No, really.
Think about it.
68% of marketers feel more optimistic about the state of business in 2025.* But the trusted logic of the last few years, an efficiency model of programmatic, has still got a benchmark of only 0.001%.
THAT doesn’t make sense!
To thrive in 2025 means we will HAVE to be illogical, different, unreasonable, and most important, Braver.
I’m going to come back to that marketer optimism later, but let’s just chase down a few reasons why illogicality and irrational actions are way more likely to create real results.
1 – Category “best practice” is really just the same practice.
Back in Fall 2023, over ⅔ of all client leaders feared “their competitors’ innovation” and “a more intense rivalry for customers.”* So why on earth would anyone with ambition settle for doing the same as their category competition?
We see an amazing opportunity for clients who lean into different things, take some smart risks, and apply bravery in their business strategy and of course in their marketing. In fact, we know that brands that demonstrate commitment and distinctive positioning can deliver 6x business impact.*
Now, ask yourself which is the riskier strategy: sticking with the same category norms or going for a newly calibrated boldness?
2 – Deliberate daring delivers.
Don’t get me wrong. When we applaud bravery, we don’t cheer folly. I love the word “deliberate,” because it means two critical things for any ambitious business leader:
dih-LIB-er-ate (verb) – consider thoughtfully, take time, and explore options
dih-LIB-er-it (adjective) – conscious commitment and moves
Bravery without purpose is reckless. To thrive in 2025 we are convinced that winners will be brands that align bold campaigns with near- and longer-term business priorities and ambitious goals. Purposeful action builds trust, loyalty, and relevance. I do believe that’s particularly true for brands that understand their relevance in societal and environmental change. But purposeful brands do not need to be constrained within this “social purpose.”
Find your reason to exist and go for it.
3 – Building brands is like learning to drive.
James Hurman coined a phrase I love: “Brand is future demand.”
It’s a fantastic way to consider the power and role of your brand. So to thrive in ’25, challenge your marketing team to consider strategies that can deliver their near-term performance. BUT ALSO commit to building that future demand. I think marketing is like those first thrilling times teaching my sons how to drive—helping them balance the near-term focus on driving while nervously watching the hood of the car. There is a real need to have a longer term, heads-up view of what’s coming. It’s your time to own the road.
4 – Watch out for the “gravity of the average” in an AI world.
We all know that AI is transforming marketing, from targeting to creative development. How fast I feel will depend less on the functionality of the tools and more on the resistance of people and corporate fear.
Logic-driven optimization really can’t replicate the emotional connections that only humans can create. AI (today) is an earnest intern, eager to provide you with the most likely solution based on everything that’s been done before. AI is built to provide the ordinary. But humans can make that extraordinary. For example, Chat GPT’s first draft of this very article was almost shockingly dull. So you are really reading what’s inside my head, not what’s from an algorithm.
Wherever you look, AI is replacing the mundane tasks that should allow the most sophisticated computers on Earth, our brains, to have more capacity to dream, imagine, be creative, and apply human ingenuity that shifts the incremental to the supermental (OK, I made that term up, and it’s a keeper!).
At Truth, we’re committed to using AI as an amplifier for our creativity and craft. It means our teams and our clients get expertise in the use of AI as an accelerant, not a replacement.
5 – Humanity will win.
There is no brand strategy without a human strategy. I think that’s true in the power of creativity fueled by AI, as I just said. But it’s also true for brands who really, really, really understand and value their customer. Yes, really 😉
In a global study (WARC) this summer of nearly 1,200 agency strategists, ONLY 5% of them said that client briefs always have detailed understanding of their target audience. And another 19% responded that “just sometimes” was this the case.
That means that ¾ of the clients’ briefs for their agencies don’t show a real empathy and understanding of their customers. That missing understanding is critical to great work.
“The future of strategy will be fundamentally human, understanding and responding to the contradictory, messy, complicated, and unpredictable world of people, and meeting their needs and wants profitably and sustainably.”
—Neil Dawson,
Global Chief Strategy Officer, VML
When we understand our customers’ motivations, behaviors, fears, and hopes, we find insights that lead to provocative amplification and acceleration for your brand and in turn for your business.
That’s the magic of insight: To make your brand remarkably wanted.
6 – Hope isn’t a strategy. But it is.
Yes, we’ve all heard that old business trope, typically wheeled out as a breezy power play.
But to thrive in ’25 we know that we have to be optimistic, even when it is the hardest to do so. I don’t know many clients and business leaders who say the last 4 years have been unrelenting joy. And look where I started: optimism and rosy perspectives abound for 68% of ambitious marketers.
So I think about this: Optimism is about expectation, a rational belief in a good outcome, while hope is about aspiration, an emotional belief in the possibility of a good outcome.
And if you’ve gotten here, you’ve just spent the last 5 minutes reading how we know that reason and logic can fail. Hope is not a pipe dream, head in the clouds, daydream delusion, empty fantasy. Genuine hope requires clear goals, a belief in your own agency, and a clear path to achieve the desired result.
That feels like an illogical, logical strategy to me.
A strategy on how to thrive in ’25. Now that’s brave.
*Sources:
WARC Marketers toolkit 2025, (AMA/Deloitte CMO survey), (Field|IPA effectiveness data bank)
