Please click below to jump to:
- LBB editorial contacts
- Regular editorial features
- Members' interview series
- Editorial calendar & seasonal features
THE LBB EDITORIAL TEAM
Laura Swinton (editor in chief, brands & global) laura@lbbonline.com (maternity leave)
EMEA
Alex Reeves - Managing editor, EMEA - alex@lbbonline.com
Olivia Atkins - EMEA reporter, MEA & DACH - olivia@lbbonline.com
Zoe Antonov - EMEA reporter, UK & CEE - zoe@lbbonline.com
Zhenya Tsenzharyk - UK editor - zhenya@lbbonline.com
Tará McKerr - EMEA reporter - tara@lbbonline.com
Zara Naseer - EMEA members reporter - zara@lbbonline.com
AMERICAS
Addison Capper - Managing editor, Americas - addison@lbbonline.com
Adam Bennett - Features editor, Americas - adam@lbbonline.com
April Summers - North Americas features lead and Canada reporter - april@lbbonline.com
Ben Conway - Americas reporter - ben@lbbonline.com
Jordan Won Neufeldt - Canada reporter - jordan@lbbonline.com
Abi Lightfoot - Americas members reporter - abi@lbbonline.com
APAC & AUNZ
Brittney Rigby - Managing editor, AUNZ - brittney@lbbonline.com
Casey Martin - APAC/AUNZ reporter - casey@lbbonline.com
Tom Loudon - APAC/AUNZ reporter - toml@lbbonline.com
Sunna Coleman - Asia Reporter - sunna@lbbonline.com
A Note From The Editors
Little Black Book’s editorial team doesn’t report on the industry from an arm’s length - we’re part of it. We’ve worked in the world’s biggest production houses, led communications for the most famous agencies, played for rock bands, and written for mastheads like the Guardian and New York Magazine, the Radio Times and VICE. We’re journalists who dissect, contribute to, and celebrate creativity and culture.
So in 2025, we’ll lead the conversation on creative and cultural excellence, with integrity and trust. We’ll break news, ethically. Cover the work with unrivalled depth and insight. Ask the biggest names - CEOs and CMOs, CCOs and EPs, directors and founders - the biggest questions about the biggest issues.
We’ll up our focus on effectiveness, ensuring that, in another year of tightening budgets and expanding ROI pressures, we’re making the case for how and why creativity sells. We’ll help you read about (and be read about by) your clients, colleagues, and staff globally, and understand the industry and category trends unfolding both here and elsewhere. We’ll be a place where agencies, brands, and production businesses engage in conversations together.
And we’ll be the only truly global publication to do so. Our 45-strong team is spread across the UK, Germany, Canada and Australia, covering 75 countries, and reaching 500,000 readers a month, 42% of whom work for brands.
Below, you’ll find our editorial toolkit for the year, global feature stories for which you’re invited to contribute. This toolkit will give you an indication of the breadth of our coverage, but it is by no means the extent of it. Pitch us, talk to us, grab a coffee with us - tell us about the story we haven’t thought of yet, the thing keeping you up at night, the conversation you want to have.
Finally, thank you for both your readership and support: rather than relying on paywalled subscriptions, award entries, event tickets, and heavy advertising, we fund our journalism through a membership model, so we couldn’t do it without you.
It’s going to be an enormous year in advertising, across every city, country, and region. We’re glad to have you with us to shape and stretch how we cover it.
Addison Capper, Alex Reeves, and Brittney Rigby
Managing Editors (Americas, EMEA, and AUNZ, respectively)
—
Sign up for our global newsletter here, and our regional newsletters:
- USA
- Canada
- AUNZ
—
Please send all press releases to the content team at newsdesk@lbbonline.com and if your company is a member of LBB they will be published. Need some advice on how to structure and write press releases? We've got guides for creative work and new hire stories! If you don't have the time or resources to write your own articles, speak to our sales team about upgrading to a premium membership.
If you are a managed package member, you can send all work for the archive to the library team at archive@lbbonline.com
These are features that LBB's Editorial Team runs throughout the year. For the most part, there’s no hard and fast calendar, these are features that we run on an ongoing basis and editorially we’ll be trying to balance out international representation and industry sectors and overall diversity. It’s worth mentioning that particularly for features like 5 Minutes and The Directors we are keen to use the platform to showcase female and marginalised talent. We also spontaneously do plenty of off-the-cuff interviews and stories that don’t conform to any formula. Inclusion in these features is not guaranteed. See 'Members Interviews' for series’ with guaranteed coverage.
