Which agencies will thrive in 2025? To coincide with our Predictions event on thedrum.com, each day this week we are spotlighting agencies that we believe are primed to set the agenda in the months to come.
In part one, we examined why the likes of AMV BBDO, Hearts & Science and Code and Theory are among the ones to watch this year. Today, we introduce you to 10 more agencies – some already firmly established, others on the march – that are due recognition based on their achievements in 2024 and what they promise to deliver from here on out.
We will continue to reveal the featured agencies in a series of articles until the end of this week. They hail from all corners of the world and represent a diverse range of specialisms. But what they all have in common is that they have earned The Drum Recommends status on the strength of their recent performance.
So now, it’s over to our next 10 Agencies to Watch to learn about the secrets of their success so far and what makes them believe 2025 will be their year.
The President’s Award winner at The Drum Awards for Content 2024 will be eager to continue proving itself as a jewel in the IPG crown as its mega-merger with Omnicom takes shape.
What trends will shape the industry in 2025?
Emma Armstrong, CEO: For many reasons, I think we’re going to see a continued focus on efficiency in 2025 – both on the client and agency side. We all know that, if left unchecked, this has the potential to lead to a race to the bottom and the continued erosion of the value and distinctiveness of agencies and our work. We need to shift the industry focus to effectiveness – that magical combination of insightful, creative ideas that drive real business results for our clients.
Secondly, I think there will be a continued trend of the more successful agencies putting clear water between themselves and the rest of the industry by doubling down on innovation.
Our industry is changing at lightning speed. Our clients – and the people at our agencies – are relying on us to keep pace or even outpace the speed of change.
What does the agency have planned for 2025?
In 2024, we brought in 12 new brands looking to make a big creative splash this year. We’re excited to launch new campaigns for Pringles, Cheez-It, Listerine and more in the next few months, starting with Pringles Super Bowl work.
What work were you most proud of in 2024?
Spotify ‘Spreadbeats’: To challenge media planners’ assumptions that Spotify is just an audio platform and showcase our video offerings, we found a way to hack the media RFP process and shift the conversation.
Michelob Ultra ‘Lap of Legends’: Michelob Ultra wanted to join the Formula 1 conversation, but instead of simply placing their logo on a car, we created ‘Lap of Legends,’ the world’s first real versus virtual F1 race. Instead of pitching Lap of Legends to prospective media partners, TV and streaming networks actually pitched to host our show on their platforms and brands paid to be featured during the commercial breaks to bring in a $30m ROMI.
FDA Center for Tobacco Products ‘Toxic Taxidermy’: We’ve built a decade-long partnership with the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products with The Real Cost campaign to prevent teens from using tobacco. In our latest iteration, we warned teens about formaldehyde in their vapes through spokespeople that we knew would get teens to take notice – taxidermized animals who know the impact of formaldehyde all too well.
Budweiser ‘Old School Delivery’: Understanding the value of earned impressions, we brought the iconic Budweiser Clydesdales and labrador back to the Super Bowl in epic fashion. The campaign became Budweiser’s most viewed, shared and commented Super Bowl spot in their history and significantly increased purchase intent.
The purpose-driven agency, which has won acclaim for change campaigns such as its NHS drive placing cancer awareness prompts in unexpected places, is primed to deliver more work that inspires real action in 2025.
What trends will shape the industry in 2025?
Consumers are done with empty purpose statements. The era of selling through abstract ideals is over. We’re seeing customers demanding authentic action, not rhetoric, so we’re counseling clients to prove their commitment through tangible initiatives, not impressive manifestos. Real change, measurable impact and genuine social responsibility are now the benchmarks for consumer trust. Companies that understand this shift – those who demonstrate their values through concrete actions will successfully engage modern audiences.
What does the agency have planned for 2025?
We’ve got some exciting things planned as we continue to evolve our brand and campaign services that change behavior for the better – all of which we will share throughout the course of the year. We’ve also just welcomed two exceptional creative talents in Dan McCormack and Luke Boggins into our fold with a proven pedigree working on award-winning international work for blue-chip clients, including McDonald’s, Tesco, Virgin Holidays, Subway and Pfizer. We can’t wait to unleash them and see what we are able to achieve together!
What work were you most proud of in 2024?
We’re proud of our innovative NHS ‘Be Body Aware’ campaign, which integrates health messaging into everyday items such as Morrisons’ underwear labels and Tesco toilet rolls. By placing cancer awareness prompts in unexpected places, our campaign messaging is now in millions of products in our target audiences’ homes, so we’re really helping people take proactive health steps.
