The turbulence test of 2025 and how advertising stayed airborne

A few years ago, I was on a flight that suddenly lurched into a heavy patch of turbulence. Drinks wobbling, passengers stiffening - you know the drill. The captain’s voice came over the tannoy, calm and steady: “Nothing to worry about. It’s just a bit of weather.”

That simple reassurance was a good reminder that turbulence, though unsettling, is not a crisis. It’s a condition we prepare for and navigate with discipline. In many ways, 2025 felt the same. A year marked by mergers, shifting business demands and evolving consumer behaviours. But rather than being thrown off course, we adapted and kept flying.

Trust as our co-pilot

In 2025, trust wasn’t just useful, it was essential. According to our joint research with the Financial Times, brands that track trust as a board-level KPI are over three times more likely to report stronger profits. I’ve always believed trust is the quiet force in our business. When it’s there, everything else works better. When it isn’t, nothing quite holds. It steadies partnerships, guides decisions and helps investments land in the right place. And trust will be even more important next year.

Changing altitude with AI

When pilots hit turbulence, they change altitude. Try something different. In 2025, AI felt like that kind of jetstream. It’s exciting, fast-moving and occasionally unnerving. Some agencies dived in with new platforms to speed up thinking and stretch creativity. Others stood back, watching carefully. At our recent Turing Test event, Ogilvy showed us how their human-plus-AI work with Lloyds Bank took off when they got the balance right. That, to me, is the key. AI can help us soar, but only if we keep our feet and our judgement firmly on the ground; we need humans at the helm.

The engine of creativity

On which note, while technology made the most noise this year, creativity did the heavy lifting. Karen Martin’s presidential Creative Power agenda, brought to life so brilliantly through her Walk around Soho and at The Greatest Ad Show, reminded us that talent and craft remain our engines. Tools can help, of course. But they can’t feel. They can’t notice the tiny things that make the work sing. Only people do that.

Fuelling the flight

Staying aloft requires the right fuel, and for agencies, that means pricing models that reflect the value of their work. Our report The Price Isn’t Right showed that too many agencies are still stuck with pricing structures from another era - ones that don’t necessarily reflect the value they deliver today. And we all know you can’t stay in the air for long if you’re fuelling the plane the wrong way. That’s why, in the New Year, we’ll be releasing a comprehensive new guide to help agencies get this right, so stay tuned.

Navigating our way through

So how do we stay on course? Les Binet and Will Davis’s latest research revealed a paradox: we talk endlessly about ROI, but it’s budget and scale that truly drive profit. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard marketers wanting to do “more with less.” This research gently but firmly reminds us that sometimes we’re actually doing less with less. Scale, experimentation and bolder media investment remain the proven path to effectiveness.

Experience, training and the crew that keeps us in the air

No plane flies itself. Even the smartest ones still need a good crew. Hybrid working became part of the fabric this year. Reassuringly, within adland, inclusion, wellbeing and professional growth shifted from nice-to-have to expectation. According to the 2024 IPA Agency Census, staff numbers rose slightly, women in the C-suite increased and turnover fell. Encouraging signs. Though, given the fluctuations of this year, I’ll be watching the 2025 data closely. It will tell an important story.

The landing approach

Turbulence shaped 2025, but it didn’t throw us off course. Looking ahead to 2026, the agencies that will do well are the ones that invest in trust, get the balance right with AI, fuel creativity and focus on what really moves the needle.

The forecast may be cautious, at 1.2% growth according to our Bellwether, but with careful navigation and a bit of grit, there’s still plenty of room for success. So, let’s stay agile and keep learning.

And, most importantly, let’s enjoy the ride. 

Merry Christmas!

Paul Bainsfair is Director General of the IPA.

The opinions expressed here are those of the authors and were submitted in accordance with the IPA terms and conditions regarding the uploading and contribution of content to the IPA newsletters, IPA website, or other IPA media, and should not be interpreted as representing the opinion of the IPA.