5 Minutes with... Interviews with the top people in the international advertising, marketing and creative industries
Ad Astra - A rallying call for creativity, Ad Astra features are in-depth profile pieces about the leading lights of global advertising. This feature is currently limited to global chief creative officers and must be pitched to laura@lbbonline.com.
Behind the Work - Behind the scenes on some of the most exciting creative campaigns. These can be traditional film campaigns but also digital projects, experiences, and category-defying activations too. What we care about is the insight, creative and production stories.
Brand Insight - Stories and interviews with marketers about their brand’s recent direction and future plans. This tends to be broader than just one campaign. We are open to stories where we speak to both the marketer and agency about work they’ve done together but the marketer/client must be involved in the interview.
Dream Teams - Trust and teamwork are at the heart of creativity and the industry is bursting with incredible partnerships. We want to profile and showcase the tightest twosomes in the business – how you met, why you work together so well, and what you’ve learned from each other – and advice for people navigating their own working relationships. This can be art director/copywriter pairs, directors and editors; MDs and ECDs; experience designers and creatives; character designers and animators…ultimately, it’s all about those enduring professional collaborations and friendships.
Film Club - Production companies do more than just commercials and often their really creative short film projects get overlooked, so Film Club is a place to talk about new shorts.
Firebrands - Brilliant work just isn’t possible without brilliant marketers - but so often they’re left out of the creative conversation. We’ll be meeting leading marketers to find out about the journey they’ve been on with their brand, how they work with their partners, and their views and visions around the topics and trends bubbling up ahead of them.
High Five - A fun listicle series where creatives, strategists, directors and producers share their top five campaigns from a particular market or segment. It could be ‘5 Funniest Ads from Thailand’ or 5 Best Music Videos from March’ - it’s a great way to help educate the rest of the industry about what’s happening creatively. Be warned though, you’re only allowed to pick one of your own projects! You can download the layout guide with prompts for your answers here.
Into the Library - ‘Into the Library with…’ is a trip down memory lane with the most exciting directors working in commercial production and music video, and leading adland creative directors. We’re looking for these top creative talents to share 7-10 jobs that have meant the most to them in their career, from early experiments to bombastic blockbusters and everything in between. If possible, it would be great to get a mix of old and new, and one or two wildcards mixed in with the more famous pieces. One of our journalists will interview the director, talking about each piece in chronological order to find out what it is that makes them so memorable. This interview can be done as a call or via email, with the director choosing their favourite pieces and writing up their reasons for choosing them - please pitch to the editorial team if you’d like to put someone forward.
Making Music - Making music is a series where we talk to the composers, producers and supervisors of some of the best new and classic commercial soundtracks.
Trends & Insight - Stories with a bit more depth that don’t conform to any template.
Uprising - Spotlights on the up-and-coming junior and mid-level industry talent making amazing work and shaking up the future. One of the most popular features on the site when it comes to traffic!
The Vanguard - This is a new series where we sit down with the CEOs leading the world’s biggest agency networks and holding companies to find out about how they became the leaders they are, what it means to rally thousands through a fast-changing industry, what clients need and where they see the industry going.
These features are designed to put the power in your hands. You can platform your talent and work whenever you like. And the great news is, we've devised the concept and format for these feature interviews already, so all you need to do is pick your talent, choose a relevant feature for their job role and get them to fill in their answers.
To take part, simply download the brief and questions by clicking on the titles below in bold. When you or your talent have answered, email the document and any images or videos you'd like included in the article to newsdesk@lbbonline.com for publishing.
There's no strict guidelines on schedule. We leave that down to you - but one hot tip to get more views and clicks is to spread the publishing out over regular intervals.
ALL DISCIPLINES AND COMPANY TYPES
Essential List - A fun listicle piece about the kit, culture and cuisine that keeps the industry’s creative folk going!
My Biggest Lesson - This is where experienced ad folk and production people can share the pearls of wisdom that have shaped their career and can help those making their way to avoid the same pitfalls.
