The Spiciest Debates of the Year: What Do They Tell Us About Advertising?
Photo by Aliona Gumeniuk on Unsplash.
There have been a couple of times this year where 2025 has felt like one big, industry-wide, incessantly pinging group chat, with opinions firing at pace as we debate with ourselves over knotty questions in public.
About AI and all the hype that comes with it, who gets to own production now that everyone’s building in-house, whether scale is still a superpower, and about what leadership even looks like when the ground keeps moving.
Here’s what some of these debates have meant for adland; what we’re clinging to, what we’re quietly losing, and what we’re having to rebuild in real time.
Is Scale Still an Advantage?
Ajaz Ahmed’s Studio.One launch is basically a neat little flashpoint in one of the year’s biggest arguments – are holding-company agencies still fit for purpose, or are they too slow, layered and incentive-warped (hello billable hours) to compete in an AI-accelerated world? Ajaz’s bet is that “first principles” thinking, automation from day one and a leaner independent model can outmanoeuvre the “bureaucratic scaffolding” of big groups.
The Post House Cliff Edge
The not-so-quiet panic behind the ‘RIP iconic post house’ headlines is bigger than any one business going under. This debate is really about whether our production economy is built on sand – long payment terms (90–180 days), rising costs, project-to-project volatility, and clients unbundling work into smaller specialist chunks. Add AI disruption along with the 2023 strike hangover, and suddenly even the ‘titans’ look fragile. The takeaway for advertising is blunt-edged: that speed and flexibility are now essential survival traits.
Freedom, Firepower, and the Fight to Stand Out
The AUNZ ‘independent revolution’ is one of this year’s loudest arguments about what ‘scale’ even means now. Indies are much more than the plucky alternative – nowadays they’re winning serious brands, building specialist ecosystems, and even making holdco-style acquisitions, all because they’re not weighed down by legacy billing and global margin demands.
But there’s a sting in the tail. As the indie category explodes, it risks commoditising itself. The real fight becomes differentiation – which, honestly, is the same problem every brand has.
AI Hype, Innovation Theatre, and Consequences
The ‘Tilly Norwood effect’ is essentially the AI debate in miniature – instead of “will machines replace us tomorrow?”, it’s “why are we so desperate to believe the press release?”. This piece argues Tilly was sold as a revolutionary AI actress, but the reality is a bit murkier – and the real damage comes from the hype cycle of spectacle, amplification, overreaction, and consequences. For advertising, it can be read as a warning. Innovation theatre is easy; but honest capability (and human taste) is the bit that actually matters.
AI-First Production – Tipping Point or a Race to the Bottom?
This one lands right in the middle of the year’s most exhausting and unavoidable debate. That gen AI isn’t “coming”, it’s already reshaping production. The piece argues we’ve hit a tipping point where the tech is suddenly usable, which is why AI-first production companies are popping up all over the place (and why established shops are bolting on AI offerings fast).
But the real tension is what happens next – a flood of cheap “slop”, legal grey zones, and a race on cost. This versus a premium on taste, film craft and actual storytelling.
Account Management Grows Up
Here we tap into a quieter but really telling conversation considering whether account people today are “project shepherds”, as they’ve been known, or are actually the people holding the whole modern agency machine together? The experts here land firmly on the latter. As work gets more fragmented, faster and more performance-pressured, account management is morphing into a proper leadership role – part business translator, part culture antenna, part emotional thermostat (“you set the weather”).
CEO Churn – When Transformation Gets Personal
The “CEO tenure” debate is really a leadership-shaped version of everything else we’ve argued about this year; transformation is brutal, and not everyone’s built for it. With 11 Australian agency CEO exits in six months, the piece frames a genuine changing-of-the-guard moment, driven by AI investment (and the pressure to monetise it), cost-base resets, and big shifts on the client side. It’s a reminder that ‘stability’ is now a strategic advantage, and that churn at the top can quickly become churn everywhere else.
The New Production Cocktail
A standout article from this year from our EMEA managing editor, this piece gets at a proper fault line in production right now – everyone’s doing everyone else’s job. Brands are building in-house teams, holding companies are rolling out their own production offerings, agencies are producing more internally, and the traditional production company model (especially the roster, and the long-term investment in directors) is feeling the squeeze. Beyond territory, the tension is about conflicts of interest, and who really gets to control talent, process and craft in a fragmented ecosystem.
The Call to Self-Belief
Nils Leonard’s “stop giving yourself a way out” rant lands right in one of the year’s messiest topics – why the industry keeps talking itself out of power. His point is that CFOs, CEOs and clients have gotten very good at making creatives feel optional, and agencies make it worse by overservicing until creativity looks like a “side product”. The provocation is to stop calling yourself “the pretty pictures” department, price creativity like it matters, and act like the thing they’re buying.
