Five things on Friday #395
Adland's A List! Clubbing! Sharks! I'm sure it's fine.
Things of note for the week ending Sunday, February 16th, 2025.
#395
INTRO
Hello friends.
A Sunday edition. How lovely.
This week marked a year or so since some fairly significant things happened in quick succession. With friends, with family, with work. And while the start to 2025 has been WILD (we moved back to the house last weekend, they removed the last of the dehumidifiers on Friday, and we are finally making headed towards restoration of the living room - hooray!), we are still in a darn fine better place than we were this time last year.
To celebrate all of the 2024 f[ire-tr]uckery being DONE and GONE, I accidentally went drinking (and eating) with some ex-colleagues this week and I tell you something for nothing: it is so so so so so nice to see good people not only escape from bad places but also just THRIVE when they land on their feet shortly thereafter. So nice.
A fair chunk of my mentoring time is spent helping people extricate from toxic work situations and for 100% of people who have acted and managed to move on, they have all gone on to do better and to be better. It’s bloody great to see - and I feel like a proud dad.
Truth be told, as much as I give it critique, the reason I work hard at giving back to adland is because at certain crunchy moments in my life, I’ve experienced both great leaders - who have been there for me to lift me up or support me - AND bad leaders who have absolutely muffed it.
The trick is: learning from both kinds.
Leaders are what you make them (I’ve said this before). And if you are a bad leader, you will do one of three things:
Teach bad habits and create bad leaders (bad).
As the Marketing Academy tells us: ‘Great leaders are defined by the leaders they leave behind’ - this works both ways…Drive people out of the business (also bad).
It’s telling that one of the questions Campaign Magazine asked its A-List was ‘What advice would you give someone considering leaving adland?’ - talk about saying the quiet part out loud. More on this later.Show people how not to do it so they do it better themselves when they have the chance (also bad but ultimately / hopefully net positive).
This is the one we learn from.
Teaching. Coaching. Mentoring. It is so important to help people. Our industry is hard. And it’s getting harder. With RTO policies being rolled forward and DEI programmes being rolled back (Accenture being the latest agency corporate to cover itself in glory on this one), you have to wonder where adland thinks the next batch of talent is going to come from…
Point is: talent needs help. Jon Ronson talks about the high chance CEOs being psychopaths often (this is quite fun but do read the book). And, if that is true, especially in large cities (again, read the book), then talent needs help.
If you’re able to mentor someone, do so.
If you’re able to help talent out of poisonous work situations, do so.
And if you’re stuck in a situation where the leader/s of your business are emotionally abusive monsters and you need to escape, do so.
Feel free to hit reply to this email if you need help with any of those. I’m here to help.
—
Right then, that’s enough reflection (ranting?) for now.
It’s Saturday morning, I’m listening to Fred Again on YouTube (specifically), and I’ve got about 30mins or so until the kids will come down and demand the kitchen to play video games. I need to trim the garden bushes today. February is the right time to do a pre-Spring clean of the garden and if the rain keeps away, then I’ll get out there later today to do some tidying.
I hope you’ve had a good week.
Oh, PS. this week I’ve enabled comments on the Five Things archive, so if you’re reading this and you’re not a subscriber, you can just leave a comment there instead.
Right, shall we crack on with the things?
Let’s.
TO THE THINGS!
THING 1. LET'S TALK ABOUT THE CAMPAIGN A LIST
EDITED & UPDATED, FEB 18th 2025
Since publishing Five Things on Friday 395, Campaign Magazine and its publishers, Haymarket, have been in touch to kindly request I remove any ‘Subscriber Only’ content.
At the time of writing, I have subscriber access to Campaign Magazine and accessed the site - and its content - legally.
There is a discrepancy between the Campaign/Haymarket Terms & Conditions and the broader UK guidance when it comes to exceptions to copyright usage, especially in regard to fair use and fair dealing. For example, sharing the paid for content, which I had offered to do in an earlier version of this post, is wrong. This offer has been removed. The analysis of that content is not wrong so can be kept.
However, as a gesture of good will, I am happy to comply with Campaign Magazine’s wishes to remove content and analysis that may be ‘financially damaging’ to Haymarket.
Therefore mentions and direct references to ‘Subscriber Only’ content have been edited, redacted, or completely removed.
Everything else mentioned you can find online or go and pay for a Campaign subscription and look for the insights yourself next time.