My Creative Hero - This piece explores the creative inspirations behind the industry’s talent. This usually means non-advertising creative heroes, allowing participants to explore their broader influences.
The Work That Made Me - The best way to understand a person’s career is to look at the work that made them. Their first campaign. The campaign that someone else did that made them jealous. The campaign that taught them some painful but useful lessons. The work that they’re proudest of. This is also a great feature as it’s a chance to share older work and work from different markets that readers around the world may not have seen before.
Thought Leaders - This is our channel for opinion pieces. We find that pieces that are closely aligned with newsy or timely topics perform particularly well, whether it’s a big sporting event or a hit new Netflix show that everyone is talking about. We’ve mapped out a few events that we think will prove to be talking points to get you started.
Off My Chest - Something on your mind? Put pen to paper with ease with this Q&A series.
AI Spy - We want to hear about experiences from the frontlines of creativity’s intersection with artificial intelligence - especially on how the technology is affecting your roles and outcomes, today and in the future. In the process, we want to learn more about how AI is rewriting the industry’s rules.
BUSINESS & LEADERSHIP
Bossing It - Leadership doesn’t come easy and everyone has their own views about what makes an effective leader. In this series of regular features we interview leaders, founders and entrepreneurs and creative management about their journey towards leadership and their own lessons and insights. Specifically for CEOs, COOs, MDs, Founders, EPs.
The New New Business - The creative industry wouldn’t be able to create without the people bringing in business and closing sales. As the industry evolves, so too is new business and sales. We want to speak to the people making the gears of the industry turn, whether they’re at agency, production, post, tech or media platform, to share their insights with those struggling to close the deal.
DE&I: Accelerating Change - We want to interview the industry’s DE&I leads to find out about their perspective and how the wider industry can take responsibility for transforming the industry for the better.
AGENCIES
Are You Experienced? - Experiential advertising is one of the hardest to write about - after all, you had to be there, right? One of the most intimate, engaging and visceral forms of marketing rarely gets its chance to shine. That’s why we want to give creatives, strategists and producers working in the experiential space the chance to really dig into the magic that they weave. This member interview series is all about giving you the space to talk about an experience you helped to create, to discuss the challenges involved and make it feel more real for readers who didn’t manage to get hands on with it.
Creativity Squared - A creative profile with a difference – psychologists have distilled creativity down to four factors, and we’ll be exploring those with copywriters, art directors and creative directors to get a 360° view of who they are and how they work.
Magic Numbers - Data-driven creativity is something that brands and agencies all over the world are investing in and banking on - but what does that really mean, what are the best practices and potential blindspots? This feature is for brand and agency data experts.
Problem Solved - This is a new feature about agency projects that go beyond campaign work and use creativity to solve business problems. These can include digital transformation project, product development, employee engagement initiatives, ecommerce platforms and behaviour change initiatives.
Planning for the Best - The intellectuals of the industry, planners arm their creative colleagues with the human insights and hard data to make sure their ideas are founded in truth. We want to celebrate the planners and strategists and pick into their processes and thoughts about the evolving discipline.
The Art of Account Management - A piece for account managers/execs to discuss the subtle art of bringing clients, creatives and everything else together.
Creative Marketing - We’re looking to talk to innovative and creative marketers who are the drivers behind brilliant work, to find out how they think about and enable great creativity.
What the Flack - A series profiling the communications industries’ communicators, the PR and comms leads and agency Chief Marketing officers.
MEDIA
Social Butterflies - There are few areas of the advertising and marketing industry more fast-paced than social media. Between the big personalities at the helm of the platforms to the rapid adoption of new tech and formats to the always-on barrage of hot takes and spicy discourse. This new series is for the social media creatives, strategists and producers - as well as those working at the social platforms themselves - to share their insights from the freshest frontier of tech and creativity.
Media Matters - Without media, an idea is just an abstract thing with no audience. It’s the engine of the industry - and one that is changing rapidly. We want to catch up with leading media planners to find out a bit about how the field has changed and their take on some of the current hot-button topics.
FILM & CONTENT PRODUCTION
Camera Obscura: Production Obsessions - This is a piece for anyone involved in craft and production, from directors to animators, compositors to composers, cinematographers to sound designers. We want you to nerd out about an element of your craft that you are absolutely obsessed with. It could be a particular kind of camera lens or shooting format. It could be aspect ratios. It could be a particular tool that feels like it’s become your right hand. It could be a part of the process that you just always find incredibly fun.
