Nine WFA partner predictions for 2025

David Jones (The BrandTech Group, Ali Hanan (Creative Equals) and Ruben Schreurs (Ebiquity).

The year of GenAI scale

David Jones, CEO and Founder | The BrandTech Group

2025 is the year that we will see generative AI deployed at mass scale around the globe. Every major advertiser will be able to save at least 50% off their content creation costs within three years, while creating content better and faster. They can then choose to either take that saving to the bottom line or invest more in working media to grow share. But it's an AI arms race and those who are fastest will get the benefits. Those who aren't will be playing catch up. AI is coming for advertising and it's an amazing opportunity for brands!

Inclusion will drive growth

Ali Hanan, CEO | Creative Equals

In 2025 inclusive marketing will emerge as a critical growth driver for CMOs ready to build powerful brands. It's irrefutable that the world is becoming more, not less, diverse. Inclusion is the architect of growth through its five ‘Rs': increased relevance, driving reach, enhanced reputation, prompting referrals and providing resilience in a fast-changing market. As economic and cultural shifts accelerate, brands investing in inclusive marketing will enhance their social impact and achieve measurable business outcomes – ‘Return on Inclusion.' Despite the rhetoric, we predict that inclusive marketing will help savvy brands thrive. Smart marketers will follow the facts, here. Those who know, know.

Navigating a transformative year in advertising

Ruben Schreurs, Group CEO | Ebiquity

2025 will be a pivotal year for the advertising industry. Consolidation among major media agencies, notably Omnicom and IPG, will require brands to proactively manage contracts and assess the implications of principal media trading practices. A new U.S. presidency is set to influence the marketing agenda, demanding vigilance and proactive measures from global advertisers. Meanwhile, the conclusion of Google’s advertising trials promises to reshape digital media strategies, compelling brands to adapt swiftly. Success in 2025 will hinge on agility, transparency and a forward-looking approach to evolving media landscapes and regulatory frameworks. Our goal is to help our clients deliver Effective and Responsible Advertising.

Matt Wardle (Oxford), Ozlem Senturk (Kantar) and Ryan Kangisser (MediaSense).

Change happens faster

Matt Wardle, Head of Capability | Oxford

When it comes to predictions, there is one safe bet for 2025: the rate of change will only intensify. So, what does this mean for skills and capability building? Well, in any storm you seek out stability and certainty – and it’s the brand and marketing foundations that provide these. Teams will increasingly need to be razor-sharp and all holding hands on key insights, brand positioning and growth strategies. Only when there’s clarity on the foundations can teams react to change (and opportunity!) with pace and agility. So, while future skills might be shiny new objects, the smart money should invest in the foundational skills.

Radical innovation meets circular thinking

Ozlem Senturk, Senior Partner, Global Sustainable Transformation Practice | Kantar

In 2025, the pendulum of sustainability will swing amidst evolving political and societal contexts, where populist narratives may momentarily disrupt progress. Companies will stay the course, driven by necessity and opportunity. Circular thinking has gained momentum over the past year, but the challenge remains: what does it truly mean for marketing? This functional understanding has yet to be fully unlocked, but we’ll see it rise up marketing agendas. From reshaped business models to incremental and radical innovations, brands will increasingly embrace circularity—not just as a sustainability imperative but as a driver for long-term value creation and differentiation.

Fewer, bigger, better

Ryan Kangisser, MediaSense, Chief Strategy Officer

In 2025, we expect brands to adopt a more refined role for media, shifting the focus from attention to intention. This will mean moving away from the relentless pursuit of media saturation being everywhere all the time, to prioritising the quality of consumer experiences and the desired outcomes they create. Rather than a pivot to performance marketing, this change reflects more a reprioritization driven by finite resources and the continued proliferation of media and audiences. Expect to see brands returning to the core principles of sufficiency planning and adopting more curated measurement strategies to improve their ability to measure intention and effectiveness.

Ian Malcolm (Lumency), Jamie Barnard (Compliant) and Thor Olof Philogène (Stravito).

The necessity of speed

Ian Malcolm, CEO and President | Lumency

The pace of change today is unprecedented, yet it’s the slowest it will be for the rest of our careers. This rapid evolution favors the agile – often not the largest players. Emergent challengers don’t always have better products or routes to market – they thrive by adapting more swiftly to shifting consumer needs. Conversely, many large multinational brand owners get bogged down by slow decision-making, complex processes and centralized structures. To compete, large, multinational brand owner “ocean freighters” must become more like “speed boats”. Aided by advancements in technology, even the largest brand owners can regain agility –if they intentionally rethink their structures, empower local teams and transform decision-making. In an era where slow is the death knell, adaptability is survival.

For the greater good

Jamie Barnard, CEO | Compliant

The need for data integrity will rise up the corporate agenda in 2025, driven by our industry’s ongoing struggles to protect consumer privacy. The uncomfortable truth is that a lot of targeting, media quality and investment decisions are still based on bad practices and regulators from the US to the EU and beyond are looking to take action. Failing consent solutions, so-called Data Clean Rooms and unscrupulous data brokers will face more intense scrutiny for polluting the consent stream, laundering dirty data and exposing people to unfair, disproportionate and intrusive surveillance. There’s broad political consensus on these issues in many markets so 2025 will be the year when where data integrity becomes the only possible solution.

Generative AI will supercharge speed and creativity

Thor Olof Philogène, CEO and Founder | Stravito

The year ahead will see global enterprises embrace the speed imperative, as rapid technological, market and cultural shifts demand agility. For marketing teams, GenAI will be key to increasing their speed and creativity, whether that’s through powering data-driven advertising campaigns or enabling the swift roll out of product innovations. By breaking down silos and harnessing trusted AI, marketers can glean faster insights, a sharper market analysis and accelerated trend identification, transforming market research data into competitive advantage. Organizations that embrace this approach will be better positioned to capture customer attention and loyalty while fueling business growth.