Everything marketers told us in 2025
Nostalgia is out, storytelling is in and all a brand really wants is an agency to go the distance.
This year we read hundreds of briefs, from hundreds of brands. That’s a lot of founders and marketers we introduced to the right agencies for: rebranding, repositioning, relaunching and – in a number of cases – taking a totally new idea into the world.
While doing that, the ASK US FOR IDEAS team spent countless hours talking to people that are spending money on creative work – giving us a genuine up-high view on what’s going on in the world of business and brand-building.
For our last Substack of 2025, we’re reflecting on those conversations.
Where were brands spending their marketing budget? What words came up time and again? How important, or not, was AI? What does the creative work people commissioned in 2025 tell us about 2026?
What was on marketers’ minds this year?
We ran hundreds of pages of notes through our proprietary AUFI-GPT (my brain), and noticed some recurring conversations:
Narrative is more urgent than ever
We’re in an era of enormous abundance, and brands are acutely aware of the challenge of standing out. So perhaps it’s understandable that 2025 felt like a boom year for storytelling. We lost count of the number of brands that spoke about needing to identify and share a narrative.
Importantly, these stories have to feel real, relatable and ‘human’.
One brand operating in a completely new sector told us they wanted to meet agencies that could do “compelling storytelling”.
A new, science-led beauty brand said agencies had to build their verbal identity in a way that would “translate scientific credibility into ease”.
And a B2B business told us that what they really wanted was “a new storytelling strategy”.
For more on putting the story first, we recommend our interview with Eyebot Chief Commercial Officer Tim Fern – included on our inaugural 2025 AUFI INDEX of exceptional brand leaders, and especially relevant for anyone at a tech-first business.
“I don’t want to be like every other AI brand”
We spoke with a lot of AI-led and AI-adjacent businesses this year, and the biggest thing they’re talking about? Distinctiveness. It’s a sector that’s already experiencing visual fossilisation, and brands are keen to break out of that. AI companies want to feel ‘human-centric’, and rise from a sea of sparkly symbols and ‘AI magic’ clichés.
One AI-powered marketplace wanted their brand to feel less techy or sterile and more like a “friendly neighbour”.
Another AI business was looking for agencies that could think beyond “generic tech aesthetics”, to avoid the traditional startup pattern of creating “hype without substance”.
It’s happening in fintech too. One brand told us in no uncertain terms: “no outdated or gimmicky fintech tropes”.
In AI’s world, emotion is lacking
Another subject that came up a lot: feelings. It seemed like brand leaders often felt that emotion was missing. We met people working at companies with pioneering methods and cutting edge technology, but they didn’t want to dazzle people with the tech, they wanted to provoke a deeper reaction.
Words that came up a lot in briefs? ‘Soulful’, ‘magical’, ‘mystical’, ‘joyful’, ‘delightful’, ‘human-first’.
One B2B platform wanted a brand refresh that would convey “Apple-like simplicity with the emotional resonance of Ikea”.
The people behind a new cultural event told us they needed an identity that would feel “bold, emotionally resonant, celebratory”.
A luxury fashion business specifically wanted to speak person to person. Their ambition: “authentic human moments rather than relying on AI to generate content”.
We might be in the twilight of the maximalist, nostalgic era of branding
Nostalgia can be an extremely powerful branding tool, and we’ve written about why and how. However, this year we noticed a few signals that brands are realising its limitations. For example, we met an extremely well-known food business that could easily have played on nostalgia, but told us they strictly wanted to avoid it.
A D2C food startup that asked us about packaging partners didn’t want “the playful look”. They wanted to go premium.
A conservation organisation also wanted to stay away from the past. “The new brand shouldn’t feel rustic or nostalgic, but modern and science-driven,” they said.
A rapidly growing music tech platform told us they wanted to look like “nothing people have seen before, not a ‘throwback’.”
Digital needs to be memorable, but it’s easily overdone
We read a lot of digital briefs in 2025, for everything from brand website redesigns through to app MVPs and total e-comm re-plumbs.
Clearly, people want to commission excellent digital design – one business asked for “builds that are not vanilla” – but at the same time, the ambition was frequently for digital experiences that are clear, easy, and not overwhelming.
One hospitality business said they wanted UX with “calm, reflective experiences and clear booking flows”.
A events app we met described their goals as: “Eventbrite functionality meets Apple TV aesthetic”.
Brands love agencies that live outside the traditional model
Getting the best work means partnering with a)a small, extremely agile agencies, or b)big teams that are structured in smart, unconventional ways.
Brands frequently told us that they wanted a ‘nimble’, ‘flexible’ or ‘boutique’ team that could work founder-to-founder. In many cases, brands came to us off the back of bad agency experiences – and were keen to work one-on-one with senior creatives who would deeply understand the work that needs to be done.
One creator-led brand we met wanted “a right-hand man/woman to bring this idea to life in a strong, thoughtful and scalable way”.
We want to “really feel the love and dedication, not just be another client”, said one tech business.
And a pet-care business we supported wanted a team that would be “boutique in size” but still bring an international approach and a diverse team.
