Adweek June 2025

INTRODUCING: THE SPORTS MARKETING MVP AWARDS As sports, entertainment, and marketing collide, sports marketing executives are leading the charge. That’s why ADWEEK is launching the Sports Marketing MVP Awards to honor the minds behind the greatest sports-focused marketing moments of today. Brand-side marketers, marketing leaders of major sports teams and leagues, agencies with a sports/NIL focus, and tech executives in sports marketing are invited to enter by June 24. NOMINATE A BRAND GENIUS It’s time for our annual list honoring the luminaries and leaders of brand building. The 2025 Brand Genius Awards recognize the marketers, celebrity entertainers, media professionals, and internet stars pushing the boundaries of what it means to build a brand. Nominate your star through June 24. TO ENTER, VISIT ADWEEK.COM.…

RECENTLY, ADWEEK UNITED some of the industry’s best and brightest at the Marketing Vanguard Summit in Chicago. There—under Chatham House Rule—they shared the biggest challenges facing the marketing and advertising world and worked together to solve them, future-proofing their organizations in the face of the rapid change and uncertainty. Here’s what we learned: TOSS THE OLD PLAYBOOK A lot of legacy thinking around brand identity and team structure is being rewritten. Marketers are discarding category clichés and experimenting with unexpected channels, activations, and the tone they use to address their customers. Tone is a big one because being agile on social media and coming up with original messaging have become the new table stakes. RETAIN, RETAIN, RETAIN It’s getting more expensive to cultivate new customers, in part because it’s harder…

WE’RE ABOUT HALFWAY through 2025, and there is one word on CMOs’ minds: agility. Today’s chief marketers are tasked with bringing real operational changes to their organization; they must be architects of change while remaining nimble. However, research shows that CMOs are concerned about their organization’s lack of agility. Which begs the question: How do you build agility amid a shifting macroeconomic landscape and other business challenges? Agility comes from adopting a mental framework that allows you to build resilience and ensure the rubber band snaps back, no matter the landscape dynamics. And in today’s market, innovation happens at lightning speed. Take AI, for example—already in its next cycle of innovation with a new offering, agentic AI. So, when nothing is static, how can CMOs be agile? BUILD TRUST WITH YOUR…

ALL IS NOT well at advertising agencies, especially those owned by major holding companies. Amid ongoing mergers, acquisitions, and restructuring—business activity that almost always entails layoffs—60% of employees at holdco-owned agencies feel that morale around the office is negative, according to a recent ADWEEK reader survey. Only 32% of respondents at holding company agencies describe the mood at work as positive. Additional findings suggest around half of people employed at the likes of WPP, IPG, Omnicom, and Publicis feel insecure about their job. A similar number are currently hunting for a new position at someplace other than another advertising agency. However, the situation isn’t the same at independent shops. Most survey respondents who work at indie agencies indicate the atmosphere is positive. The majority of employees also feel secure in…

FIVE YEARS AGO, the French ad giant Publicis Groupe was crashing. It had spent $3.7 billion on consulting firm Sapient in 2014, and $3.9 billion on data company Epsilon in 2019, as it set its sights on transforming into a digital and data-driven marketing powerhouse. Over the next decade, Publicis spent roughly $12 billion to make that vision a reality. But by the height of the pandemic, all it had to show for these investments was $5 billion of debt against a $4 billion market cap. By March 2020, its share price had fallen below $6, down from a high of nearly $24. Its new leader, Arthur Sadoun, had taken the reins from longtime leader Maurice Levy in 2017, and faced the difficult task of selling Publicis’ long-term strategy to…

Sunday, June 15, 2025 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM Kickoff Soirée Brought to You by Teads, Zeta, Brandwatch, and Dstillery Monday, June 16, 2025 10:30 AM - 11:15 AM The Retail Media Effect Meets the Omnichannel Overhaul Group Chat Presented in Partnership with Albertsons Media Collective 11:45 AM - 12:35 PM More Than Metrics: What Truly Makes Ads Great Group Chat Presented in Partnership with Nativo 1:00 PM - 1:45 PM Winning Over Today’s Fickle Consumers Group Chat Presented in Partnership with Fetch 2:00 PM - 2:45 PM Marketing Vanguard Roundtable Presented in Partnership with Iterable 3:10 PM - 3:30 PM Reimagining Wonder: How Cirque du Soleil Is Transforming Global Experience 3:30 PM - 4:00 PM ADWEEK House Programming 4:00 PM - 4:30 PM Champions of Change: Women Rewriting the…