Winning the creative account for ‘This Girl Can’ has been another milestone, adding to the stellar work our PR and partnerships teams have achieved with Sport England this year. As the campaign marks its 10th anniversary, we’re busy with the next phase.
Fresh from celebrating its 25th anniversary, the Californian content and creative agency is readying itself for the next era of helping challenger brands flourish.
What trends will shape the industry in 2025?
With a name like David&Goliath, we welcome new challenges and trends and continue to look at them as opportunities. This year’s turbulence surrounding social platforms will create opportunities for brands to stand out and stand up for their audiences and the world to see. We envision brands being recognized for what they don’t do on platforms as much as, if not more so, than what they do. We’re heading into 2025 by challenging every assumption of what works and why and looking at existing and new platforms to gain an even greater advantage for our brand partners.
What’s a trend forecast without a mention of AI? It is integral throughout our process, from strategy to creative to measurement. The speed to outcome frees up our people to focus more on finding opportunities and crafting brave new thinking and ideas.
What does the agency have planned for 2025?
This past year marked a milestone for David&Goliath as we celebrated our 25th anniversary – a quarter century of helping challenger people and brands face their biggest goliaths and rise to unthinkable heights.
We continued to live our Brave philosophy from the inside out as we kicked off the anniversary at Cannes by introducing our next Brave initiative with BraveU, a transformative program for young creators, empowering them to bravely own their truth. In addition, we continued to build on our Brave Camp initiative that helps inner city kids of Harlem travel outside their comfort zone and become the best versions of themselves.
Founder and creative chairman David Angelo and long-time veterans Ben Purcell, chief creative officer, and CJ Stockton, chief of operations, expanded the executive leadership at David&Goliath. Amy Chiang was promoted to chief of integration. Michele Tebbe returned to the agency as chief of client services and business growth. And Brendan Robertson was hired for his insightful thinking as our chief strategy officer. Together, this group is working closely across all aspects of the business heading into 2025 and beyond.
What work were you most proud of in 2024?
We started 2024 helping Kia Save New Year’s in Times Square. Then for the Super Bowl, we launched Kia’s flagship vehicle, the EV9, with a heartfelt campaign that stood out in the sea of celebrities. Then we crashed the big game through social with our Jollibee partners and deep-fried football. And for Vizio, we brought to life a new platform and a few new characters that encouraged the world to ‘Watch Us.’ In addition, we continued to lead culture as we enlisted the help of hype man Flavor Flav to play the role of the Flavor Genie, who helps America discover the new flavors of Smartfood popcorn.
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The small but mighty Agency of the Year (under 10 staff) at The Drum Awards for Agency Business has big ambitions for the year ahead.
What trends will shape the industry in 2025?
Gulliver Moore, managing director and founder: As they bend the knee to a new western economic and cultural order, Meta, Alphabet and Amazon will continue dominating, accounting for over 70% of global ad spend growth. Amazon’s retail media expansion highlights the shift towards direct-to-consumer strategies, leveraging first-party data to target buyers more effectively. For marketers, standing out in this data-driven space will require fresh creativity to reach audiences.
As cookies continue to phase out due to privacy concerns, first-party data is taking center stage. Clean rooms and authenticated targeting are becoming more standard, allowing brands to deliver personalized campaigns while maintaining consumer trust. The challenge for agencies lies in integrating complex data strategies into compelling creative work.
With nearly 20% growth projected, Connected TV (CTV) platforms like Netflix and YouTube are transforming video advertising. CTV allows for richer storytelling and better targeting than traditional TV, offering brands a new space to captivate audiences with longer-form narratives. Linear TV spend also remains strong, particularly in the UK compared with other markets. We saw this trend reflected in our own work at Sunday Treat, with many TVCs on our slate last year for brands like KLM and Leonardo Hotels airing across the UK and Ireland.
What does the agency have planned for 2025?
Moore: We were thrilled to win Agency of the Year last year, which really was our first industry recognition and has given us the confidence to develop more of an awards strategy this year.
We’ve recently hired a fantastic new business development manager which is part of a complete refresh of our already very successful new biz strategy – and in anticipation of this investment, we’re bringing in new roles to handle the additional work.
Finally, we’re doubling down on our commitment to ‘Find the Fun’ in all the projects we work on; it has been an incredibly successful niche for us and so rewarding for the team to be working on fun projects. I categorise all of our projects and last year 67% were in the “fun/ creative” category which is quite simply incredible compared to the start of Sunday Treat in 2021.
What work were you most proud of in 2024?