Truly collaborative partners are hard to find
Marketers often describe their ideal agency as an extension of their brand – people that can come on board, get to work, and feel like a natural part of the business. And a lot of brands said that what they really wanted, ultimately, is an agency to build a long-term relationship with.
For one wellness start-up, passion was everything. They needed “a team in it for the long run.”
We’re looking for “visionary people that don’t see any limits”, said an education business we introduced to branding partners.
And one rapidly growing food business told us they were after a partner that would be more than “a supplier relationship”.
Working style is as important as anything else
Some brand leaders want teams with an open, iterative style. Others want creative leaders that have experience managing a lot of stakeholders. Some people want to be challenged. Some want agencies with a very defined, clearly communicated process. Finding an agency that works the way you want is a big part of the challenge.
Flexibility was the focus for one renewable energy brand, who told us they needed a partner who was “agile and hands-on”.
A well-known beauty brand wanted an agency that could push them. They described it as “personalities that can challenge where needed, but not bulldoze”.
And a venture capital firm was really interested in meeting a diverse team, used to working with varied stakeholder personalities and that would take a “research-first approach”.
There’s a few brands that everyone is taking notes from….
One of the questions we always ask companies we’re working with is: what other brands do you love? Who would you love to emulate? This year, we kept track of every single answer, and we’ve compiled a quick list of the most-admired names.
These were the 14 brands that were referenced time, and time, and time again:
(And there was a strong second cohort of companies that were less popular, but also came up as repeated references - particularly in the food & bev, beauty, fashion and tech sectors:
Beehiiv, Blank Street, Byredo, Criterion Collection, Duolingo, Faena, Figma, Fishwife, Four Seasons, Ghia, Graza, James Perse, Joe & the Juice, Khaite, Le Labo, Liquid Death, Loop Earplugs, Lucky Saint, Malbon, Nomad Coffee, Nothing, Patagonia, Pip & Nut, PostHog, Rainmaker, Saie, Skims, Summer Fridays, Sweetgreen, Zara.)
Agency tasting notes
At their heart, most briefs ask for the same thing: an exceptional and effective creative partner that will be a joy to collaborate with. Words like scrappy, inventive, fast, intuitive and flexible all came up a lot, but we saved some ‘this is what we’re looking for’ sentences that felt particularly lovely:
-“Obsessive and curious.”
-“Irreverent.”
-“An agency who won’t hold back.”
-“Wildcards over a safe pair of hands.”
-“A true sparring partner.”
-“An agency that is maybe a unicorn.”
-“Outcome over egos, speed over ceremony, ideas over hierarchy.”
What might 2026 look like for brands?
Predictions are always risky. Nevertheless, based on all those briefs, and all those conversations with brands and agencies, we’ve got some loose thoughts on what 2026 could hold.
-The reign of the agile agency will continue. Brands are increasingly going to value partnering with nimble teams that can get get their teeth into the work – whether that’s teams of senior creatives, or hungry, ambitious young agencies.
-AI will still need humans to do its big-thinking creative work. We’re not, yet, at the point where an AI tool can replace or replicate the single-mindedness of a human brain.
-Sport is going to be everyone’s new favourite client. Fanbase, community, and the power of owned channels is everything right now, and sports has that in droves. We know lots of agencies are looking for sports clients, and we also know there’s some very interesting things happening in this space from a business and creative perspective.
-PR will continue to fragment and expand. The old days are gone, and brands are increasingly going to be looping PR agencies in on bigger, longer, more strategic, more complex pieces of comms work
-E-comm is going to get more interesting. Consider JW Anderson’s new site by Work&Co as the forerunner. Yes, there’s going to be agentic commerce, but I think e-comm in general is going to get a lot more creatively interesting
-Health and wellness brands, and beauty and skincare brands, are going to continue to get more targeted. And more focused on specific concerns and communities. So are wearables.
-Experts are back. Science is back. Think about a beauty brand like Experiment (whose founder is listed in our inaugural AUFI INDEX of exceptional brand leaders) that’s leaning into science, or Squared Circles who are building products that mix science and culture, or The Ordinary’s Periodic Fable.
-Packaging might get a bit weird. And that’s a good thing. We’ve seen it with our own client, Vampons, and I think we’re going to see plenty more of that kind of thing.
-Marketing needs to be more synced up than ever. IRL retail, online retail, paid social, organic social, influencer partnerships, PR, SEO, GEO… these things have to work in beautiful harmony if a brand actually wants to grow. Hiring an agency to orchestrate that could be the answer.
-Brands will contend with a lot of behavioural shifts. GLP-1s, new kinds of healthcare, super-personalised wearables, AI… companies are going to have to adapt to shifting priorities and interests, and there’s probably new industries and sectors that will spring up around these big behavioural moves.
-Creativity is only going to become a more coveted currency. In a world where it feels increasingly commoditised, we believe true creativity with a capital C will ultimately still win out.
Until 2026.
An incredible and insightful read. It’s so encouraging to see brands prioritising human connection, storytelling, and unexpected ways to be memorable. The world is healing! Appreciate you, Emma ✨ Excited to read more next year!