By Rishabh Nagar
Before Spotify ever dropped its Wrapped, before YouTube ever had its Recap, and before you bought everything you didn’t need from all those End Of SeasonReason sales, there existed a quieter, far more nuanced concept among the other year-end rituals: the concept of reflection. Taking a hard look at your year and holding an inch tape to your growth. Measure how far you’ve come along, or for good or for bad, introspect if you’ve moved back into the past. Worse, rented a house in Nostalgiaville?
2025 was the year that had us advancing into the future and romanticising the old, simultaneously. People were mad, at everything that was happening and everything that wasn't. Twitter (who calls it X? Ew.) was enraged, Reddit subs went to war, and non-ad fam was too busy to care.
JANUARY
A part of the world had already had a chance to swoon over Coldplay. In 2025, that world expanded by a billion. BookMyShow, like a Disney witch, didn't anticipate how big a soup they were stirring. We are A LOT of people vying for the same spot, crashes were destined to happen. Many were green with envy when some got proposed to, as Chris Martin crooned "Yellow.”
The year kicked off with people applauding Apple TV's Severance pop-up idea. Cast members inside a glass chamber, living their lives while observed by civilians. It’s simple; therefore, it works.
FEBRUARY
As 400 million devotees attended Maha Kumbh 2025, there were MANY who couldn’t. ITC realised this gap and launched Mangaldeep — a 3D AR initiative allowing even NRIs to participate in the rituals from their homes. Heard of FOMO? Sorry. We don’t know her.
MARCH
The IPL season was a big bore this year. Brands were as tired as their agencies have been for decades. Zomato reinvented hand cricket and brought a randomiser to their app. Some lucky chap won an iPhone, but somehow, he’s never tracked. SUS.
The Oscars recorded their longest speech yet. Adrien Brody spoke for a straight 5 minutes and 40 seconds, like it was some Q1 town hall. As soon as the telecast time quota got over, the screen went blank. And we now know, YouTube has won the bid against ABC for the live telecast rights.
APRIL
More than any ad campaign, a very heavy-on-ads episode of Black Mirror became the talk of Techphobiatown. Common People (Season 7, Episode 1) tells us that one day, companies will ask us to put a chip in our brains, and then we’ll need an ad-free subscription model just to THINK. We have already surrendered our past thoughts to them to plant our future thoughts. It’s just a matter of time. Right, Sam Altman?
MAY
We often overlook celebrities as brands. But it was inescapable when the brand of Sabyasachi walked the Met Gala red carpet borrowing the legs of a very tall brand called SRK, generating over $19 million in Media Impact Value.
If there’s one thing that India brings to the table, it is BIG NUMBERS.
JUNE
Come June, and we were seated for the Hunger Games of advertising. Cannes Lions 2025 saw India give its best performance in years.
Our campaigns had fewer big emotional films and more behaviour-change ideas, design-led systems, and culture-first social ideas. Impact on the real world? Zilch. But hey, that’s the nature of awards, and CCOs need to eat too.
JULY
2025 will be remembered for one of the biggest e-lafdas we’ve seen in the apparel industry. When Sydney Sweeney said — in a not-so-subtle double entendre — "I have great jeans," she almost stopped the rotation of the Earth.
Indian baddies weighed in, opinions were shouted, and then GAP jumped in with an ad featuring girlies in every shade of melanin. They did a little "dancy-dancy" and racism was solved for the unaware. I saw a reel that explained that GAP is as MAGA as it gets. Liked it. Moved on. The Earth? She’s resilient, she continued to rotate.
AUGUST
The ad world in India warms up with Raksha Bandhan before it bench-presses with Dussehra and Diwali. This year, Cadbury had an AI-Animated Memories campaign. The hashtag was #CreatingMemoriesNeverClicked. So sweet, so chocolatey.
The Swiss watch brand Rado spent a whole lot of money to rope in Hrithik Roshan and Katrina Kaif, but not enough to have them shoot on the same day. I am sure someone must have thought, "Post mein dekh lenge", but as we have realised time and again, post-production cheating is only as good as the production-day cheating.
SEPTEMBER
Speaking of AI, OpenAI dropped its first-ever ads — written, executed, and performed by humans. The brand films were created by Isle of Any, shot on 35mm film by Smuggler-represented director Miles Jay.
I suspect that in the next few years, video proof will not be as solid as legal evidence as it is today. “Is it AI?” sounds like the worst allegation to us creatives.
OCTOBER
Swiggy Instamart shared its 2025 Shopping Report — facts and figures that had a "Flex Marketing" tone to them. But the actual "Flex of the Month" award was won by Dolly Singh, the only Indian creator to win Meta's gold ring. It makes me wonder: are Diwali campaigns even relevant today? Nothing sticks.
The Halloween month’s treat came in the form of a trick. The Ordinary’s The Periodic Table made the skincare junkie in me sit up. Debunking buzzwords from "age-defying" and "magic" to "wrinkle-erasing" and "flawless," the newly devised chart lays out the dubious claims to innovation that many beauty products advertise.
NOVEMBER
This article could become a drinking game: take a shot every time the writer mentions AI. But I am not to be blamed here, my friend.
Picture this: Coca-Cola’s holiday trucks are on their way; cut to polar bears opening their eyes; cut to penguins getting excited; cut to trees with fairy lights; cut to a sloth looking happy; cut to four seals swimming to the surface; cut to squirrels looking at the trucks; and then one of the squirrels is at the top of a Christmas tree. Happy Holidays!
They faced backlash, and maybe they deserved it. I mean, even the most avid AI fans confess that it lacks soul. The minute we use AI to deliver anything other than a film where a Cat Romeo pursues a Cat Juliet, nobody's entertained.
DECEMBER
McDonald’s followed with another ‘Synthetic Holiday’ ad. They pulled it back. The damage was repaired because there was no damage ($$$$) in its making anyway.
The marketing highlight came from the entertainment world again. By this time, you MUST know Timothée Chalamet wants to be the greatest. Poor guy, he wants to be Josh O'Connor but isn't. But he gimmick-held a Zoom call where he asked the film’s marketing team to come up with bizarre "Orange" ideas. Then there was a collab with the cereal brand Wheaties and an exclusive Marty Supreme jacket drop — you know the drill. Has any of this worked? As per the PR articles, yes.
TL;DR:
All the flop ad campaigns hinged on the ‘made by AI’ narrative. All the hit ones were spiced up by social commentary. I would rate 2025 a 6-7/10 because I know what 6-7 means. So Gen Alpha of me. I mean, it gave us a few moments for the culture, but also disappointed us by keeping things a little too real.
(The author is an independent Creative Director.)