Moore: ‘Yes It Daz’ was the slogan for the new Daz campaign that we worked on with the talented creatives at You Agency and the influencer Troy Hawke. It was a big brand partnership for him and a big campaign for Daz, which has recently been acquired by a new company. The campaign was a huge success and it was so fun to take the whole team out to Westfield shopping center to see our work on the big screens along with the TV commercials on ITVX.
We onboarded Canon as a new client, completing many new projects for it, such as the flagship C400 launch video featuring Sarah Thomas Moffatt the Dual Fisheye lens video, which we conceptualized with Sam Baumel, the US-based VR filmmaker we brought over from New York.
Virtual Production: we had many VP projects in 2024, but the highlight for me was a currently unreleased project for KLM which saw a huge cast of characters travel to Hong Kong, Rio and Capetown all from our studio in Slough.
Our first Sunday Treat Original since ‘Sliced Bread’ was shot in 2024, featuring the incredible Alice Etches. It’s about a woman who goes on a date with a half-man/half-goat. Our commitment to short-form comedy is one of the founding principles at Sunday Treat and I’m excited to run the festival circuit with this one and start planning our follow-up this year.
The Grand Prix winner at The Drum Awards for PR is in a rich vein of form creatively and is on a mission to ensure PR takes its rightful place in the marketing mix.
What trends will shape the industry in 2025?
Kat Arnull, chief strategy officer: PR will continue to shift toward being a marketing mindset over a channel. 2025 will be the year where we see the shift from PR being seen as a marketing channel – seen as a choice between or amplifier of advertising – toward PR being seen as a marketing mindset that ensures effectiveness. The breakthrough campaigns will all be devised by using an earned first approach designed to reach audiences on their terms. In a year where we saw a president chosen by a podcast, it’s going to be even more important that we are thinking about how we connect with audiences on multiple levels and challenge the laws that have gone before.
What does the agency have planned for 2025?
Arnull: Our clients want smart, channel-agnostic thinking, audience-led media strategy and great earned thinking, so over the last year and into next year, we are sharpening our integrated media planning and capabilities by investing in new hires – such as ex-LadBible’s Gemma Combellack as consumer EVP and Gareth Davies as integrated media EVP, social director Paige Hiley, as well as building out our influencer team.
What work were you most proud of in 2024?
Arnull: Our ‘Misheard Version’ work with Specsavers won seven Cannes Lions in 2024, including two Grand Prix with the first ever PR Lion Grand Prix won by a PR agency’s creative idea, truly showing the power of an earned-first idea.
Asics ‘Desk Break’: We recruited the world’s scariest boss, Brian Cox, to deliver a rousing public service announcement to desk workers, calling on them to reject wellness perks like ‘Wellness Wednesdays’ and to ‘f**k the fruit’ to instead take a 15-minute #DeskBreak to move for your mind. Supported by research and The Desk Break experiment by Dr Brendon Stubbs that proved the benefits of a 15-minute break, the campaign took the world by storm, reaching over 2.7 billion with the director general of the World Health Organisation organically sharing our work.
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Having expanded its digital expertise with the acquisition of Don’t be Shy last autumn, the fast-growing B2B specialist continues to thrive with brands that have a complex route to market or a technical product to sell.
What trends will shape the industry in 2025?
There is growing recognition in the benefits of working with an agency that exemplifies a truly positive culture. Our managing director, Alexander Swann, spoke on this topic at B2B World Fest recently and the importance of looking beyond talent, strategy, creativity and effectiveness, instead focusing on what makes a positive agency culture and invest in it. The result is the agency will yield talented people, who take pride in doing a great job for their clients. Positive culture is one of the single biggest force multipliers to campaign success. Agencies not getting this right has sunk more campaigns – and client budgets – than we care to mention. If those working on an account aren’t giving their all, then you’re likely to get mediocrity (or worse) back in return. So why would clients not make agency culture a big part of your selection process?
What does the agency have planned for 2025?
We’ve now fully integrated our acquisition of Manchester-based Don’t be Shy. In the next year, we’ll crack on as an expanded agency with impressive digital skills that perfectly complement our strategy, PR and creative specialisms. People from both offices are working on some major campaigns with big B2B names in the tech, construction and telecom industries – so you’ll be hearing a lot more from us in the coming months.
What work were you most proud of in 2024?
We won numerous awards in 2024, spanning all parts of the agency, including PR, creative, strategy and digital. From a brand perspective, it was extremely satisfying to develop a product identity and creative campaign for Polypipe Building Services that led to tens of millions in sales for it. On the demand side, campaigns for KBR, a global project engaging the world’s biggest energy companies, and for Finning, the world’s largest Caterpillarâ dealer, together generated over £30m in qualified leads. We’ve also supported Michelin on a global basis as it repositioned its B2B offering and continued projects with TalkTalk Business and Marks & Spencer.