The Directors - This feature allows directors to go beyond their reel to talk about their thoughts about the business of directing and how they like to work, giving potential clients and collaborators a clearer idea about their problem solving and working styles.
Meet Your Makers - Interviews with producers specifically aimed at production, post and service companies all about the business of content and commercial production, insights into an evolving industry and some career advice for those making their way.
Production & Technology - This is an interview series for producers with a passion for technology and innovation. Here we’re diving into the technological innovations that are changing production, or at least broadening the demands on and possibilities for production.
Producing Tomorrow’s Producers - This feature is for producers, particularly those in leadership roles (EPs, senior producers, heads of production) who are keen to develop the next generation of producers, make sure that skills and expertise are passed on, while also learning from the up-and-comers of the creator economy.
Production Line - Interviews with agency and brand in-house producers talking about the challenges making work that works while navigating and integrating new channels and technologies and helping brands to solve their problems.
Represent - An interview series with production reps, the industry's conduits between agency and production talent.
Sustainable Production - This is an interview series for producers with a passion for sustainability and who have been working to reduce the carbon footprint and environmental impact of their productions. It is intended to highlight best practice, share helpful pointers and also discuss some of the challenges moving forward. It’s a feature that’s appropriate for producers working in agency, production, production service, or even in-house at brand.
PHOTOGRAPHY, ANIMATION & DESIGN
Animate! - Animators are the magicians of filmmaking - to animate means, quite literally, to bring to life after all. So we want to celebrate the animators who fill our eyeballs with pure wizardry with this series of interviews.
Picture This - In which we ask a photographer to break down one of their favourite commercial photographs, revealing the story behind it. It doesn't have to be a recent project, in fact, famous/iconic advertising image would be most welcomed here!
Style Guide - This piece is for any sort of image-making artist working commercially. It could be illustrators, photographers, graphic designers or animators. It best suits those with a really distinctive flavour and style...
By Design - We want to talk to a range of the industry’s design experts about their careers and views on what ‘good’ design looks like. This series is open to everyone from UX designers, CX designers to product designers and graphic designers.
PRODUCTION SERVICE
Silver Service - We delve into the global production service industry to uncover how these companies excel at problem-solving, adapting to challenges with creativity and precision.
Location Spotlight - Interviews and guides with production service specialists from around the world about inspirational locations and practical production issues.
EDITING & VFX
Finely Sliced - We speak to editors about the art of the cut and explore the knife edge between good editing… and great editing.
Making the Grade - The grade is one of the most fascinating parts of the post process so we want to talk to talented colour graders about how they practice their craft.
The VFX Factor - This feature is a place for the visual virtuosos of advertising, the VFX artists, to discuss the trends in their role: the technological advancements revolutionising the way they work, the beauty of ‘invisible’ post, and trends in craft.
MUSIC & SOUND
Sonic Boom - Sonic Boom is a series on creative and technological innovations in sound design.
Thinking in Sound - We want to delve into the minds of the industry’s fantastic music and sound specialists to show just how creative this part of the industry is. We want to really dig into what inspires you and how you approach your work, while also getting a taste of how the music and sound part of the industry is changing.
After hearing from more and more individuals who want to promote themselves, we have launched a selection of interviews that Pro Users can get involved in, showcasing their best work and getting featured on the front page of LBB, as well as populating their profile at the same time.
To take part, simply download the brief and questions by clicking on the titles below in bold. When you have answered, email the document and any images or videos you'd like included in the article to hannahb@lbbonline.com to schedule its publishing.
Pro Hello - Put your best foot forward and say hello! In this feature, we want to give our Pro Users the chance to introduce themselves to the rest of the LBB community.
My Creative Obsession - This piece is all about allowing you to showcase your creative passion, and what really makes you unique and special as a creative collaborator.
Expert Eye - You can share your skills and expertise with this feature, also giving you a chance to advise and inspire people with less experience looking for a way into the field
Live Free - With an open layout, this insight-based op-ed has a different twist to the rest. It’s about creating a space for freelance talent to discuss the unique challenges and opportunities that come with being a creative, strategist or production expert who is taking control of their destiny. Balancing business and creative isn’t always easy!
