‘We keep talking redundancies but not the fallout’: Agency leaders’ 2026 outlook
Leading agency figures tell us which stories have been flying under the radar but are nonetheless shaping the year ahead.
This week, among a good few sobering findings in the IPA’s latest Bellwether report, there came news that a negative balance of -19% of marketers think their overall financial prospects improved in the last quarter. It’s the worst result for marketer confidence in over three years.
The report diagnoses a few causes of the malaise sweeping the industry: continued geopolitical tensions and fallout from tariffs from the US; fears of “an AI-fuelled stock market bubble;” increasing downward pressure on budgets and increasing demand for return-on-investment.
So, few in the agency world are feeling bullish right now. But beyond the unavoidable stories that dominate conversation, what’s dominating their thinking right now? For this edition of Agency Advice, we asked leading marketers which agency stories have been flying under the radar (but may dominate the year ahead).
“It’s become so unfashionable that it’s almost hard to remember how central Net Zero was to our industry just three years ago, before AI took over the conversation. But when attention moves on, that’s often when the real work gets done.
The team behind Purpose Disruptors’ Advertised Emissions program has made serious progress, with meaningful engagement from SBTi and an approach now influencing sectors like consulting and law. Ahead of COP30, their report Beyond the Chaos, Ahead of the Curve shows how agencies are navigating political uncertainty, technological disruption and climate breakdown at the same time.
As the 2030 deadlines loom and China’s lead in clean technology sparks genuine fomo in the west, I expect we’ll see radical ambition return. It will be advertising’s first movers who benefit. It’s deeply uncool right now, but soon we’ll remember that so is the planet.”