With its first acquisition on the horizon, the winner of Agency of the Year (11-49 staff) at The Drum Awards for Agency Business is gearing itself up for further growth at home in the UK and beyond.
What trends will shape the industry in 2025?
Alex Myers, chief executive officer and founder: AI will go from crappy PR stunts to integral operational catalyst, with agencies super-charging teams with their own bespoke and customized systems and protocols. The era of purpose is well and truly over, but we’ll see positive impact brands thrive by delivering enhanced experiences, not just better practices, ushering in an era of ‘progress-driven marketing.’
What does the agency have planned for 2025?
Myers: We’ll be kicking off 2025 by completing our first acquisition (coming soon…) Our team in Australia is set to double in size by the end of 2025, with some big wins about to be announced imminently. We are looking to expand our proprietary systems into software products for agency and in-house teams, including our creator management platform, Roger, and our omnichannel reporting framework, The Loop.
What work were you most proud of in 2024?
Myers: Our recent campaign with Rewearing is Caring saw pioneering cleaning brand Ecover partnering with model and sustainability activist Lily Cole to urge Brits to stop over-washing and start rewearing. Hundreds of consumers swarmed to attend the pre-loved pop-up store and panel, hosted in partnership with Charity Super.Mkt, ready to snap up a designer bargain and learn about how they can be more sustainable.
Stateside, we drove a nationwide plant-based pizza trial inspired by the master manipulators with Daiya’s Pizza Pyramid Scheme. Over 12,000 people got their first taste of plant-based pizza through peer-to-peer recommendations, discovering a new world of dairy-free deliciousness.
We rebranded the iconic Michigan Theater Foundation to Marquee Arts, a contemporary new look and proposition that modernized the much-loved institution while maintaining its unique heritage and setting it up for its next exciting chapter as a shining light for the Arts.
After a dominant display at The Drum Awards for B2B, the women-led US agency is investing in both AI and talent to continue its momentum.
What trends will shape the industry in 2025?
Doug Kamp, chief creative officer: All the buzz in the last year has been about the application of AI. And while many have seen demonstrative benefits in digital, media, personalization,and administrative efficiency, creative application has been incredibly inconsistent. As a tool to coalesce thinking and ideation, it’s been amazing. As a tool to execute final production, it’s been incredibly inconsistent and still a bit austere.
Which leads me to one a few top trends: authenticity. Brand affection is a key tenet of Mower strategy and creative – along with relevance and trust. Whether a remnant of the recent election cycle, or a result of the constant bombardment of digital and traditional media, authenticity, driven by empathy, is driving longer-term brand connections.
Visual creative continues to drive increased engagement and growth. It’s no surprise that video and social content continues to provoke customers. 2025 will see this trend ascend. Against the cacophony of political noise and talking heads, visual entertainment, storytelling, and simplicity is driving stickier—and more deeply emotional-- connections (re: Pavio’s ‘Picture-Superiority Effect’). This is especially true for target audiences not currently in the market to buy.
What does the agency have planned for 2025?
As a women-led organization, we’re excited to secure our WBENC certification in 2025 to support clients with diverse procurement goals. We’re investing in AI to enhance operations and empower faster, smarter work in strategy, creative and media. Our talent development initiatives include mentorship programs, emerging leaders training, a coach-in-residence for emotional intelligence and Disc. We’re advancing analytics with a focus on attribution challenges and strengthening industry expertise through our B2B, financial services, travel & tourism, energy & sustainability and healthcare specialties. Lastly, we’re deepening ties with our global networks like IPREX and TheNetworkOne to drive growth and innovation.
What work were you most proud of in 2024?
Mower has had an extraordinary run of exceptional work, culminating in 10 The Drum B2B Awards, plus B2B Marketing and ANA B2B Agency of the Year. And Best B2B Campaign from the Indie Awards. The biggest contributor to this recognition has been our breakthrough work for Carhartt. While consumers love the brand, Carhartt’s business offering, which focused on uniforms, were relatively unknown. We launched Carhartt’s first B2B campaign, ‘More Than a Uniform,’ positioning Carhartt as not only the best workwear but also a competitive business advantage. This resulted in an incredible +105% increase in revenue and 150% increase in sales. Oh, and our client was named ‘Marketer of the Year.’
