VML merger, John Lewis in court and AI boom: our most-read agency stories of 2023

Some of those stories will rhyme again in 2024. Hopefully, the ones about redundancies don't. Knock on wood.

Here are the trends I noticed.

The AI hype cycle

Media.Monks’ announcement that it was readying a dedicated generative AI unit was one of our most-read agency stories of the last 12 months last. Coming just a few weeks into the generative AI boom, which kicked off in late 2022, the company was quick to trumpet itself as a champion of the tech and the first to publicly discuss bringing an AI-dedicated proposition to market.

Taking a step back, AI has been perhaps the most compelling story in advertising this year. Between the hype and the doom, indie agencies such as VCCP or huge organizations such as Omnicom have spent a lot of time figuring out what it could actually be used for, while clients such as Coca-Cola, and its agency OpenX, pushed ahead on attempts to realize the tech’s economic benefits. As such, our series of features looking at how agencies were developing use cases for Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, ChatGPT and other tools was also among the most-read stories in our agency coverage this year.

While some agency bosses worried about how to package and sell their expertise in the area, others worried about getting left behind. And their employees worried about whether or not their jobs would still exist by the end of the decade.

Agency performance stutters

Adland had a tough year commercially. However, while its rivals stumbled, French holding group Publicis was among the few large entities to record significant growth. Among our most-read stories was our coverage of the group’s trend-defying performance, including analysis from top industry observers explaining how the company had dodged commercial bullets.

The other side of this story was less positive. There were significant numbers of redundancies at IPG, S4 and Stagwell, among others, in major part due to cutbacks among tech clients. In that vein, our interview with R/GA’s newly elevated top team about why they’d cut so many jobs and how they planned to return the storied agency to the industry’s top table was one of your most-read articles.

Four of our most-read agency columns this year

• Green Square’s Barry Dudley explains why Uncommon’s sale isn’t all it seemed

• Kevin Chesters laments the death of holding company distinctive brand assets

• Jon Williams, founder of Liberty Guild, argues for more agencies to be led by creatives

• Lucky Generals’ Cat Wiles argues agencies should market more to older women

Death to initialisms

WPP’s plan to merge two of its agency networks – including some storied legacy agency names – into a single entity was probably the biggest merger of the year and certainly the most read merger story. We brought together analysis and expertise from outside observers, and spoke to the executives behind the scheme to put together the whole story.

The acquisitions of Uncommon, Gut, Omnicom’s deal for Flywheel, and Brandtech Group’s purchase of Jellyfish were each major stories, but in retrospect, WPP’s deals to acquire influencer and social media agencies Goat and Obviously were a validating moment, of sorts, for that entire agency niche.

Five of our most-read interviews of 2023

• TikTok’s favorite creative director Rob Mayhew discusses pitching culture pain

• Publicis Worldwide’s top creative Bruno Bertelli discusses Le Pub expansion and impact of AI on copywriting

• Rage kept Zoe Scaman in adland. Now she wants young talent to transform it for themselves

• Dentsu’s central and eastern European CEO shares the story of the company’s year supporting Ukrainian staff

• Omnicom Media’s global boss explains its hopes for retail media and a new acquisition strategy

John Lewis and Adam&EveDDB reach the end

Though there were plenty of interesting account wins and losses this year, the one that caught your attention was Adam&EveDDB’s decision to walk away from retailer John Lewis. Our reporting on that breakup, the real reasons behind it, and John Lewis’ eventual decision to go with Saatchi & Saatchi in the subsequent review were among your favorite stories this year.

Just as Adam&EveDDB’s creatives sunsetted their time working for the department store, the agency’s famous work for the brand was under legal scrutiny. A case brought by a children’s author in Wales, alleging the agency had nabbed their ideas for a 2019 Christmas ad from her debut book, went all the way to court. The case was eventually decided in John Lewis and Adam&Eve’s favor, but not before we learned fascinating secrets about how they’d crafted Britain’s favorite ads.