JANUARY
FEBRUARY
Black History Month USA: Is Adland Still Committed to DE&I and Opening Access for Black Talent?
In 2020, Black Lives Matters triggered a wave of commitments and pledges from around the industry to do better when it comes to access and inclusion for Black talent. 2025 sees a very different social context in North America as 2023’s Supreme Court Ruling on affirmative action has seen a number of anti DE&I cases emerge (https://www.theguardian.com/law/article/2024/sep/06/dei-affirmative-action-lawsuits) and a number of corporations shutter their DE&I departments. And, of course, there’s Donald Trump’s US election win, which is further fostering a reluctance to keep up momentum. Turning our eyes to the advertising industry we want to find out whether those commitments are wavering and why backing Black talent is more important than ever.
Submission deadline: TBC, Writer: ben@lbbonline.com
All Star Line Up - Meet the Creative Teams Behind This Year’s Super Bowl Smash Hits
It’s the time of year when the USA celebrates its line back legends and big kickers on the field - so it seemed appropriate to shine a spotlight on those who make Super Bowl the big cultural event it is off the field. We’re talking, of course, about the creative teams responsible for this year’s high-scoring Super Bowl campaigns.
Submission deadline: TBC, Writer: addison@lbbonline.com
The Moment I Fell in Love with Film
This Valentine’s Day, it’s time to take a pause to reflect on the production community’s first love: film. We want to hear from the industry’s producers, directors and post folk to hear about the moments that nudged them down this crazy road called filmmaking. It could be a movie that blew your still-forming mind, or perhaps a childhood experiment with a home camcorder, we’re looking for 200 words on the moment that you realised ‘this is the life for me’!
Submission deadline: February 9th, Writer: toml@lbbonline.com
My First Year in Advertising: Strategists’ Edition
What a year to join the advertising industry! Spare a thought for the shiny new strategists just starting out - social trends seem to flicker and change by the minute and society is more polarised than ever. On the other hand, with real time data at their fingertips, the new cohort strategists has an enviable toolkit to help them reach those killer insights. We want to hear from people in their first year of their advertising career, to hear about how they’ve found navigating all this change and how they think it’s shaping their paths through the industry.
Submission deadline: February 5th, Writer: tara@lbbonline.com
How an Arsenal of AI Is Beefing Up Media
According to Dentsu’s 2025 Media trend report, AI is set to become a cornerstone of media professionals’ toolkits (https://info.dentsu.com/TheYearofImpact_2025MediaTrends), so we’re looking to hear from experts working across media agencies to find out about how AI is changing the way they’re working. We’re looking for real case studies across the media ecosystem and honest reflections about where the tech is raising the bar and where it’s still yet to live up to expectations.
Submission deadline: TBC, Writer: adam@lbbonline.com
The Big Trends Shaping VFX and Post Production in 2025
Post and VFX houses have long been the unsung innovation engines of the advertising and marketing world forever - and in 2025, they’re right at the frontline when it comes to the tech changes and rapidly expanding client demands that are shaping the way that content gets made. We want to speak with leaders in the VFX and post production space to get their view of the technological trends that are really shaping this part of the industry (and perhaps those that aren’t proving quite as revolutionary as we thought) as well as the market shifts that are shaping the business and the kind of work being made.
Submission deadline: February 25th, Writer: sunna@lbbonline.com
Quantum Leap - How Soon Will Quantum Computing Impact Adland?
OK, so AI isn’t going anywhere but perhaps there’s a new technology darling grabbing fickle adland’s attention. The United Nations has named 2025 the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology and that means that quantum computing could be edging ever closer to reality. And that could have massive implications for everything from AI to encryption. We want to catch up with the industry’s technology experts to get their take on quantum computing, whether it’s realistically going to impact the advertising and marketing space any time soon - and, if so, what that might look like.
Submission deadline: February 14th, Writer: alex@lbbonline.com
Sound Designers Versus the Mute Button
Skillful sound design can elevate film and online experiences, creating immersion that touches us on a physiological level. But increasingly Gen Z audiences are opting to engage with content with the sound off and the subtitles on. That means that they’re missing out on transformative experiences - just consider the impact of sound on the likes of Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest or Zoe Kravitz’s Blink Twice. We want to talk to the industry’s sound designers about their thoughts about this trend and how brands are losing out from a valuable emotional lever, and how, through irresistible craft and technology, sound design can encourage audiences to open their ears once again.
