This Week's Agency News Round-Up

November 19th 2025 - Mergers, Movers, and Campaign Creators

19 NOVEMBER 2025

1. Top Stories

Congratulations to McCann London on winning not only the Grand Effie, but also three Gold, two Silver, and one Bronze award across their Nurofen, Xbox and Dettol work at the UK Effie Awards. Here’s how the shared the good news on LinkedIn.

2. Account Moves & Launches

New Agency & brand partnerships

The West London Institute of Technology (WLIoT) is stepping up its student recruitment with the help of creative agency Milk & Tweed. Here’s News By Wire with the scoop.

Connective3 announced the launch of C3x, their connected intelligence platform that helps orchestrate and amplify everything they do. Here’s Alan Ng their Chief Innovation Office with the news on LinkedIn.

3. People & Leadership

Hires, promotions and notable exits

Havas London has added four new names to its roster: Lily Linford-Hurst, Emma Penz, Jonny Durgan and James Rooke to work on a variety of accounts and pitches. The appointment aims to “bring different shaped thinking to the agency” as Decision Marketing reports here.

Holyrood PR brings two new senior members to the team as part of a strategic push to strengthen its offering. Here’s Prolific North with the details.

4. Big Collaborations of The Week

Standout campaigns, launches or stunts

The Royal Mail has shortlisted three agencies: Iris, TMW and Dentsu Creative as they undergo a statutory review of their creative relationships. Good look for the pitching! Here are the details from the Royal Mail Chat.

Muller Yogurt & Desserts is looking to revitalise its social media presence in the UK with the help of newly appointed agency Coolr. Read more on Decision Marketing.

5. Trends & Talk

Is it time to kill boring this Christmas & go for bold?

With Coca-Cola’s 2025 AI-generated Christmas ad seeing negative social sentiment reach 32%, and the UK ad marketing bracing for a £12 billion festive spending bump, brands are gearing up for the noisiest Christmas yet. But after years of soft focus ads, predictable sentimentality, quiet humour and incrementalism, this Christmas campaign season could be at serious risk of generating boatloads of bland and boring creative, IF brands and their agencies don’t get it right.

Here’s why brands need to kill boring this Christmas:

Consumer attention spans are shrinking and seasonal content is multiplying so playing it safe doesn’t stand out. If brands rely too heavily on AI this year, they risk losing the human emotional connection that makes Christmas advertising work in the first place.
With billions flowing into Q4, being forgettable isn’t just a creative issue, it’s a business issue. Blending in is not an option. AI slop is real. Differentiation is the key.

AI is making it easier than ever to generate glossy seasonal content at scale, so the competitive edge this year will be bravery. The brands that win will be the ones taking creative risks and ditching the overly tried and tested Christmas-ad template.

2025 might be the year “safe” stops selling and standout becomes a strategy. This year the biggest creative risk isn’t being brave, it’s being boring.