Why the year in marketing is hard to wrap up. 2025 highlights plus all the latest in brands. The Happy Holidays Edition✨🫱🏻‍🫲🏼

Issue #80

Weekly Exhale

The internet went down in my house this week, and honestly I’d have preferred losing the heating. Maybe even the water. The lights. Cold showers in the dark? Fine.

Just don’t take the internet.

You know when people post, ”I went offline and it was just amazing”? We all nod like, yes, so romantic… how pure. They’re lying.

Let me tell you the reality: it’s awful. The moment you lose access, everything unravels.

Video calls. Delivery tracking. Scrolling while walking up the stairs. Flight upgrades. The coffee machine (yes, don’t ask). The doorbell. The weather. The lights. The TV. The calendar. The actor’s name you need to Google mid-conversation. The car software updates. The bank. The fitness tracker. The coffee machine again.

The thing you realise most is that you’re no longer at the centre. Controlling everything with a few flicks of your thumb. Your feed. Your stuff. Your version of the world.

So while having working Wi-Fi might suggest you’re connected, you are—just not to any kind of “world wide” anything. You’re wired into a private universe, built just for you, performing for you or soothing you in any given moment.

Which is why I think, one of the reasons its so hard to round out the year with any real sense of what it was.

The irony of connecting everything together is that we’ve ended up living in slightly different realities. Looking at different stories with very few, if any, universal reference points.

I’ve seen loads of posts with “the word of the year says it all...“. But it doesn’t. It can’t. Because, there is no word of the year.

Look to Oxford, and 2025 was the year of rage bait. Cambridge says parasocial. Collins went with vibe coding. Merriam-Webster went with slop. Dictionary.com chose 67, a number loved precisely because it means nothing at all.

Wherever you look, you’re more likely to see nothing than something.

Pantone’s colour of the year? White, basically.

The five biggest rebrands? Three—including Amazon and Walmart—were just thicker versions of the same logo.

And the biggest brand stories?

Well, below, you’ll find the stories that I think mattered, or at least the ones I remember. The stories that provoked the most spectacle. The most interesting twists. The most chances for the President to weigh in.

On one level they don’t mean much. More shards that never assemble into a bigger picture. The kind you’d see in an Adam Curtis documentary. That surface, then vanish.

And yet, I’m proud of the coverage this year. Staging brand not in the context of marketing or advertising, but in the realty of how money, markets and human stories control everything. Brands exist if no other reason than we can’t help but bring meaning to things that inherently have none.

Often mixed with a personal story, I also hope that our exhales have grounded us back in what matters.

In this edition, I’ve also included a bumper set of links for holiday reading. Some for joy. Some for rigour. Mostly just to scroll through without worrying too much. Because the coming days are the one of the remaining collective experiences: A week or so where everyone is on holiday, not just you.

As this will be the last newsletter of the year, I’d like to take a beat to thank you for reading.

For every open, every reply, the nods, tears or laughs at the screen I never see. The messages I occasionally receive that let me know you’ve been inspired or moved. It’s my privilege.

And to all of you...I wish you happy holidays.

Or, if you’re from where I’m from: Merry Christmas.

Wherever you are, whatever this year has been, I hope you find some time to be with people who really see you, and to feel you’re at home, whether you’re there or not.

To hold someone you’ve loved forever. Or someone new, where everything’s just beginning and wonderfully so. Your nearest and dearest. And the ones you carry with you, even if they’re not at the table this year.

Most of all, I hope the WiFi stays strong.

And I hope that maybe, for a little while — or even a whole afternoon — none of us really need it.

