Carl Moggridge.
The AdNews end of year Perspectives, looking back at 2024 and forward to next year.
Carl Moggridge, Creative Partner at Hopeful Monsters
As 2024 draws to a close, the marketing world has found itself at an interesting crossroads.
The forces that traditionally propelled the industry forward - creativity, innovation, and adaptability - are being put to the test by a convergence of economic uncertainty, rapid technological advancement, and evolving client expectations. This has created a tension between the need for bold, standout ideas and the temptation to play it safe.
One of the biggest things I’ve picked up on is a certain homogeneity in the work our industry has produced. Over the past 12 months, there’s been a creeping sameness in creative work. Call it the "template-ification" of marketing, where campaigns almost feel like they’ve been churned out by the same machine, merely swapping logos at the end. Sure, it's efficient. But is it memorable? Not quite.
We can partially put this down to an increasing reliance on measurement, creative testing and marketing science formulas. Most of us rely on these solutions to sense check campaigns before they go live, but the more we use these tools (and the more data we give them), the more likely it is that we'll all end up doing the same things.
This begs the question: If everyone's got the same information and follows the same methods, what is it that is actually making the work different and more effective?
This isn’t just a creative crisis - it’s a client challenge too. More brands are playing it safe, outsourcing decisions to formulas and metrics that rarely deliver distinction.
While using these tools is the responsible thing to do, there’s a danger that leaning too heavily on the data risks losing the spark that makes campaigns memorable. Science can inform imagination, but it can’t replace it.
The key is finding the balance, using data to guide decisions without letting it dictate them.
We’ve seen incredible examples of this in action. Think campaigns that tap into behavioral psychology to drive action, or brands that use predictive modelling to anticipate trends before they happen. These aren’t just ads - they’re precision-engineered cultural moments.
In 2025, marketing science will continue to evolve, and it’s up to us to wield it responsibly. It’s not about creating work that’s “data-driven” but rather “data-enhanced”, combining the best of logic and intuition to deliver real impact and something humans actually engage with.
We did get some standout examples of creativity in 2024. My pick is any work from Heinz, which is a company I’ve admired for years. It’s been extremely consistent in its branding, and it’s clear it has a core formula that is working really well.
What I like about this work is it has been activated in different markets in clever ways. It's not always big TV ads. Heinz has tapped into niche communities, whether gaming or sport - there have been many different things that have all worked well to strengthen the overall brand.
This is the kind of work I love to see - bold, strategic work, that reminds us why creativity isn’t just a checkbox but a business advantage.
Another major trend that has shaped this year is the uptake of AI. It’s a safe bet to assume that most of us have adopted some AI tools or another over the past 12 months, or at least elevated our understanding of the programs we were already using.
What I have discovered is that AI is most powerful when we use it with purpose. For us, that’s primarily concept development. We’ve leveraged AI to sketch things out in animatics, to build storyboards and so forth, because from an efficiency standpoint, it’s unparalleled.
At this stage, it would almost be silly to not to be experimenting with this technology, but caution should still be used in abundance. All agencies should be looking to train their people to best understand how to use this technology effectively. Because at the end of the day, you still need talented people who think differently to create a prompt to get to that unusual or different perspective.
All these trends ladder up to one core skill that I would love to see in more people going into 2025 - critical thinking.
We know there are various AI companies capable of spitting out your construct, creative and copy in one go. There’s the growing space of marketing science, which can provide most people with a formula they can follow.
The net result of all these innovations (which, by the way, are not bad in and of themselves) is that people don't stop and think critically about what they're doing, why they're doing it, and how they do it.
Critical thinking and reflection, particularly in asking why we do the things that we do and how we can do it better, instead of just relying on frameworks and tools to do our job for us, will be essential. If we don’t do that as an industry, we're in danger of probably not existing in a few years.
As we step into 2025, the industry has an opportunity to reset. This year taught us that playing it safe is a fast track to irrelevance. So here’s to a year of brave ideas and unforgettable work. Let’s make it one to remember.
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