A second standout has been our work for energy provider FirstEnergy. Here, we were asked to educate drone pilots on the dangers of flying in and around power lines. Mower’s internal research team discovered that these ‘Drone Daredevils’ are competitive thrill seekers who push limits and regulations. And likely wouldn’t respond to straightforward education messages. The solution? Give them what they crave – a gamified experience fueled by adrenaline but driven by safety education, FirstEnergy‘s ‘Drone Safety Zone Racing Game.’ In just one year, the campaign flew far past our goals, with nearly 300,000 gameplays that included safety education, proving safety scores big when you know how to play their game.
Fresh off its strongest year, the punchy public relations agency enters its 10th year with its ambition to stand apart from “boring PR” as strong as ever.
What trends will shape the industry in 2025?
Joe Mackay-Sinclair, founder and chief executive officer: A succession of old network guys talking about return to work. Followed by a succession of old network guys talking about the death of purpose, ESG and all the other stuff they don’t like. Hopefully swiftly followed by a spate of exciting new startups led by disgruntled ex-old-network employees.
What does the agency have planned for 2025?
Mackay-Sinclair: The Romans invested in new PR hotshop, Earnies, last year and it is absolutely flying. This year, we’d be quite keen to invest in someone else’s rage-quit startup. So, if you’ve just been told to return to work, why not get in touch? Internationally, The Romans’ offices in London, Amsterdam, Dubai and Brooklyn are all knitting together really nicely and in 30%+ growth. It feels like the next expansion will be in Berlin. Or Riyadh. Or Singapore. Watch this space.
What work were you most proud of in 2024?
Mackay-Sinclair: When it comes to work, it’s been a vintage year. Our Lidl Croissant Bag became the first carb to conquer London Fashion Week. We worked with Finnish metalheads Lordi to record Made Of Metal, a wild new track to launch OnePlus’s new metal phone. We helped serial Wimbledon runner-up Andy Roddick win his first Wimbledon title by taking over Wimbledon, North Dakota (population: 144) and mowing the town’s first tennis court. We got Nationwide into the fried chicken shop game to launch its new student account with NationFried. And we melted LinkedIn for hot takes when our Freeway truck hit the road in December as some people felt it bore a passing resemblance to another famous Christmas campaign.
Embracing disruption across our digital world, the social agency is determined to make 2025 the year creators and the C-suite collide.
What trends will shape the industry in 2025?
Neil Waller, group co-founder and co-chief executive officer: 2025 will be the year that the creator economy evolves from a marketing footnote to a boardroom priority. As creators move from the fringes of culture to the mainstream, C-suite executives are developing a deeper awareness of creators and their full potential. This year, we’ll see that the creator economy will be cemented as a critical topic in business strategy and cultural conversations.
The creator economy in 2025 will mark a significant evolution, defined by increased professionalism, strategic planning and technological innovation.
Generative AI will also play a transformative role, with creators adopting tools for tasks such as editing, animation, captions and workflow optimization. Platforms and startups alike are developing solutions to enhance efficiency and unlock new creative possibilities. Compared with traditional media, creators are agile, non-unionized and aggregate younger. Therefore, their adoption of an AI toolset is going to be quicker. As a result, it is going to be transformative for the creator economy.
What does the agency have planned for 2025?
Waller: At Whalar, 2025 is our year of impact and disruption, driven by the unstoppable momentum of the creator revolution. From the Whalar Group level, we are thrilled about launching The Lighthouse, a first-of-its-kind Creator campus in Venice in February. Game-changing partnerships with Tribeca, iHeartMedia and LinkedIn continue to redefine possibilities, while campaigns with clients such as Anthropic, NFL, Oatly and eBay bring new opportunities to the forefront. We’re also navigating emerging platforms and adapting to potential TikTok shifts. From pitching ‘The Whalar Way’ to the UK government to activating at Coachella and the Super Bowl, 2025 is all about bold moves and shaping the future of the creator economy.
What work were you most proud of in 2024?
Waller: Whalar’s 2024 highlights are a testament to the power of creativity and cultural resonance. Standout campaigns include the NFL Creator of the Week initiative, which celebrates dynamic and engaging content and Twinings partnering with creators to reveal a “new way to tea.” Mozilla Firefox captivated Gen Z audiences with authentic conversations about data privacy, while J2O ‘Posh Perspectives’ brought a touch of storytelling sophistication to beverage marketing. Our long-term partnership with Diageo creator campaigns elevated global spirits brands to new heights. Oatly’s bold Moofia takedown sparked industry buzz and Waymo’s collaboration with creators, especially Sooraj’s video, redefined how tech stories are told. Each project demonstrates Whalar’s ability to unlock the full potential of creativity through creators while driving cultural impact.