2025 According to Breaking and Entering Media

“All the content we create comes through the lens of ‘what does the busy ad professional want to see?’,” says Geno Schellenberger, co-founder of Breaking and Entering Media (B&E). “These people are busy at work and need just the right information to make them better at their job.”

Self-aware and firmly tapped into the cultural pulse, Geno and his co-founder and co-host, Jack Westerkamp, are intentionally “hard to ignore”. Posting constantly, experimenting freely, and clearly having a lot of fun doing it, B&E is energised by an industry they genuinely admire. Having founded the company with a simple ambition – “to build a full-scale media company for the next generation of creatives” – the duo truly blew up in 2025.

Having picked up multiple accolades for its work, B&E was also profiled by the Wall Street Journal, who dubbed the platform “the guys the ad world is obsessed with”. And for good reason. B&E understands its audience and speaks directly to them, aiming to inform but also entertain adland by discussing the news shaping the industry.

Best known for fast, sharp daily news roundups posted on LinkedIn, Instagram and via an email newsletter, Breaking and Entering has a frontline view of what captured the industry’s attention this year. So, LBB’s April Summers tapped into Geno and Jack’s vantage point to hear their definitive rundown of 2025.

The Indies That Outperformed in 2025

New York-based agency Isle of Any was especially strong this year, having come out with the ChatGPT campaign in their first year of business. This impressed the B&E team. It was a relatively bold campaign, so for that work to be coming from the jump is a really good sign and a signal to future clients about the kind of vision the agency brings.

Tombras has also proven to be a true independent agency with scale. Its work on the Ricola Scarf is top of mind to our team. When we got a chance to visit its office, we realised it has a robust media and analytics department, which at first glance, you might not assume from the Knoxville-based ad agency known for slapstick work with Steak-Ums, Moon Pie and Ricola. It’s a powerhouse independent with the roots still in Knoxville, but a growing NY presence.

Curiosity in Cincinnati is another shop to look out for, with its win for Mike & Ikes and Peeps, and Hot Tamales. It’s an agency that is having fun and winning work, and also has a super strong culture.

Over in Portland, and we’re not referring to Wieden+Kennedy, Opinionated and Mark Fitzloff won Shake Shack. These shops are making names outside the NY, LA and Chicago areas.

Of course, Mother keeps mother-ing with some beautiful campaigns all year long. Street Easy’s ‘Never Become a Former New Yorker’ started 2025 strongly, and the agency did not relent with Jed Cohen and the US team all the way to London with Felix Richter. Its Uber work is beautifully done. Its campaign for Claude and the new brand platform sets the stage for all AI company brand building case studies. And who can forget the cult commercial its London office did for KFC… something only the wildest of indies could get away with creating.

It’s impossible to know if this success for these indies is because they are indies. The reality is that there are incredibly talented, creative people at hold-co agencies and indie agencies too, so it’s easy for people to play the indie versus hold-co card. But, at the end of the day, it’s about who is attracting the most talented creatives. Are indies better positioned to poach more creative talent due to continued consolidation and lack of household name agencies as a result? We’ll see in 2026.

Awards in 2025

We certainly saw some issues with AI-generated award submissions at Cannes. And who knows how else other award shows were affected that did not surface. It also brought to light the exaggeration in case studies and the impressions that campaigns generated.

We hope to see better regulation from the award show committees, and internal creative councils demonstrating more integrity before approving campaign case studies to send (or more callouts and issues will occur).

Predictions for 2026

Be prepared for newcomers to enter the agency landscape. Be prepared for more Isle of Any-like agencies popping up as a result of the big Omnicom merger and layoffs. Your old boss might start a new agency and pitch against you for the next RFP. Be prepared to continue to use AI, faster deadlines, and for CMOs to start speaking the AI language more coherently, so stay ahead.

Also be on the look out for new agencies set to be made by creators. These creators are more than on-camera talent. They are media company owners, even if they are one person shows. Some of these creators have their own podcasts, newsletters, shops, social channels and events. They know how to create a brand. They know how to activate their brands and they are the culture in their own communities. Brands will tap them to get into culture, and thus their own agencies will form. Pufferfish is an agency born out of creators, and Unwell Agency launched this time last year. More will come. Hell, the Breaking and Entering Ad Agency has a nice ring to it…

Creative jobs will continue to be about creating. That’s not changing, and AI won’t change that. People are telling creatives to learn AI and be proficient and all that, but, the reality is, brand storytelling, tapping into culture, and drawing on the human experience will continue to be more and more important as the cost of producing shitty content goes to $0. Great creatives will charge higher and higher premiums for great work. It is a scary time, but we remain very optimistic about the role of creatives.

What’s Next for Breaking and Entering?

In 2026, we want to tell more stories about advertising in longer forms, while also maintaining the quick, high-energy news updates. We want to be the go-to resource for content about marketing. Whether that’s long-form YouTube videos or LinkedIn boots-on-the-ground street interviews with ad execs about a recent campaign.

We have some interesting Super Bowl ad coverage that we are really excited to share with people.

We are also creating ‘Advertising City Tours’ where we have visited Austin, Texas and partnered with five agencies there, and will release content that answers, ‘what is it like to work in advertising in Austin?’. We are on our way to create this content in San Francisco now, and are hoping to do this with more cities in the future too. We want to tell the stories of advertising across the world – not just what's happening in New York City.

In 2026, our focus is continuing to nail down the best possible content about advertising. More interviews, more voices, more perspectives, more entertainment.