Submission deadline: TBC, Writer: jordan@lbbonline.com
The Look of Love in 2025
Dating apps are skewing our options and behaviours with microtransactions and lopsided user demographics. The cost of living squeeze is both delaying our relationship milestones by making dating feel prohibitively expensive, while also fast tracking other couples into co-habitation to keep down the cost. Social media is flaming the war of the sexes while presenting unrealistic expectations. Romance and relationships ain’t what they used to be… or are they? We want to talk to strategists, data/insights experts and behavioural scientists to find out what’s really changing in our love lives and what it means for marketers and the assumptions they make about our relationships, and the way they portray them in their marketing.
Submission deadline: February 9th, Writer: zoe@lbbonline.com
Submission deadline: February 10th, Writer: zhenya@lbbonline.com
MARCH
How to Make Every Brief Count
There’s a lot of stuff out there - not just advertising but stuff. Podcasts, shows, TikToks - a lot of it kinda rubbish. So as a junior creative, working on what seems to be a ‘small’ brief, it can be easy to feel defeated and despondent before you even get started on that social media post or long copy destined for a seatback insert in a budget airline or idea for that seemingly dull B2B ad. But, on the other hand, the biggest opportunity you have is the one you have on your desk right now. We would like to seek advice from experienced creatives about how they find the magic and motivation in the seemingly driest or smallest of briefs - with examples if you can!
Inside AI’s Transformation of Account Management
Much has been made of the impact of AI on production, creative and media - but AI is also helping agency account management to keep up with and even ahead of the needs of clients in unexpected ways. We want to talk to accounts leaders who are using AI to find out what’s working for them and what they’ve learned.
How Production Became Central to Pitching
Brands, so we’re constantly told, are in need of more and more content in order to be more present across more platforms and much, much more personalised. That means that marketers are finally realising the importance of makers - and senior agency and holding company producers are now spending more of their time in the pitching scrum. We want to talk to senior producers and heads of production to find out what’s driving this, what role production is really playing in pitching and how to sell your production strategy to potential clients.
Female Founders Building a New Kind of Industry
We want to speak to women who are building the change they want to see in the world by creating agencies, prod cos and post houses that are made to work better for women and clients alike, and invite them to share their insights and advice about how to do things differently.
Riches at the End of the Rainbow
A constant criticism levied at the big studio blockbuster movies in recent years is flat, lifeless, same-y grading, but in the ad world, with more time and attention paid to each second of screen time and where differentiation is important to brands, there’s more vibrancy and variety. We want to speak to top colourists about why grading with depth, dynamism and differentiation really matter in advertising
Fresh or Familiar? The Key to Musical Cut Through
When it comes to music’s role in effective advertising there are a couple of paths you can take. There’s going for the familiar earworm, a hit from today or yesteryear that can easily grab the attention of distracted audiences. But that’s often an expensive route - and with the pre-existing associations and the risk that other brands might also opt for it, it can be hard for brands to ‘own’ that sound. On the other hand, going for something fresh and unique can give your brand the cool cred of discovering and supporting up and coming acts or help you carve out a unique and ownable sound - but that can involve more work and time and repetition. We’d like to speak to music supervisors, adland composers and effectiveness experts about their thoughts on how to leverage both the recognizable and the original when it comes to music.
Pick ‘n’ Mix Commerce
A cheeky instant delivery here, a bit of Insta-browsing there, an impulse purchase on the Tiktok shop, a lunchtime meander through the city centre flagships, items lingering in you online shopping basket for days, an after-work dash to the local minimart because you forgot to get anything in for your tea and a post-brunch mooch round some local indies at the weekend and, depending on how grown up you’re feeling, a trip to the out of town hypermarket for a ‘big shop’… our shopping habits these days are all over the place. In fact, they’re so all over the place, it’s a stretch to call them ‘habits’. So as brands and agencies try to pin down and map out our ‘customer journeys’, how do they account for our increasing platform neutrality and flexibility - and how is that informing commerce strategies?
