Jonathan Kneebone's 2025 in Review: The Year the World Nearly Lost its Marbles

The year will be remembered for the early evening of Sunday, December 14 in Bondi. A place where the world ordinarily comes together became a place where hatred and division tore that apart.

It isn’t my place -- nor is this the right place -- for trying to encapsulate the terrors of what happened. But one thing: It is a sign of weakness to use a weapon to change someone’s life. It is harder to use understanding, creativity, kindness, and respect to make a positive difference.

But perhaps that is something we, as a communications business, can and must try to do. We have to remind ourselves that a lot of people worked hard this year to make a positive change in the world. And while sometimes these things feel trivial and meaningless at times like this, it is still something that can inspire us.

So let’s get straight into the best ad of the year.

Andrex Wiped Away the Competition

Given how crap the year has been, it’s rather appropriately for Andrex. Encouraging or supporting school kids to throw caution to the wind -- their award-worthy words, not mine -- taking the drama out of number twos and relieving boys and girls of any pee-er pressure they might feel to hold things in.

Some would argue a step far more likely to improve the quality of teenager’s lives than stopping them watching Snapchat.

Apparently 76% of kids aged 10 to 17 felt too anxious or embarrassed to poo at school.

But more than getting toilet time back onto the curriculum, what the agency (or should I say ex-agency) FCB London and its extremely focussed client -- led by Matt Stone (not the South Park one, but equally brave) -- have achieved is a total reinvention of the brand. It’s gone from a tissue of puppy-dog lies to a standard bearer for bowel liberation.

Following on from the success of the 2024 workplace campaign, they scrunched up any concerns about second-album syndrome, and just dropped this school of stools magic.

The posters alone are worthy winners. But Andreas Nilsson’s cool direction, dynamite casting, and quirky playfulness added a bit of class to what could have just been a fart gag.

While you could argue that, strategically, this is just a copy of what Libresse did to taboos years ago, the creative work by comparison has a simplicity and irreverence that feels a little less pretentious, impossible to ignore and oddly comforting.

I’ll avoid saying it’s a breath of fresh air, or it’s wiped the competition away, because that would be unnecessary. But given how unsettling and divisive the rest of the year has been, it feels particularly smart for Andrex to present itself as the great equaliser.

Saying the year’s been unsettling is, of course, a massive understatement. For much of the time, it’s felt like we were being compelled to watch global tyrants having a giant game of kerplunk to see who might lose their marbles the fastest.

Suffice to say, there were lies and deception at every turn -- and most of that happened at the hands of Alan Carr in The Celebrity Traitors.

There were agency mergers and entertainment company buy-outs. DDB became Disbanded, Demolished and Broken. Despite being Cannes’ Network of the Year’ -- albeit with its controversial AI case-study assistance.

Bill Bernbach thought he’d seen off this type of thing with his ‘Think Small’ VW campaign. But apart from giving this industry some respectability, inventing the creative team notion of 1+1=3, and using unexpected arguments rather than relentless repetition to convince potential customers, what did he ever do anyway?

When there are distractions of this magnitude around, it's fair to say creative people do find it hard to concentrate. And that’s usually when the work suffers. And it’s fair to say that, as a result, there was a bigger load of below-average stuff produced this year than usual.

But in the spirit of trying to be positive in a year of negatives, let’s just move swiftly on to another great ad with a kid…

Irn Bru's Brilliance

​Irn Bru brought back its brilliant ‘Made in Scotland from Girders’ line. And with a young unknown in Davis Harvey, found the ginger-haired boy who could put the man into manifesto with just the right amount of cockiness to have you hanging on his every word.

OK, they let the side down a little at the reprise by including a fizz-that-gives-you-whizz granny in an electric buggy gag. But the joke had already been well and truly landed by then.

KFC Owned the Moment

KFC almost beat its own levels of bizarreness by creating a lake of gravy for its cult members to be reborn in.

You have to take your hat off to Mother for this work. It’s not just of the moment, it’s owning the moment. Something about it captures the disorientation we’re feeling -- and reminds us gravy is something that is oddly reliable in life.

Lots of brands tried this hard to do dangerous. American Eagle, Twix, DiDi… but what KFC did was support it with a strategic platform which was of the youthful audience, not of the marketing dad.

