2025 has been a difficult year for marketing leaders. From the harsh rhetoric of cancel culture, to the wholesale rollback of DEI, to mergers, acquisitions and a seemingly endless drive for efficiency. Marketers would be forgiven for feeling frazzled as we collectively approach the festive finish line.

Yet the upside of challenges is that they present an opportunity for positive change. On a collective and individual level, we have the opportunity to not just ask better questions, but to assume permission when it comes to doing things differently. It is the ultimate extravagance to leave change to chance.

With this in mind, we asked industry leaders what we should burn from 2025.

Let's burn the false promises and phoney agendas!  The creative industries have enough brilliant minds and talents to know that DE&I is a business imperative and an innovation multiplier - so the notion that it could ever be 'sunsetted' is frankly shocking.

The evidence is overwhelmingly clear that improving gender equality and diversity has a positive impact on business performance.  And yet we seem to be moving in the wrong direction, with female marketers still being paid on average 17.8% less than their male peers, according to Marketing Week’s Career & Salary Survey published in March, and increasing YoY from 2023 to 2024.

Part of our objectives at WACL are to change the stats on gender equality. And a key aspect of this is changing the language of leadership – the ideal of what good leadership looks like – because outdated views prevent many women from reaching their potential, as well as preventing businesses from being as harmonious, productive and successful as they could be. Ultimately, gender equality benefits everyone, including the business.

In 2026, industry leaders need to make gender equality their priority - if we want to attract and foster world-class talent, and ensure our industry continues to push the boundaries of creativity and innovation.

2025 has been the year of more everything; more content, more channels, more data, more AI, more noise. All masquerading as opportunity. We've been sold the fantasy that if we just keep piling on, “more” will finally equal “better.”

What deserves the bonfire in 2026 is this compulsive chase for volume. Let’s torch the belief that output trumps outcome, that scale equals success, and that AI’s ability to generate infinite stuff means we should actually use infinite stuff.

2026 should be the year we re-embrace “less”: less clutter, less knee-jerk creation, less everything-for-everyone. And more of what actually matters - focus, intention, craft, and unique ideas.

If we’re burning anything, let it be the myth that “more is more”. Because in a world drowning in abundance, clarity is the real gift.

I'd happily toss 'AI washing' on the bonfire this year. Like green-washing and sports-washing. AI-washing is the ridiculous addition of AI claims to products and ads to make it seem (I guess?) more innovative or exciting. It usually turns up as a claim to be "AI powered". Yes, looking at you AI-powered fridge-freezers, smart waffle makers and in a spectacular unappreciation of the irony... AI-powered washing machines.

Burn baby burn!

Scrunch up your paper and grab the matches!

First on the pile: doom-scrolling that turns mindless minutes into lost hours, and the spitting, algorithm-fed outrage that follows. Burn memes! End that indolent reliance on displaying displeasure behind vacuous posts when we should be channelling old school – get your Doc Martens on and march and protest! (While we still can.)

Unscrew the cap and pour some petrol on the insidious behaviours we’re tired of tolerating: belligerent politicians who treat compromise as weakness, performative culture-war theatrics, and the insouciant lying that makes truth and reality feel negotiable. Toss on some corporate greenwashing logs, the kind that sell hope in recyclable packaging while doing nothing that actually makes a bloody difference. And climate deniers – turning the heat up on them seems suitably ironic.

Finally, let’s torch the narrative that we’re powerless. We need to keep the embers of what worked alive: mutual aid, compassion, small joys, tolerance, serious listening, and the stubborn belief that tomorrow can be better if we want it to be. Even when the headlines try to convince us otherwise.

Do that and in 2026 the phoenix will emerge.

As we move into 2025, it’s time to let go of the practices that slow brands down. In a socially driven world, where culture reshapes itself daily, we can’t carry outdated habits into the year ahead.

First, we should burn the obsession with perfection. Social audiences reward honesty, agility, and human connection far more than over-polished content that misses the moment. 

Second, it’s time to burn unnecessary complexity. We all need to champion streamlined thinking, sharper insight, intentional creativity, and a social presence built on clarity rather than clutter.

