As the clock struck midnight on New Year’s Eve, we collectively ushered in 2025, hopeful that January 1st might bring with it a fresh start, an entirely new lease on life. Many brands offer the promise of transformation and ‘New Year, New You’,  whilst for others it's the same old ‘Blue January’ campaign that’s doing one more round.

Then there’s the travel brands offering up azur blues and promises of rest to help those left feeling: ‘just 52 more weeks to get through.’

All of these perspectives reflect what the New Year represents: a starting line for our hopes and fears, a moment to chart the road ahead.

As brands and their agencies step into 2025 with new plans and new programmes, we would love to believe that this will be the year social progress and prosperity take centre stage. But for every glimmer of hope, there seems to be a headline ready to make us sigh into our morning coffee.

Closing The Hope Gap

The gap between our desires for achievable social acceptance and reality became what we have called the Hope Gap. Emerging from conversations with business leaders, DEI practitioners and changemakers across industries, we asked the question on everyone’s mind at the end of 2024, a year that never seemed to end: what is there to be hopeful about right now?

Key data from the latest All In Census suggests that we’re in an industry that doesn’t represent the market we serve across a number of areas of life be it class, race and ethnicity or disability. While there has been some progress with more women in C-suite positions and less harassment in the workplace, what’s become clear in the quagmire of DEI is that there is a ‘will’ to change things, but the ‘way’ has yet to be found.

What’s happening in creative workplaces translates directly into creative work. Unwritten rules get set when it comes to behaviours and expectations, which make it harder for everyone to contribute to a team that they feel part of.

Take the recent Bella Hadid x Adidas campaign as a great example of the impact a lack of diversity behind the camera has. The campaign focused on the retro SL72 trainers, originally released for the 1972 Munich Olympics. The campaign aimed to revive the classic sneaker while leveraging Hadid's influential status in the fashion world.

However, the campaign faced backlash due to Hadid’s involvement, with the American Jewish Committee criticising Adidas for picking what they called a “vocal anti-Israel model”, suggesting that Hadid's involvement was inflammatory and linked to antisemitic sentiments. In response, Adidas issued an apology, acknowledging that the campaign unintentionally connected to the tragic events of the Munich Olympics.

This chain of events fell foul of ignoring the historical context of 1972 as well as overlooking the political sensitivities that surround identity today. It highlights the need for both diversity of thought in teams as well as more thoughtfully inclusive processes, so that historical and political sensitivities are duly considered.

How brands and agencies can close the hope gap

In 2025 creative work cannot exist in the echo chamber of creative teams and singular viewpoints defined by a ‘creative genius’. While TikTok has democratised creativity on our screens, brands and agencies are catching up with what it means for their systems and structures with recent campaigns from Heinz also highlighting the sense of hopelessness in ‘getting it right’.

In collaboration with leaders from across the industry, we identified three ways that brands and agencies can change this in 2025:

1. Address the marketing industry’s reputation issue

Awards play a huge role in the progression of top talent, but we still see award-winning work coming from a limited talent pool. It leaves new entrants to the industry wondering if this is a place for them, and so we need to continue to attract, nurture and promote all sorts of talent to the top so that the face of the industry changes over time.

2. Develop client-agency standards and charters

Brands and agencies need to identify shared goals of what great looks like when it comes to inclusion, particularly when DEI is in the spotlight for negative reasons, and when the pressure on the bottom line is ever greater in a number of markets. By setting out clear standards on everything from working hours, defined expectations and principles for audience engagement and representation, clients and agencies can make their lives infinitely easier in creating more effective work.

3. Role model inclusive behaviours at leadership levels

The multigenerational workforce means leaders are under increasing pressure to demonstrate inclusion while shedding preconceived biases around what it takes to succeed in the creative industry. This requires coaching and accountability with brands often leading the way vs. agencies.

The opportunity to be part of a brand or agency that creates more social acceptance is greater than it ever has been and as we settle into a new year now is the time to work out what role you’re going to play in this. 

To find out more about what you can do, please download The Hope Gap Report. The password to access the report is ‘hope’.