Which rather neatly brings us to Christmas.

Saatchis' John Lewis' Work

30 million people tuned into this year's John Lewis Christmas ad by Saatchi & Saatchi in its first week alone, with its 'Adolescence' themes and focus on boys reconnecting with their fathers via a dance club anthem.

Really, it was a simple idea led by the line, 'If you can’t find the words, find the gift'. But what this did, which the brand's earlier 'Tableau' spot forgot to do, was add a bit of emotion.

There’s no doubt Kim Gehrig took the notion of a one-er to 'Adolescence' themes too. Single shots were everywhere this year, it seemed. But this flick through the pages of John Lewis history somehow didn’t have Kim’s usual sense of purpose.

JD Sports Was Fresh

In contrast, JD Sports via Uncommon gave 286 kids the chance to express themselves -- handing over the filmmaking and content of their ad to the very people they wanted to appeal to, and getting them to ask themselves the question, 'Where are you going?'

Allowing such a diverse and expressive ensemble to control everything created something that was genuinely fresh. And again it was of the audience, rather than for the audience.

It couldn’t be further than what the corporations are doing. By handing the reins to AI, it feels like some brands are actually falling for a trap, and emphasising their artificiality. Perhaps it’s an admission of guilt.

Waitrose Won Christmas

Elsewhere, other brands appeared to just give up on Christmas. And if they can’t be bothered with it, why should their customers? 

Those who put in the effort were Waitrose, of course, with its four-minute romcom. You can complain all you like about the ad being as traditional as sweet sherry, getting sick on mince pies, or re-watching 'Love Actually'. But when you actually have Keira Knightley and Joe Wilkinson, and Richard Curtis actually approved your script, you’ve got to hand it to Wonderhood and Biscuit’s Mollie Manners.

It was a tough act to follow the Agatha Christie-style detective story of last year. But this year, Waitrose rewarded the faithful.

Using the real stars as opposed to cheap imitations also stood out as a major theme of the year.

When The Stars Align: Hellman's, Columbia, Telstra, Astronomer

​Hellman’s managed to get the OGs back for a Billy met Meg / Harry met Sally orgasmic reunion.

​Columbia got the actual Aron Ralston to repeat his famous rockfall incident.

Telstra got the actual Steve Buscemi to dress up as an evil intergalactic scammer -- even though he was almost unrecognisable. 

And Astronomer got Chris Martin’s actual ex (Gwyneth Paltrow) to deliver an educational message about the company following the Coldplay Kiss-Cam affair.

Having the original stars doesn’t guarantee you success, of course. But brands that simply mimic our favourite shows purporting to delivering brand entertainment are doing themselves a disservice. Why would anyone watch a short copy of something that’s an ad when they can watch the real thing that isn’t?

So when Apple put the real people from the show in the real world setting of Grand Central Station to promote the upcoming series of Severance, you can see how much more powerful that is as a statement. And how much more potent a way to use your budget.

Rather than preaching to the converted on its own channels, or paying to run a trailer on other media, Apple just owned the story, and didn’t just make immediate impact with thousands of commuters -- it made global news with the imaginative idea.

Then again, if you can afford to get the real Scarlett Johansson and the real Yorgos Lanthimos to make a real Prada handbag ad, well, arguably it is money very well spent.

And it does feel like these two ends of the spectrum are becoming the most powerful way to connect with audiences: Something that no-one else can afford to pull off, or something that you can afford to do well because you have control. It’s all the stuff in the middle that’s not getting anyone’s attention. We are moving into a world of big or small. Ikea’s 'U Up?' or the Apple Half Time Show.

Hornbach's Chorus Was Victorious

What else shone throughout the year? Hornbach put craft front and centre yet again.
This was a brilliantly theatrical and original way to explore the idea that every DIY project you attempt with the help of Hornbach is never short on drama.

The Greek Chorus is the glue here -- providing sound, action, and reaction -- to emphasise the journey from one woman’s determination to make over her bathroom.

​Lope Serrano helms the ship on this particular journey, and the team at Heimat TBWA have done it again. It’s one thing to create Grand Prix-quality work. It’s quite another to maintain that year after year. And these guys have been doing it all the way to the Hornbach Hammer, created by melting down a Russian tank.