At the Wheel in Seas of Constant Change
Steering large organisations through the choppy waters of change is no mean feat. As creatures of habit, humans need a degree of stability to plan their professional and personal lives and to pull of big projects, but constantly evolving markets and tech landscapes means that businesses need to be flexible and able to move at speed to meet client needs and new opportunities. We want to speak to agency, production and post CEOs, MDs, founders and creative leaders to find out how they think about these seemingly competing challenges.
What Does IWD Even Mean in 2025/IWD in a Weird New WorldCelebrating and empowering women on International Women’s Day used to be a fairly straightforward affair for most brands. Occasionally inane and superficial but largely uncomplicated. But with the new political landscape, online backlash against women’s progress and general backslide on corporate DE&I among many brands, it seems there’s both a greater role for businesses to play in supporting women and a greater sense of reluctance to get involved. We’d like to speak to strategists, creatives and marketers about how to navigate IWD in 2025.
APRIL
Creative: Copywriting Lessons from Poets, Playwrights and Novellists *
Strategy: Breaking Generational Planning Stereotypes - Boomers, Generation X, Millennials and Gen Z
Ramadan: Global Ramadan, Local Impact: How Regional Nuances Are Shaping Advertising Strategies
Production: My First Year in Advertising, Production edition
Sound: Is Good Sound Design Evergreen?
Editing: Editing Across Borders: The Challenges and Joys of Cutting Internationally
UX Design: From Usability to Inclusivity: Why UX Needs a Bigger Mission
Sustainability: What Is the Environmental Impact of Your AI Usage?
Media: One and Done: When the Perfect Channel Was All You Needed *
The Big Think: How Adland Can Do More to Support Parents and Parents-to-Be
MAY
Creative: From Craftsperson to Leader: The Journey to Creative Directorship
Account Management: The Account Management Moment that Sold the Idea
Production: Behind-the-Scenes Clips that will School You In Production
Tech: Building Brand Personality into AI Agents
Data: The Art of Asking: How the Right Data Questions Lead to Creative Breakthroughs
Music: My First Year In Advertising: Music Company Edition
VFX: Small but Mighty: The Boutique VFX Studios Taking Down the Giants
The Big Think: Nostalgia’s 20/20. Is It Time to Stop Looking Backwards?
Gaming: Soft Power: Using Cosy Games to Build Brand Affinity with Gen Z and Millennials
JUNE
Creative: Resurrecting Forgotten Techniques in Advertising’s AI Era
Strategy: Fictional Characters Who’d Make Great Advertising Strategists *
Production: How to Build a Truly Inclusive Production Crew
Creators & Influencers: Creators as Strategists: The New Power Players in Brand Marketing
Cannes with Kids? A Parents’ Guide
Cannes as a Non-Drinker
JULY
Creative: Protecting Creative Energy in Crisis
From recession to war, client pressures to burn out, cultivating a creative life is one thing, and maintaining it another. How do creatives stay creative in times of high stress, and how do creative leaders nurture and protect creativity in their teams?
Independence Day: How Indie Agencies Are Rewriting the Rules
Independent agencies aren’t aiming to beat holding companies at their own game: many are building a new board entirely. From new revenue models to experimental models and unusual methods for chasing new business, we’ll speak to indie owners around the world who are rewriting the rules of how an ad agency ‘should’ be run.
Commerce / Personalisation: Hyper-Personalisation is Where Commerce Meets Creativity
It’s no longer enough to slap a customer’s name on an email and call personalisation a day. But how are brands using hyper-personalisation to transform commerce into a more emotional customer experience, and what innovations lie ahead?
Media: Media Strategy in an Age of Fragmentation
Meet the Career Chameleons
From a creative who turned to strategy to the suit who became a producer, we’ll hunt down people who have changed careers within the industry.
Sound: The Sound of Success: Audio’s Growing Role in Brand Identity
From the iconic McDonald’s ‘ba da ba ba ba’ to branded podcasts to the childhood jingles burned into your brain, sonic branding done right becomes a valuable brand asset. From sonic logos to soundscapes, we’ll talk to sound designers, composers, and agencies about how sound builds emotional connections, but most of all, builds brands.
Colour Grading: How Grading is Shaping Brand Identity in 2025
Marketers On Their H2 Priorities
The Big Think: Has H1 Gone As Expected?