It is of course completely right that our industry leaders be held to account against the backdrop of growing issues around DEI and Mental Health - among others - and I would hope that Campaign picks up the issues previously highlighted and continues the fight into 2025.
This week’s Thing 1 has now been updated and redacted inline with Campaign’s wishes, and you can find it below.
This week the UK's longest-running trade publication, Campaign Magazine, published ‘The Campaign A List 2025’, bringing together ‘more than 200 adland movers and shakers in an exclusive online directory’.
‘The A List is a unique compendium of adland leaders’ musings on everything from hybrid working through to their favourite character from the hit film Wicked.
A Listers were also asked to divulge whether they would hire or fire 2024, their favourite ads and shared surprising facts about themselves.
As well as the list itself, subscribers can also access a feature rounding up the most memorable answers.’
Because I am a nerd, I decided I’d try and pull all the data from the Campaign A List and then run some analysis on the answers.
Thanks to the website being achingly hard to navigate, I failed at the first part so couldn’t deliver the second.
That’s when very smart person, excel/data nerd, long-time pal and occasional professional luncher, Mat Morrison, stepped up to help.
2hrs and one rerun later, he delivered.
[BLURRY PHOTO OF CAMPAIGN MAGAZINE SUBSCRIBER ONLY CONTENT REMOVED AT THE REQUEST OF CAMPAIGN MAGAZINE]
With 227 adland big dogs included, you'd expect to be able to glean some fascinating insights.
And I did.
But.
Before we get to that, it’s probably worth noting that this week also saw Campaign publish this headline from the National Advertising Benevolent Society - aka Nabs.
‘A record 5200 calls were made to Nabs in 2024, reflecting a growing need for mental health and career support in the advertising and media industry, the charity revealed.
Emotional support was the top reason for calls, with a 22% rise compared with 2023. Other common concerns included stress, burnout, and anxiety, with some callers reporting feeling overwhelmed or considering resignation or sick leave.
Redundancy-related inquiries also saw significant growth, increasing by 39%, while downloads of Nabs’ online redundancy guide rose by 15%.
Nabs’ services were also accessed more than 14,000 times in 2024, which was a 12% upturn year on year. The charity referred 16% more people for therapy, as awareness of its mental health resources improved.’
It’s hard reading.
Against the backdrop of aforementioned DEI changes, RTO policy updates, cost of living pressures, mergers withholding salary increases and promotions (if this isn’t happening at IPG right now I’ll eat my hat) and ever-increasing stress and anxiety for the talent in the industry to deliver more for less - then you would hope the A List should be ready to attack 2025 together.
Well.
5200
The number of calls made to Nabs’ mental health and support line in 2024.
_ _ _[REDACTED]
The number of Campaign’s A List that quoted mental health support as a priority for 2025.
_ _ _
In among the more playful questions (hire or fire 2024, Brat Summer, Team Glinda or Elphaba etc [CAMPAIGN MAGAZINE SUBSCRIBER ONLY CONTENT] we had occasional glimpses of saying the quiet part out loud.
What advice would you give to someone considering leaving adland?
[WORD CLOUD OF ANSWERS TO THIS QUESTION REMOVED AT THE REQUEST OF CAMPAIGN MAGAZINE]
I must admit, even I laughed when ‘[REDACTED]’ appeared in front of me. Word clouds are a bit Rorschach at the best of times but still, come on.
What else? Let’s do a nice one.
What do employees appreciate most about working at your company?
[WORD CLOUD OF ANSWERS TO THIS QUESTION REMOVED AT THE REQUEST OF CAMPAIGN MAGAZINE]
Every advertising leader believes its employees value [REDACTED, REDACTED, and REDACTED].
5,200 calls to Nabs last year… there’s a disconnect somewhere, right?
Speaking of people and culture, I’m interested to know about DEI mentions.
DEI: [REDACTED]
Inclusion/Inclusivity: [REDACTED]
Diverse/Diversity: [REDACTED]
Is that good? Talking about it is one thing, I guess?
“According to the latest IPA Agency Census, the gender pay gap increased from 15.2% in 2023 to 19.7% in 2024, in favour of men. The ethnicity pay gap increased from 21.6% in 2023 to 32.7%.”
Source: The ad industry doesn't care about DEI (and it's getting harder to pretend it does).
Additionally, looking at all the answers in totality, Zuck got [REDACTED] mentions, Musk got [REDACTED], and Trump comes in top with [REDACTED].