TV Shows and Movie Promotion Impressed

The promotion of TV shows and movies has been something of a fine art. Channel 4 aced it with the 'Educating Yorkshire' promo, where Dougal Wilson worked with over 400 kids from the Yorkshire region to bring their own ideas to life, writing, starring and directing their own ad. It had an infectiousness that comes from giving kids support, encouragement, and chance to shine.

And the latest A24 promotion for Marty Supreme is set to win all the awards. (Even if it’s going to be one battle after another from a film-prize perspective between Timothee Chalamet and Leonardo DiCaprio.)

Featuring the real Timothee on a Zoom call making his own suggestions of how to promote the film he is starring in, this is a truly watchable 20 minutes. A superb performance in and of itself. He’s magnetic. And the acting across the board from the execs is first rate. It’s superbly set up, conceived, and written.

And one of the suggestions casually dropped by Timothee into conversation is that his character should be up there with Michael Jordan or Serena Williams appearing on a packet of Wheaties. That's now happening for real.

This is how to do it folks. It’s about as good as movie promotion gets.

A contender for an even bigger mover and shaker of the year has to be Robert Irwin. Not only did he jive his way to the trophy in America’s 'Dancing With The Stars', he also had a fairly large non-speaking part in the Bonds campaign.

Sure, he may not have outdone Bad Bunny in the battle of the bulge, but he definitely gave rise to more column inches.

‘Made for Down Under’ was just one of those moments when the planets align -- and the seemingly simplest and most obvious of decisions went stratospheric. It’s the kind of work that feels so much easier in hindsight. But credit has to go to Special for breaking the American market.

Beer, Boots, British Airways

On reflection, it’s been quite a big year creatively. I haven’t got round to talking about Coors 'Case of the Mondays' yet. The brand made a Super Bowl ad about the dreariness of Mondays. But also made actual cases of Mondays beer.

Or the fantastically shot music video for DJ Snake (with Amadou and Miriam) for Patience -- directed by Valentin Guiod and shot by Benoit Soler.

Or the lovey posters for British Airways where the logos are reflected in the engines of their planes as they arrive at various delightful locations.

But there is time to explore a couple of fantastic outdoor campaigns of the year.
​Cadbury ‘Made to Share’. This is such a smart campaign. The cohesion of product, brand, design, promotion, advertising and emotional insight with humour and previously unwritten truth. The breaking up a share bar into sections for the various parties involved makes for more-ish enjoyment.

The advertising creative team involved will certainly have a version of the idea posted on the wall. The person who had the idea, and the person who did the presentation, with perhaps one chunk left for the person who happened to be in the room…

But, frankly, everyone involved deserves the chocolates. It’s an idea that is not only likeable, but feels generous, participatory and rewarding.

And finally, a very recent but very fresh concept which somehow nails in just four words a very potent force that is emerging in culture, craft and creativity.

​Wieden and Kennedy has nailed it for Red Wing shoes and boots. In the highly disposable world of fast fashion and throwaway culture, they’ve planted a flag in the ground for doing things by hand.

'Made the Hard Way' isn’t just a campaign, it’s a way of life. It’s an approach to every single action.

And for that reason, this campaign will immediately find an audience who will run a mile to sign up. It hits a massive nerve that sits just beneath the surface of so many of us. And this one is set to last. It will quite literally work its socks off.

In many ways, it also feels particularly pertinent for its time. It captures the spirt of those people who have dedicated their life to pioneering their art.

People we’ve recently lost like Frank Gehry, Tom Stoppard, Martin Parr, Piyush Pandey, Brian Wilson, David Lynch. Although they were probably never satisfied with what they did, you can only hope they died somewhat happy with what they did achieve.

They shared a determination to make us realise there’s always another way to do things. You don’t have to settle for what’s been done before. You don’t have to settle for the mediocrity we sometimes find ourselves in. Or the crapness the world finds itself in.

Creativity can permanently change people's lives for the better.

And that’s the message of my film of the year. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen. It has pretty much no dialogue. It is basically about rocks. But as inspiration to help us all move forward, it couldn't be more timely and motivating.