All through December 2024, Manifest is running its year-ender series in which advertising, marketing and media leaders will be sharing their thoughts on the biggest development of the year along with a manifestation for 2025.

We continue our series with Abhik Santara, founder, ^ atom network.

The biggest development in the advertising, media and marketing space according to you in 2024 was...

The year 2024 has been a mixed year with some much-needed consolidations and a few speculations.

Many new-age brands have realised the urgent need to correct their marketing efforts from over-reliance on performance and vanity metrics to the importance of brand building. Brands which were only focused on the bottom funnel have started to feel the pinch of higher CAC. As a result, there is a renewed conversation on creating brand equity, CLTV etc- which are fundamentals of building a great brand.

On the speculation side – No one knows what AI can do. (remember metaverse). For some, it is a cheaper way to create content at scale. For others, it is a magic wand that can make anything faster. And a large section (including me) are in denial mode, and have created a deck of news articles which pacifies with– “AI cannot replace humans, but can only outsource the chores”.

One thing you’re manifesting for yourself and the industry in 2025?

Bring back the craft.

The trends and newer practices will come and go. That’s the part of the game. If I have to manifest one thing from the bottom of my heart regarding this profession – it is to bring back the ‘craft’ in our business. I feel, and I may be misinformed, that there has been no great campaign in the last two years – by any agency or brand. We have to think hard to remember one ad that will appear at the top of our minds. And that is not just the lack of ideas or budgets, it is the lack of intent to push an idea a little farther & not settling in on the first approval.

It’s a deep flaw in our advertising culture now. It could be the fatigue of creating content in kilos and therefore time constraints, but we have become ‘okay’ with ideas and executions that merely deliver the task. We stop at the first client approval. The magic has gone missing, which takes an idea from the good to the great.

So that’s going to be my manifestation for the ad industry and a mandate to self.

Despite the years of experience, if I am not able to drive this orientation within the agency and with our client partners, then I should have no reason to crib at the end of 2025!