-
So look, this is all relatively unscientific and pointing out trends in a dataset of Q&A that many of the 227 A Listers didn’t spend much time on or take that seriously could be deemed unfair.
I accept that.
However.
As advertising leaders your industry looks up to you to be the instruments of change and leadership when things are going bad.
And things are going bad.
The Nabs data tells us that.
So if you’re reading this and you’re one of the 227, what are you going to change in 2025?
And what answer will you give next year for when we run this data again?
-
Oh, and as a final final point, if I was the director of communications for Ogilvy UK and Campaign had only chosen male leaders from the vast talent within the walls of Sea Containers, I would simply choose NOT to highlight that fact with a LinkedIn post featuring all those men in one place.
The very definition of unconscious bias.
THING 2. SOFT CLUBBING
My friend Chloe sent me this earlier in the week and I really like it.
And its core, soft clubbing is - well - the opposite of hard clubbing. Instead of going out and going hard until the early hours, go out early and enjoy the music and company.
But it’s more than that.
And perhaps a sign of something deeper.
2025: The Year of ‘Soft Clubbing’ is written by Yusuf Ntahilaja - it’s a refreshing and kind of inspiring read. And as a vibe for 25, I love it.
Thanks Chlo.
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THING 3. THIS WEEK IN VIDEO GAMES
FIRST UP.
A FRIEND OF MINE HAS MADE AND PUBLISHED A GAME AND YOU SHOULD ALL PLAY IT.
In Poltergeist Prodigy (trailer / Steam store page), you are a new ghost, and to continue existing and uncover how you died you must haunt the living.
With guidance from a comedic, more experienced ghost, you will learn to haunt people and animals with a variety of techniques in a range of places in this single-player, story-focused puzzle adventure game. Delight in being a mischievous ghost.
There’s a demo live on Steam right now and you can buy the game next month when it goes on sale (wishlist now! etc).
Speaking of Steam, this is great:
The "Hits You Missed" Steam sale is now live! A curated selection of some of 2024's big indie hits, all discounted, including The Rise of the Golden Idol, Mouthwashing, 1000xRESIST, Duck Detective: The Secret Salami, Shogun Showdown, Crow Country & more! https://store.steampowered.com/sale/hitsyoumissed
— Tom Vian (@sfbtom.bsky.social) 2025-02-13T22:56:12.053Z
Quick News Bites
The Verge has a good piece on stop motion games.
Video games are art. Lorelei and the laser eyes proves it (again).
This week I learned that the game director of Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 was well into Gamer Gate (and not in a good way). Vom.
Speaking of spew, Bobby Kotick has been back in the trades again this week, chatting rubbish about his time at Activision Blizzard. Fortunately, people are putting him right.
In better news, PlayStation dropped a State of Play (with 48hrs notice!) this week and broadly, it was very good. Here’s everything that was announced.
Related: without any real competition, Sony is of course killing it with PS5 having its best ever holiday period, shipping a staggering 75 million boxes.
This week in Roblox, a mixbag:
I wrote a bit more about Brookhaven being bought by Voldex (and what that means for brands).
Roblox also announced a new set of digital safety standards and tools, with Discord, Google, and Open AI to help things get safer with ROOST: Robust Open Online Safety Tools. This feels significant (if late).
GamesIndustry.biz is reporting that Roblox is also apparently part of an ongoing SEC investigation (perhaps linked to the Hindenberg Research report from a few months back).
THING 4. KAYAK FISHING SHARK ENCOUNTER
In these stressful times, I like to watch calming videos to help pass the time.
This is not one of those videos BUT it is both a brilliant watch and utterly effing terrifying.
THING 5. CAN WE TALK ABOUT TERRIBLE GEOTARGETING IN OUT OF HOME ADS? SURE WHY NOT.
Out Of Home. OOH.
Digital Out Of Home. DOOH.
D6. Digital six sheet.
For the benefit of this Thing, I’m doing to use these terms interchangeably.
Here we go.
Look at the absolute state of this.
There is no one, no one, who looks at this and thinks ‘Oh wow, Wrigley’s Extra Refreshers’ knows that I am here - in Borehamwood - and just, like, I don’t know, really gets me.’
NO ONE.
Train station media buys are especially bad for this.
Let’s look at another.
This time from before Christmas.
