Agencies say the majority of briefs land on their desk unclear, unfocused, or rewritten by committee. These traps sabotage marketing efforts from day one.

As layoffs reshape the creative industry, redundancy is now a commercial reality. Recruitment director Dean Connelly shares a practical roadmap for how talent can reset, reposition, and get hired in 2026.

Baliprod Films, Six Inc Tokyo and Colenso BBDO Auckland shine in Campaign Red’s analysis of 10,000 awards over the past three years reveals which campaigns were most lauded by global juries.

WPP grapples with an inherited “failure of modern corporate governance,” Darren Woolley writes. Cindy Rose must now prove that the next chapter rests on integrity rather than growth at any cost.

While critics mock WPP for outsourcing its own transformation, marketing advisor Ivan Fernandes argues it reframes the narrative from a company 'lost in transformation' to openly rebuilding in full public view.

“When every party starts to look the same, design becomes one of the few levers left to stand out,” says Éric Blais in his latest Free to Disagree column.

“When every party starts to look the same, design becomes one of the few levers left to stand out,” says Éric Blais in his latest Free to Disagree column.

In an AI-driven industry, FCB's Group CEO for South Asia sees vulnerability in middle-layer jobs, but says the real dividing line is not between juniors and seniors, but between those who evolve and those who don’t.

In an AI-driven industry, FCB's Group CEO for South Asia sees vulnerability in middle-layer jobs, but says the real dividing line is not between juniors and seniors, but between those who evolve and those who don’t.

The era of flying in global execs to read HQ-approved scripts at CIIE is done, says We. Red Bridge. Impact will belong to brands that champion China’s story, back local talent and show up to partner more, perform less.

The era of flying in global execs to read HQ-approved scripts at CIIE is done, says We. Red Bridge. Impact will belong to brands that champion China’s story, back local talent and show up to partner more, perform less.

Ad fraud is now a top-tier global crime rivalling drug trafficking, yet barely treated as one. Darren Woolley asks why the industry tolerates losses it would never accept anywhere else.

Ad fraud is now a top-tier global crime rivalling drug trafficking, yet barely treated as one. Darren Woolley asks why the industry tolerates losses it would never accept anywhere else.

Sure, AI can generate, scale and optimise. But as Susie Hunt, Asia chair of Elmwood & MSQ, reminds us, it can’t feel, and it certainly can’t make people feel.

Half a billion users, 22 billion posts and huge sway over what people buy, yet APAC marketers are still missing the moment, argues We Are Social’s chief executive.

While India tried to match and westernize advertising, it was Piyush who showed us that rural India, folk music and local jokes could entertainingly tell brand stories.

Selling the international arm won’t be simple, opines Humphrey Ho. The buyer can’t look like the ad holding groups of old, because that model is exactly what Dentsu is trying to leave behind.

Working alongside him was nothing short of a masterclass in humanity and advertising.

WBD’s announcement to explore strategic alternatives sent the stock price up 10%. The suitors are circling, but how many are really ready to bite?

The marketing industry has been quietly eroding its own foundation – its people. While we obsess over tools and tech, the talent pipeline that fuels innovation is running dry.

Why great things happen when agencies and clients get sweaty together

After 60 days travelling solo through 30 cities in China, Wai Social founder Olivia Plotnick shares what she saw and learned.

The datasets shaping AI’s creative output reflect decades of cultural bias. In marketing, that means the future we’re building could look suspiciously like the past unless humans reclaim the creative brief.

The marketing brief is the costliest Word doc in the business—and half the time, it’s ruined by buzzwords that say nothing at all.

How the most visible pop star in the world embraces the tactics of an introvert.

Machines can’t make advertising great—people can, Darren Woolley writes.

Two creative directors of global agency Forpeople share lessons in working with Chinese clients, ditching past assumptions to strike a balance in design expression for premium brand experiences.

Candidness is supposed to be a workplace superpower. Yet somehow, says Publicis's Vini Dalvi, we save our most useful feedback for machines.

Clean Creatives’ Duncan Meisel hits back at claims the F-List is “flawed,” arguing that cutting fossil fuel clients is both ethical and smart business.

The media relations challenge in Southeast Asia can be exacerbated if the region's many different realities are ignored, says Haikel Fahim.

A pep talk for creatives in the age of authoritarianism.

Clean Creatives has spotlighted fossil fuel marketing, but Paul Mottram says the industry must now channel its influence into regulation, disinformation and systemic reform.

No doubt, Asia’s GDP is soaring and its cultural influence is on the rise. Yet, as execs from The Effectiveness Partnership point out, its brands are still getting lost in the shuffle.

The surest way to 'what’s next' is mastering 'what’s now,' writes Clare Pickens, CEO of Leo Australia.

OpEd: The billions of dollars of tech investments has made the ad world very good at producing bad average or good average content; a dangerous game for an industry paid to be brilliant and stand out.

It’s been 25 years since Ben & Jerry’s “merged” with Unilever. The company that gave us Cherry Garcia ice cream retained the values it was founded on longer than expected, but those hippie ideals are fading, Éric Blais writes.

This week's abrupt cancellation of Jimmy Kimmel is a defining moment that underscores the vital role advertisers play in supporting the media that allows comedians to make jokes at politicians' expense.

"Be more entertaining. Be more interesting. Be more attention-grabbing. Hit people in the feels,” urges Zac Martin, who challenges advertising’s fixation on persuasion.

A transparent approach to hiring can help make lasting effects on closing the gender pay gap.

As more creatives adopt AI in their work, creativity is at risk of sameness. Putting humanity at the centre of the craft harmonises AI's precision with human unpredictability, says Yasu Sasaki, global chief creative officer at Dentsu.

The industry loves to bet on who’s down. But no one—WPP, Publicis, or Accenture—has cracked the future yet, argues a former holding-company insider turned consultant.

After Darren Turner, founder and creative director at The Table, lost a close friend to suicide, therapy provided the 'essential medicine for the mind'.

Darren Woolley outlines his benchmarks for validating AI marketing, including productivity, speed, scale, and quality, and states productivity and performance, efficiency and effectiveness go hand in hand.

Clean Creatives' Duncan Meisel argues that IPG's decision to work with Saudi Aramco after pledging to avoid fossil fuel clients may have compromised its credibility and client relationships.

And what really happens when the pipeline of future talent dries up? Dean Connelly, founder and recruitment director of Latte discusses.

The MullenLowe copywriter calls herself all-or-nothing. Luckily, that applies to both scuba certifications and cracking briefs under pressure.

It's very easy for anyone to have an opinion about creative ideas. However, that doesn't make their opinion professional or the feedback constructive, says the co-founder of BetterBriefs.

2,000 new village cafes pop up in rural China each month—a hotbed of opportunity, but full of challenges too.

Dentsu’s potential sale, WPP’s turmoil, Omnicom and IPG’s merger chase all point to the fact that the giants of advertising are stumbling. As TrinityP3's Darren Woolley argues, this is natural selection at work: adapt or go extinct.

A change of CEO at WPP and a potential sale of Dentsu’s international business are just two signs that major change is coming to the global agency sector.