There are glimmers of hope that 2024 was the year the advertising industry turned its luck around as, according to GroupM’s end-of-year forecast report, it is projected to surpass $1 trillion in total revenue for the first time (thanks to global elections and a huge year of sports).

It hasn’t been an easy ride, however. Agencies have had to grapple with smaller budgets for more work and rethinking how they operate in the modern world, whether this means in-housing services, merging agencies or cutting thousands of hard-earned jobs. Yet while it was far from a premier year, in 2024 the creative industries did produce countless ingenious ads worth writing home about – though not without controversy.

ALL CHANGE AT AGENCIES

Given the challenging market, it’s no surprise that agencies had to rethink how they worked in 2024, with industry commentators deeming the traditional ad agency model outdated.

Several well-known agency brands were swallowed up to make brand-new full-service agencies. Creative shop The&Partnership and its sister media shop mSix&Partners merged to form T&Pm (T and P to the power of M). And Creature was another agency name that ceased to exist after Candid merged it with Positive UK and Positive Netherlands (including TikTok agency Dunkd) to form Modern Citizens.