always need ideas. The stuff that actually stands out. The things that move people, not just fill channels. And the agencies that define their own story the clearest will be the ones trusted to tell stories for others.
If we want clients to believe in difference, we need to prove we still know how to make it. For them and for ourselves. Because clients are not just judging the work. They are judging the industry making it. And if we expect them to invest in distinctiveness, we need to show we still believe in it too.
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