First published on The Media Leader UK
The ISBA Priorities for 2025 have now been published. These three pages encapsulate the extensive efforts conducted from November to January, during which we thoroughly assess our members' primary concerns and objectives for the upcoming year.
Before we set our high level priorities we spend time with our member steering groups in order to understand what challenges they are facing across different marketing disciplines and areas of responsibility.
Although each group is looking through a specific lens, whether its TV & Video or Inclusion & diversity we discovered common threads ran through all of them.
In my new role as Director of Industry Relations at ISBA, I believe we need to work together to ensure we tackle these challenges head on and find solutions that work in 2025 and beyond.
Transforming Industry Skills and Culture
There is significant concern regarding the lack of training in media fundamentals and the over-reliance on young, channel-specific talent. This issue, coupled with a broader career crisis in advertising, underscores the need for a revitalized focus on upskilling across all levels.
Leadership and cultural shifts are also required to foster transparency and trust within organisations. Marketeers need marketing to be reframed as a strategic investment rather than a cost, with clearer alignment between marketing and business objectives. Establishing a culture of collaboration and horizontal pathways between roles will help bridge internal silos and unlock more cohesive ways of working.
Innovating Media and Creative Processes
The integration of media and creative processes is a recurring theme, as siloed teams continue to cause inefficiencies and missed opportunities. Advertisers are calling for a seamless approach where media and creative strategies are developed collaboratively from the outset of campaigns. The adoption of AI in creative production and the creation of platform-agnostic, flexible content will ensure campaigns remain relevant and cost-effective in a fragmented media landscape.
By bringing creative and media effectiveness together, the industry can better align short-term and long-term goals, ensuring that campaigns deliver both impact and sustainability.
Enhancing Measurement and Transparency
Measurement challenges persist across all channels. Advertisers are seeking more robust methods to link media performance to business outcomes while addressing the rising costs of media and the perception of marketing as a non-essential expense. The goal is to establish a unified measurement framework that reflects both short-term ROI and long-term brand impact.
Transparency remains a critical issue in both traditional and digital media. Black-box buying, opaque data practices, and limited access to metrics hinder decision-making. Advertisers are pushing for clearer standards in digital audits and advocating for media owners to release more data. The development of a single source of truth with live, accessible data is essential for fostering accountability and ensuring that media investments are optimized effectively.
Adapting to Regulatory and Technological Change
The fast-paced media landscape, shaped by regulatory shifts, evolving consumer habits, and technological advances, demands greater adaptability from advertisers. Collaboration with regulators will be crucial to align on issues like data privacy, age-restricted advertising, and the responsible use of AI.
The deprecation of cookies and the rise of clean room technologies are reshaping audience strategies, making standardization across platforms increasingly important. Leveraging AI to streamline optimization and enhance targeting could be a solution, but it must be approached with an emphasis on transparency and accountability.
Prioritizing Inclusivity and Accessibility
Inclusivity and accessibility are integral to the future of advertising. Efforts must continue to raise awareness about accessibility features and ensure their implementation across campaigns.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) must transcend tokenism to become a fundamental business strategy. By showcasing successful case studies and creating open-source resources, advertisers can build a compelling business case for DEI, demonstrating its potential as a growth driver. DEI principles must also be embedded throughout the supply chain, ensuring that they are reflected in every stage of the advertising process.
Fostering Long-Term Brand Building
The industry must rebalance its focus from short-term metrics to long-term brand building. Advertisers are advocating for a renewed emphasis on creating world-class content and supporting a competitive media landscape that fosters innovation and creativity. Protecting investments in high-quality campaigns and ensuring alignment with long-term business objectives will be essential to driving sustained growth.
Commerce Media
Retail Media continues to be a large growth area for FMCG brands, with many calling for better standardization and processes with the largest networks. There is also a clear appetite for non-FMCG members to continue to investigate where the opportunity lies within Commerce Media in general. For example, testing media network propositions within new verticals (i.e Travel, Auto, Finance and Banking) and increased understanding of Social Commerce given YouTube & Meta recently adding shopping capability to match TikTok.
Responsible Media
A thread weaving its way through a lot of conversations and steering groups was how ISBA and Marketers can help move forward the industry's commitment to creating an inclusive, transparent, and accountable media environment that delivers positive societal and economic impact. Joint objectives across brands was clear with adoption and training of sustainability, brand safety, AI and DEI the clear focus for many.
So do these themes resonate with you in your role and sector? More importantly do you think our industry is aware of what marketers need and is working towards a common goal? It’s a question I will be keeping top of my mind and hope you will too.