And finally, let’s burn the idea that clients must carry the full weight of the social ecosystem themselves. The pace of 2026 demands partnership. At Agent42, we step in as the social engine behind our clients, cutting through the noise, simplifying decisions, and enabling them to remain strategic while we stay immersed in the daily shifts of culture.

If 2026 has a mandate, it’s this: less distraction, more direction, smarter momentum. Focus on the important. Not the urgent. 

In 2025, I’d happily toss ‘performative innovation’ onto the bonfire. The endless parade of AI gimmicks, reactive brand stunts and mood-board creativity has been masquerading as progress. We’ve become addicted to the optics of experimentation rather than the outcomes. In 2026, I want us to bring back craft, bravery and ideas with a point of view. Less ‘look what we can do with AI’ and more ‘look what we achieved with insight and imagination.’ And if there’s a shift I’m betting on, it’s the move from chasing one big idea to creating a million little big ideas that meet people where they actually are. In 2026, I’m optimistic we’ll make work that is smarter, braver and far more meaningful.

It feels as though in 2025, we have maxed out our discourse. And that LinkedIn has been

our chosen forum in full view of the professional public. Now, it is too easy to criticise and too difficult to hold back.

The lambasting of Jaguar. The accusatory ‘Why the colour change?’ of .gov. The burning at the stake of the rebrand of the relaunch and rebrand Cracker Barrel. The ‘how-to’ critiques of the new Amazon logo. In our own inability to value what we (and our peers) do, we demonstrate our own frivolity as an industry. And it seems that everyone is gleefully piling in (for the thumbs ups).

Where there is dark, there is also light. Those like Simon Dixon, Ren Rigby and Nils Leonard, who are adding far more meaningful contributions to our ever-increasing echo-chamber of design discourse.

Let’s be better in 2026, shall we?

For me, it’s one thing: creative work that originates from outside communities, rather than in collaboration with them.

We’ve seen a few moments in women's sport this year - from Sky Sports’ Halo launch to the Women’s League Cup Draw - where the creative team showed a genuine desire to champion the game, but missed the chance to fully tap into the richness of the community itself. These are reminders of the incredible opportunity that exists when brands go deeper and co-create with the people they want to celebrate, and the pitfalls that face those who don't

Women’s football is one of the most exciting cultural spaces in sport right now. It’s full of energy, exciting crossovers with fashion, music and lifestyle, and a fiercely engaged fanbase who live and breathe the game. When creatives who truly live in that world shape the work, the output feels textured, joyful and culturally fluent.

So in 2026, let’s let go of assumptions, and embrace the huge creative opportunity that comes from building with real communities at the heart. That’s where the most exciting and future-proof work will come from.

The B2B vs. B2C divide.

For decades, marketing has drawn a neat line between "B2B" and "B2C" - as if B2B audiences power down their humanity the moment they open a laptop and only want rational, buttoned-up interactions, whilst B2C audiences crave emotional, sensory experiences. This mindset is well past its expiration date. People are people, no matter what they're buying - and that's our strong belief at onepointfive. People want experiences that spark interest, emotion and action. The numbers back it up. In 2024, B2C brands poured $90.3B into experiential marketing - far ahead of B2B’s $38B. But here’s the twist: the growth rate of experiential spend in the corporate world is now outpacing the consumer side. The appetite is there, and the budget is catching up.

What Needs to Change? Stop categorising. Start humanising. Whether you’re selling software or sneakers, the expectation is the same: deliver memorable, meaningful experiences that connect.

Why is there this shift in marketing spend?

Here are the cold, hard facts:

Gen Z and Millennials dominate the workforce (71%). Over 80% prefer experiences over ads.

91% of people feel more positive toward a brand after an experience.

74% of consumers [read: business buyers] are more likely to purchase after a live brand interaction.

85% of people are more likely to purchase a product after participating in an experiential marketing

75% of people are likely to tell others about their participation in a brand experience.

Fortune 1000 Momentum: 74% plan to increase experiential spend in 2025.