To be clear, the line on this is:
“CHARING CROSS, MILK CHOCOLATE? BALLSY.”
CHARING CROSS. COMMA.
MILK CHOCOLATE. QUESTION MARK.
BALLSY. FULL STOP.
Trust me on this, there is no one, no one, walking through Charing Cross station and thinking ‘Oh, I’m in Charing Cross, that ad must be directed at me - I must pay attention to this immediately!’
NO ONE.
It is LAZY.
It is BORING.
If you work in advertising and you’re selling this crap, please just STOP. This is bad media buying that dresses up personalisation and localisation as a creative comms tactic and fails at both.
It is bad. Bad bad bad bad bad. Just stop it.
Another? ‘Make a racket, Clapham’ this HSBC ad says, in an ad in Clapham Junction but not actually Clapham.
Clapham Junction is in Battersea (not Clapham), like it says on the sign as you leave Clapham Junction (visible at the bottom of the photo above).
STOP ADDRESSING PEOPLE AS PLACES.
‘LONDON MAKE SOME NOISE!’ is fine if you are an international DJ getting a crowd hyped before a massive drop. Not if you are a high street bank trying to endear yourself to a district of London (especially one you don’t actually know the name or boundaries of).
- - -
Here’s one more.
Equally bad but for different reasons this time.
So while I was waiting for the Wrigley’s Extra one to come round again, I saw this one, from Uber Eats.
I don’t get the creative but that’s fine. The media buy and placement, that’s the thing that’s got me here.
This is an ad facing inwards at the exit of Borehamwood train station. So people are leaving the station.
‘You live in Borehamwood. It’s nearing the end of the day when you see this. So you might want to order a pad thai for dinner tonight - from Rosa’s Thai.
‘Huh, I didn’t know we had a Rosa’s Thai in Borehamwood’, I thought. We don’t.
If you’re in Borehamwood and you want Rosa’s Thai delivered to you - by Uber Eats - delivery is actually unavailable because, and I quote, it’s TOO FAR TO DELIVER.
I wish I was kidding.
This is basic stuff y’all.
Incredible.
BONUS SECTION
THIS IS THE BONUS SECTION. BONUS LINKS THAT BUMP US OVER FIVE THINGS BUT DUE TO TIMING AND SELF-IMPOSED WRITING RESTRICTIONS ARE LIMITED TO PITHY COMMENTARY ONLY.
ENJOY.
Please STOP inviting AI notetakers to meetings. I agree with every word here. My god, PLEASE just stop. Fun fact: I recently turned down some work because the client couldn’t guarantee my output would not be fed into their ‘internal’ LLM.
We had some good feedback on the newsletter tips last week. Here are some more.
It's been a year or so since I shared 'SO YOU WANT TO BE A STRATEGIST?' so I’m sharing it again.
It's also been a year since I wrote about DISNEY coming to FORTNITE and so far we’ve just seen more skins. Reckon we'll see something this year?
Last week I told you about Doechii's tiny desk. Then I watched her Colbert performance. Then I watched this interview (about both).
This is an excellent interview with Patreon CEO, Jack Conte. And while he obviously has an agenda here, it’s still a pretty good primer of where we are today and the content mukbang (see Thing 2, here) that we now see everywhere.
The dark side of the global recycling economy (buy the book).
THE PLANETS WILL ALIGN! (seven of them, in fact)
I spend a lot of time telling people to go the extra click. When AI assistants are getting 50% of things wrong, then maybe now is the best time ever to do just that.
Related: Reuters has won an AI copyright lawsuit (tick tock on that legislation y’all).
YOU ARE REACHING THE END OF THE NEWSLETTER. MIND THE GAP.
I was reminded this week that it’s been about five years since I stepped away from Instagram.
In December 2019 and I think originally for my mental health, I decided to take a year off to see how i’d fair. A year after that I wrote up how it went. And I haven’t been back since.
Christmas 2024 I also took Linkedin off my phone. It has not found its way back.
Bluesky is the only thing left now, social-wise (here I am). My relationship is v different with it and I’m enjoying it.
But if that enjoyment stops, then it too will be uninstalled.
What have you uninstalled from your phone this week?
…
Be kind to yourselves out there, friends.
Until next time,
Whatley out x
I was watching the kayaking video and kept thinking maybe just stopping and not moving, and keeping the paddle pointed at the shark to create distance, would have been a better move than paddling away, which generally makes most predators go into chasing mode.