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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)

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Sign up for our global newsletter here, and our regional newsletters:
- USA
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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!

Please check out the topics we’re planning to write features about in the coming year. These are outside of our regular features (please see above), which we write all year round. Moreover we do endeavour to respond to news developments in the industry and more broadly in our features. As the year progresses, this document will be updated and expanded throughout the year. As we assign writers and develop briefs we will contact LBB members.

JANUARY

Will Adland Shed Its Skin in the Year of the Snake?

As zodiac signs go, the poor old snake isn’t usually top of people’s favourite list. In China, the resplendent imperial dragon or the rizz-machine monkey tend to usher in a bumper year of births as parents-to-be seek the most auspicious signs for their offspring. But there’s more to the year of the snake than meets the eye - it’s a sign associated with transformation and rebirth. And, whaddaya know, that feels pretty relevant right now to the advertising and marketing industry. So we want to ask what changes you hope to see in the industry this year, whether you think we’re capable of this change and how we can get there.

Submission deadline: Jan 24, Writer: jordan@lbbonline.com

Soapbox 2025

Our LBB community is buzzing with ideas, opinions and visions for a better advertising industry. So we’re inviting you to dig out your megaphone and climb onto our figurative soapbox to share your hopes for 2025. It could relate to the work itself or the inner workings of the industry (for example, sustainability, parental support) or, indeed, how you hope to see the industry as a whole adapt to the tech, social, cultural, economic and politics shifts shaping the market. We’ve created a Q&A to inspire you, but if you would rather go more freeform, we’re looking for submissions of around 800 words and a headshot by January 10th.

What is the one thing you would like to see change in the industry in 2025?

What progress, if any, was made on this in 2024?

What challenges or obstacles do you foresee might stand in our way - and how might we address them?

Where might we look for inspiration for solutions?

Writers: zara@lbbonline.com, abi@lbbonline.com

Your Cultural Highlights 2025

You lot are a cultured and creative bunch, so who better to help plan our year and fill the next 365 days with inspiration? We’re looking for industry creatives and production and post folk to share the events that they’re most looking forward to this year and why. And we’re not talking ad events - we’re talking gigs and music tours, art exhibitions, books launches, tech fairs - anything to make sure that our 2025 is jam packed with adventure and experiences.

Submission Deadline: Dec 20th 2024, Writer: ben@lbbonline.com

2025 Trends Distilled

Every year, agencies and forecasters put out their forecasts for the coming 12 months, from tech trends to social and cultural movements. But it can be hard to navigate lengthy white paper after lengthy white paper. We want to distill the 2025 trends in one place, with commentary with those behind them. Anything to make life easier!

Writer: adam@lbbonline.com

Chinese New Year/Spring Festival Insight Feature

What are the big trends and conversations around this year’s Spring Festival campaigns and creative? We want to speak to creatives and strategists in markets that celebrate Spring Festival/Lunar New Year to get their take about the trends shaping this year’s campaigns and activations. We’re particularly interested in speaking to ad folk and marketers from China, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam.

Submission Deadline: Jan 17, Writer: Sunna@lbbonline.com

What Can CES 2025 Tell Us About the Year Ahead?

CES is a candyland for creative technologists, packed with both need-to-know developments that will shape our future and eccentric curios that may bag headlines without making much of a splash in the real world. The trick it is to figure out which is which. This year, we’re calling on adlanders who attended to share with us the trends and tech that they reckon will have a bearing on our lives and work this year and beyond. Submissions of 2-300 words by Jan 15th.

Submission Deadline: January 15th, Writer: Addison@lbbonline.com

Ad Industry Agenda 2025

New year, new vision. We want to hear from ad industry CEOs and leaders about their priorities for the coming year when it comes to evolving their businesses, staying ahead of the curve and helping clients navigate what’s sure to be another lively year, packed with twists, turns and challenges.

Submission Deadline: Dec 20th, Writer: Olivia@lbbonline.com

What Does 2025 Hold for the World of Production?

2024 was a lot for the production community. Between the continued repercussions from the 2023 Hollywood strikes, streamers pulling back on their big spending ways and, on the commercial side, flashpoints of tension between indies and holding companies, there were a lot of challenges and changes. On top of that, clients’ demand for content continued to grow - though their budgets did not, and there was the continued evolution of tech like AI and virtual production. So, looking ahead to 2025, what are the industry’s production experts predicting will be the big talking points in the year ahead - and what are they hoping to see?

Submission Deadline: Dec 20th, Writer: zoe@lbbonline.com

The Big Think: Heaven Knows We’re Miserable Now - ahead of Blue Monday (Mon 20 2025, to publish Friday 17)

Nihilism is so in right now. According to Ipsos, only 31% of people say they’re optimistic about the world in general over the next 12 months, and people are finding that traditional milestones and aspirations are increasingly out of reach. Add to that the climate crisis doomsday clock, political polarisation and growing income inequality is it any surprise that hope is hard to come by. Many people are even turning their back on dating. So what does that mean for marketers? Confidence and optimism drive activity, what do brands do when no one feels up for anything? Can brands find a role in cheering people up or is that a surefire way to irritate people even more? Or perhaps there are different ways to approach this tension and pessimism. We would like to speak to strategists about their insights and perspectives.

Submission Deadline:Jan 10th, Writer: zhenya@lbbonline.com

Brands: Low and No Alcohol Marketing is Evolving - Here’s How

For more and more of us, it’s dry January and low/no alcohol options are becoming ever more varied, accessible and socially normalised. With that, we’d like to speak to marketers from the beverage industry to find out how low/no alcohol marketing is stepping up its ambition and scale, from major sports partnerships to greater creativity and more interesting social media and influencer work and beyond.

Submission Deadline: Jan 15th, Writer: alex@lbbonline.com

FEBRUARY

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: February 10th, 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: February 11th, 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: February 14th, 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

XXX & NSFW: The Ads and Music Videos That Set Pulses Racing

Remember when sex was used to sell, well, everything? We sure do. This Valentine’s Day, we’re revisiting the era when ‘sexy’ was the only creative idea. From steamy ads to provocative music videos, we want to revisit the boldest campaigns that turned up the heat and pushed boundaries. What made them iconic? Were they daring or just provocative? In the spirit of bringing sexy back, we’d love to find out so send us the ads and music videos got you hot under the collar or simply made an unforgettable impression.
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