Making a difference in 2025

Recently, Publicis India, along with Saatchi & Saatchi India, hosted a party to celebrate the achievements of 2024 while bidding farewell to the year. On the way back from the party, I was chatting with a couple of our young guns, about how we can make 2025 even more special. This conversation got me thinking beyond the numbers and profits. If there’s one thing we really need to do differently that makes an impact on our clients’ businesses, what will that be?

The year 2024 brought with it a lot of change. Nearly every brand that partnered with us, asked for evidence that our ideas were actually working. CMOs today aren’t just looking for pretty pictures anymore - they want numbers and solid data that can drive tangible results for their businesses. And let’s be honest, with over 900 million people online, there’s a tonne of data out there, so their expectations aren’t unwarranted. And with the rise of cutting-edge AI tools, we can now access powerful insights in an instant, making smarter decisions faster than ever. So, in 2025, if we want our work to really stand out and make a difference, we need to take data seriously. We’ll need to analyse the data and use it to craft compelling stories—just as our clients rely on it to measure their results. This will help us make every interaction with the brand feel seamless, engaging, and truly valuable to our consumers.

That leads to another question: how can traditional / mainline creative agencies win in this scenario? Merely understanding our clients’ business – which has always been a good mainline creative agency’s strength – may not be enough! We will need to demonstrate a deep understanding of data to deliver consistent value. In 2025, there is no longer a scope for us agencies to be stuck in our bubbles. Strategy and creative teams will have to walk hand-in-hand with the whole marketing team—from the data experts, the SEO wizards, the CRM gurus, the media mavens, the social stars, and the influencer whisperers—to consistently exceed the expectations of our clients and their consumers. My confidence stems from the fact that every time we’ve embraced this integrated approach, we’ve been able to make a meaningful impact and achieve success.

Brand owners that still believe they can just hire a bunch of different agencies and expect magic to happen are going to miss out big time in 2025. Integrated agencies that show up with solutions that break down the walls between various marketing functions and present data-backed creative solutions for their myriad challenges are going to consistently exceed expectations in this crazy, complex world of marketing.

That’s when I thank my lucky stars that I work with Publicis Groupe, the network that saw this coming almost a decade ago and restructured in a manner that had all the marketing practices under one roof and called it ‘Power Of One’. So, if we truly want to make a difference to our clients’ business in 2025, we will have to believe in the integrated approach more strongly than ever before, adapt to the change it demands and implement it with complete faith. Here’s to a year of making a difference!