Sounds like the plot of the next Marvel movie, but no, it’s real life. DDB and IPG, two OGs of creative advertising, have just been folded into the huge corporation in the name of “integration” and “efficiency” (buzzwords that are diametrically opposed to creativity). Now this isn’t just consolidation. It’s erasure in the name of “scale.” But while it sounds dire, maybe this is the reset the industry needs. Because when the machine gets too big, the best work moves outside it.

- Charlotte Ellis, Editor ♡

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Meta is reportedly planning to slash up to 30% of its budget for the metaverse next year. This is a HUGE pivot away from the vision that drove the company’s rebranding. I guess that’s what happens after years of big losses at its Reality Labs division.

The move also signals a shift toward more practical bets like AI and smart-glasses. The market responded with a collective cheer as Meta’s shares surged. Investors are seemingly betting that more capital devoted to AI and less to ambitious virtual-world experiments might finally yield returns.

I mean as far as robot empathy can go, I guess. According to a new evaluation by the journaling app Rosebud, Gemini 3 Pro stood out as the only model among dozens that didn’t fail a battery of mental-health-scenario tests. It avoided giving potentially harmful or triggering responses and demonstrated care when users expressed emotional distress.

The findings arrive just as more people turn to AI bots for emotional support. And this is worrisome, given how many models still lack sensitivity in crisis-related contexts. It’s a reminder that while empathy is rising among LLMs, we’re still far from trusting them with real mental-health support.

You’ve seen them. I’ve seen them. We’re all sick of them. A growing number of brands using ironically worded “apologies” for being too good, too popular, or simply too lovable (eyeroll) as a cheeky marketing ploy. Rather than own up to real mistakes, these companies frame their strengths as “crimes” and pretend they’re asking for forgiveness.

Initially, the tactic grabs attention, using the language of contrition to break through news-feed scroll fatigue. But many marketing experts warn this trend undermines authenticity. And it will probably erode trust in genuine apologies down the road.

-Sophie Randell, Writer

With Omnicom absorbing IPG and quietly dissolving DDB, the industry is witnessing a restructure, while watching a creative lineage get wiped clean.

DDB. FCB. MullenLowe. Names that shaped entire eras of culture, folded like outdated software. The official explanation is integration. The real outcome is erasure.

A consolidation of P&Ls pretending to be a vision for the future. And a promise of efficiency that actually means sameness.

What’s lost is the thing agencies once guarded with their lives. Distinct creative identity. The philosophies, rituals, methods, weird inherited quirks that made each shop feel like a world of its own. You don’t get to replicate that in a new super-network just because you decided the margins needed tightening.

The rhetoric of the merger reads like a love letter to AI-driven scale. More data. More centralisation. More global consistency.

The creative eccentricities that built this industry, the diversity of thinking styles, the institutional memory that existed in the heads of people who spent decades making work that actually shaped culture.

These things don’t survive an efficiency revolution. Because they don’t flatten… they evaporate.

DDB’s disappearance is especially symbolic because the agency invented so much of the creative vocabulary the industry claims to value. Bill Bernbach’s entire thesis was that creativity thrives on independence, tension, and talent given room to be strange. The merger logic, however, tells us the opposite story.

A machine built on standardisation, process, scale, and the fastest route to a deck slide that says synergy. And, of course, this has a human cost.

Nearly 4,000 jobs gone in the first wave. Thousands more creatives, strategists and producers suddenly working inside networks that no longer have the intellectual or emotional architecture they joined for.

There is a structural violence to consolidation that rarely gets acknowledged. People enter this industry because they want to make something that feels like theirs. They want to be part of a lineage. When you dissolve the lineage, you dissolve the meaning.

Craft never survives corporate streamlining. No one learns how to build a long idea when the network’s priority is faster output and thinner teams. How do we develop taste when the training budget disappears? The industry has already been slipping into formula. Consolidation just accelerates it.

But. There is another possible reading of this moment (also, despite, the horrors, I have to try not being such a pessimist ALL THE time, I’m aware.)

Independent agencies suddenly look more interesting than they have in a decade. Boutique studios with weird points of view become attractive to clients who want distinction, not consistency.

Even freelancers and tiny collectives stand to gain power. Because if every global network ultimately behaves like the same machine, the only place originality can thrive is outside it.

A reminder that creativity is fragile. It requires space, identity, contradiction, conflict, autonomy. I personally don’t think it can survive inside a structure obsessed with operational neatness. And it definitely cannot be replaced by a promise of “global integration” written in the tone of a press release.

This is the moment to ask what kind of industry we want to rebuild from the rubble. If efficiency is the new north star, then we will get advertising that is efficient in the most depressing sense. Predictable. Flat. Optimised into oblivion.

But if the loss of a creative giant wakes people up to what is disappearing, then perhaps there is still a future where soul wins.

Godspeed. 

-Sophie Randell, Writer

With the holiday season approaching us faster than we want, it's the time of the year when all your aunties and their seventh cousins will be grilling you on all their burning questions. 

Today's trend is perfect for anyone dreading those annual check-ins and the PR-style response you have to cook up on the spot. The sound comes from Jason Derulo’s “Whatcha Say,” and resonates with anyone who's ever had to defend their lifestyle choices over the gravy boat. 

My favourite videos include:

Lip-sync to the audio while looking progressively more uncomfortable. Throw on OST describing the dreaded holiday questions you get. For a more dramatic effect, include a slow-mo of you walking away from the table while putting your hands up in the air. 

A few ideas to get you started: 

-Raewyn Zhao, Intern

😲WTF What is that?
❤How wholesome Birthday love
😊Soooo satisfying Oh, so that’s how barrels are made
🍝What you should make for dinner tonight Vege black bean burger

Hey Jamal!

There's no magic formula to staying consistent! At some point, you just have to carve out time and get it done. But one thing you can do to make that a bit easier is to come up with an easily repeatable content style. This should be a content style that is easy to produce, and, ideally, one you can create in bulk. It should also be something you can do over and over, only changing one factor for each video.

This should fit your niche, but could be something like street interviews, simple games, reaction videos, or answering FAQs about your industry. When you've got this content style, you'll no longer need to reinvent the wheel every time you need to create content. You're essentially taking 90% of the thinking out of it, which makes it much more likely you're going to post more regularly. Then, remember that done is better than perfect. You will learn as you go, and that's ok. So stop overthinking and start doing!

- Charlotte Ellis, Editor ♡

We get it. Creating content that does numbers is harder than it looks. But doing those big numbers is the fastest way to grow your brand. So if you’re tired of throwing sh*t at the wall and seeing what sticks, you’re in luck. Because making our clients go viral is kinda what we do every single day.