Let’s rise together with every issue. ♡

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A Year In Brands: Best Exhales Of 2025

It was the year the U.S. changed the way we feel about TikTok, when Brian Niccol took over Starbucks, the new soda wars started and Poppi’s founder Alison Ellsworth felt regret, when Steve Jobs would have turned 70, and when fintech founder Charlie Javice went to jail. The Kardashians launched a protein popcorn, the AI 2027 projections scared us to death, while plaques at the pier reminded us of what it means to be alive. The REN brand went bust at the hands of Unilever, and we learned how Sesame Street helped a little boy grieve the loss of his grandmother. 21-year old founder of Cluely told us we should all cheat, and why its ok to be ignored sometimes. “Taste“ became the word of the moment in the face of AI, and why the measure of a man is not in the strength of his hand, but the kindness of his heart. We took a look at how Astronomer did ten years of brand building in one Coldplay concert scandal, what killing the Duolingo owl told us about social media managers and the stock market. We talked with the unofficial spokesperson for the people of Cracker Barrel and looked at the Kraft-Heinz split, and Warren Buffet’s last day with his lifetime business partner and friend Charlie Munger. Nike revived “Just Do It” a brand line with a murderous history, and lessons from the original star runner Walt Stack. Ben of Ben & Jerry’s left, as they try to free the company. And we also broke down why Chip Wilson, Lululemon’s founder is completely wrong. We looked at the arrival of robots in the home, specifically, NEO, for just $200 on pre-order. And why the AI bubble has already burst, in our minds anyway. Finally, we looked at Black Friday, and the most important thing in marketing—dynamic pricing—finishing with a story of a father learning to do better by his son. ♡

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Market Moves

Millions head home for Christmas | BBC

U.K. retail sales drop unexpectedly | Financial Times

U.S. prices continue to rise | The Guardian

Brand Beat

The biggest commerce stories of 2025 | Adweek

5 bold 2025 rebrands that paid off | Ad Age

Mark Ritson’s most read columns of the year | The Drum

Why companies are scrambling to hire storytellers | The Wall Street Journal

McDonald’s axes AI-generated holiday ad after viral mockery | Futurism

Should the BBC challenge Donald Trump’s defamation claim? | BBC

Dr. Seuss’s strategy to make the Grinch a social media star | Ad Age

Coca-Cola CMO Manolo Arroyo on AI, WPP and media’s future | The Drum

Guinness opens $97M London brewery to expand global fanbase | Adweek

How one-night-stand brands are rewiring your brain | The Media Leader

What should Jaguar do now? Laugh it off | The Drum

Finisterre CMO Bronwen Foster-Butler says marketing drives growth | The Drum

WPP eyes FTSE 100 comeback with M&S playbook | Green Square

How Levi’s leverages American heritage to captivate consumers worldwide | Fast Company

American Eagle boosts outlook following Sydney Sweeney sales bump | Financial Times

Gap’s CMO leverages Katseye success for holiday sales | Marketing Dive

Zara taps AI-edited models amid store closures | City AM

Oscar Mayer seeks 12 Hotdoggers for year-long Wienermobile tour | Fast Company

Mad Men are dead, the new advertising lions rise | Fast Company

Comcast’s ITV bid sparks UK demand for US-free media | The Guardian

Cracker Barrel reports Q1 2026 earnings as stock reacts | The Wall Street Journal

Starting Up

Heights valued at £60m in latest round of funding. | The Grocer

Inside OnlyFans’ rise with CEO Keily Blair | YouTube

Monzo board pushes out CEO over IPO dispute | Sifted

Dad and Dolly, the style icon brand started by an 89 year old with Alzheimer’s | Financial Times

Tech Tidbits

OpenAI reportedly raising $100 billion at $830 billion valuation | TechCrunch

OpenAI’s Fidji Simo plans paid features to boost ChatGPT usefulness | Wired

Inside Jensen Huang’s playbook for Nvidia’s strategic growth and innovation | Generalist

Lovable’s latest round values coding startup at $6.6 billion | CNBC

Venture Vibes

Baseline raises fund to keep early-stage Irish founders in Ireland | Sifted

Disney invests $1 billion in OpenAI to bring characters to Sora | Reuters

EU invites you to manage €5bn fund | Sifted

Rashad Assir popularizes VCs on TikTok while speaking out | Inc.

Design Driven

Nocs unveils new Braque-inspired active stereo speakers | Forbes

A closer look at chatbot writing style | The New York Times

Canva’s design trends for 2026 | Canva

Happiness

How embracing weirdness can rejuvenate our culture | The Atlantic

How Gen Z’s style gap is reshaping modern dating | The Wall Street Journal

Can American’s buy happiness? | Vox

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