AUGUST
Creative: The Creatives Building and Running Their Own Brands
Strategy: Five Agencies on How to Embed a Culture of Effectiveness
Production: Is the Production Process Getting More Sustainable?
The Ad Leaders Who’ve Given Up Drinking
Illustration: Does Illustration Make Advertising Feel More Like Art?
Illustration has made a comeback as a way to communicate craft, and in doing so, communicate a brand’s heritage, quality, and/or justify its price. This piece will speak to illustrators, marketers, and agencies about what different illustration styles lend a campaign, and whether illustration makes advertising feel more like art.
Ageism in Advertising: The Industry Needs to Reward Experience, Not Title
Music: The Process of Hunting for the Right Track
Account Management: Suits on Selling and Safekeeping an Idea
How Big Can Indies Get Before They Get Bad?
When it comes to the conversation around agencies scaling, Chiat/Day’s infamous question, “How big can we get before we get bad?”, is oft-cited. We’ll ask indies just that question, and dig into the relationship between headcount and impact.
SEPTEMBER
National Hispanic Heritage Month US
Latin Americans are the fastest-growing demographic in America. Soon, there will be no distinction between advertising to Latin Americans and advertising for the 'mass market' - because they will be one and the same. As a result, let's speak to agencies/creatives/music companies/brands about how they're adapting their thinking to cater to this evolving demographic change.
How 100 Years of TV Shaped Advertising
October 2nd marks the 100th anniversary of John Logie Baird’s first experimental broadcast, and oh what a century it’s been. It’s fair to say that TV has had a massive impact on the advertising industry, which had till that point been dominated by print and poster (with radio ads sneaking in in 1922). We’d like to speak to creatives, strategists, marketers and media specialists alike to reflect on the impact that TV has had on the industry, the avenues it opened up, how it changed the ways that brands could connect with audiences and how it has evolved in recent years with the advent of VOD and streaming.
Submission deadline: September 26th
What’s the Future of TV Advertising?
At 100 years old, the TV has had pretty good innings. But as newer, faster, more mobile forms of media grow in popularity, what’s the future for the humble telly and the advertising that has grown up around it? We want to hear from media and tech experts to find out what they think is next for our beloved boob tube. Does it look set to flicker off into irrelevance or are we on the verge of a new evolutionary step?
Submission deadline: September 27th
Creative: These Creatives Are Also Published Authors
New Business: 10 Execs Weigh in on The Biggest Pitches of 2025 So Far
Production: The Ins and Outs of Stop-Motion
Tech: The Best Tech-Led Campaigns of 2025 So Far
Gaming: Here Are the Brands Winning in the Gaming Space
OCTOBER
Halloween: How to Create Terrifying VFX Creatures
Creative: Is Podcast Advertising a Missed Opportunity?
Strategy: Tips and Tricks for Staying on Top of Culture’s Most Important Trends
Production: The Evolution of Virtual Production in 2025
Leadership: How Does One ‘Learn’ Leadership?
Data: A Creative Data Dilemma: Striking the Balance in a Privacy-First Era
Innovation: Could Quantum Computing Revolutionise Advertising?
Music: Favourite Horror Movie Scores
Colour grading: How to Grade Black and White Moving Images
The Big Think: World Mental Health Day
NOVEMBER
Creative: Favoured Ways to Get Past Creative Blocks
Account/New Business: Meet the Industry’s New Business Leaders - Split into Regions
Production: Making BTS Content that Non-Industry People Will Care About
Animation: Animators on Their Favourite-Ever Animations
Commerce: How Has Black Friday Marketing Changed?
Media: Where Should Christmas Advertisers Invest Their Media Spend?
Sound: Deck the Halls with Bells of Foley
Editing: How Editors Are Utilising AI
The Big Think: International Men’s Day
DECEMBER
Was 2025 a Vintage Advertising Year?
The X Biggest Global Hires of the Year
Creative: A Peek at Creatives’ Pinterest Boards
Strategy: The Strategic Thinking Behind 2025’s Biggest Christmas Campaigns
Production: Creating Holiday Magic in the Middle of Summer
VFX: The Invisible Heroes of VFX: Spotlight on Unsung Roles
Creators & Influencers: How Powerful Was Influencer Marketing in 2025?
The Big Think: UK Christmas Ad Insights
