As "Mad Men" brings its epic look back at agency life in the 60s and 70s to a close, we asked today's agency leaders what "Mad Men" would look like if it were set in the future -- specifically 10 years from now.
'Mad Men' 2025: Ad Leaders Predict the Future of the Industry

Martin Sorrell, CEO, WPP Group
In 2025 the (fabulously entertaining) world described by "Mad Men"
will probably seem even more remote, anachronistic and
misogynistic. We'll no longer define "creativity" in the limited
sense of just art and copy, and technology, data and content will
be so much a part of what we do that the word "digital" will seem
hopelessly quaint and narrow. We will be far more global in outlook
(Mars, the moon?) and less Anglo-American, and there will be far
more Peggy Olsons running agencies (along with people from more
diverse backgrounds generally). By then, I also believe that chief
financial officers and chief procurement officers will agree that
marketing is an investment, not a cost.
Sarah Hofstetter, CEO, 360i
The word "digital" will not be used to describe agencies or
channels. Regardless of what emerging technologies come our way,
some of the basics of marketing will still prevail -- the need for
breakthrough creative, deep insights informed by an innate
understanding of people and brands, and a finger on the pulse of
culture. Technology will make things easier for sure, but the need
for human creativity across the marketing landscape will still play
a critical role in tapping into consumer psyche and driving
action.
Ted Royer, New York chief creative officer, Droga5
In 2025 everyone will get communications from companies jacked
directly into their faces. It will be a constant stream of light,
sound and emotion received through an alien face hugger/Oculus Rift
combination. And we'll all be okay with that because by then
corporations will have convinced us that they are our huge best
friends, like skyscraper-sized dogs. So to sum up: Giant
building-size dogs will pump brand love messages directly into our
faces.
Arthur Sadoun, global CEO, Publicis Worldwide
Thinking back 10 years to 2005, I'm not sure any of us could have
predicted where the current Fortune 50 would be today. In another
10, I'm sure it will have completely changed again. For one thing,
the rise of platforms will have broken the intermediary model. Why
will we need traditional comms agencies when brands and customers
are seamlessly matched together with deep data? The value exchange
between producers and consumers will no longer flow one way:
Platforms will allow them to create meaningful timely experiences
together. As an industry, we need to rapidly change what we do --
because there isn't a role for salience when you have
symbiosis.
Robert Senior, worldwide
CEO, Satachi & Saatchi
In 2025… There will still be clients. There will still be
creative ideas that play out across multiple channels, and the
smart ones will transform their clients' businesses. So at its
core, not much change. But the window dressing will continue its
breathless pace of transformation. Faster, cheaper, better
integrated, instantly measurable, with wearable technology as a
likely new paradigm-shifting platform. And no doubt the term "TV
ads" will have become obsolete, not least to satisfy all the people
who have predicted the death of TV for years.

Lindsay Pattison, worldwide CEO, Maxus
Programmatic approaches will see media largely executed by machine,
but the role of agencies to control and refine this will grow
exponentially. Brand and direct marketing will become more
immediate, individual and inter-connected. Meanwhile
non-programmatic media will become more singular and experiential,
as advanced technology and connectivity drive innovation and
adoption. The media agencies that thrive will be purveyors of
efficiency. They will have built and acquired their own technology,
and made smart deals to offer customers exclusive access to the
dominant digital media vendors' global data. They will have learnt
to take calculated risks with their own money (rather than
clients') to make advertising that is better than their
competitors'. The tide is about to go out. We will then see who's
been swimming naked and who hasn't.
John Allison, executive creative director, Channel 4's
4Creative
In 2025 the world will still be suffering from the great digital
collapse of 2023, billions and billions of zettabytes of data lost
forever and the global economy in ruins. When the riots are in full
swing, the streets are burning and all seems lost, an ad-guy pipes
up and says "I think I've got an idea…."
Rei Inamoto, chief creative officer, AKQA
By 2025, 95% of customers will manage their business relationships
without ever talking to a human. Many service transactions are
becoming digital each year. Until a few years ago, we had to
manually call a car service. Now it's done digitally without
talking to a human. This is the biggest problem that brands and
businesses will continually face for the next ten years: How to
take this as an opportunity and create new and meaningful
connections and services for people.
Pam Hamlin, global president, Arnold
Worldwide
The focus for marketers will be the same. That is, we'll need to
continue to find ways to tell timeless human stories that make
brands relevant and important to consumers. The challenge will be
staying ahead of emerging technologies because that's what will
impact how human stories are told. There will continue to be more
ways to reach people -- and yet people will never be harder to
reach, making the power of ideas even more important. It's the
paradox of our time. Of course, there are some on my team who think
giant robots will have taken over by then and none of this will
really matter anyway!
Richard Edelman, CEO, Edelman
TV commercials will still exist on live events such as The Super
Bowl. Media planning, PR and digital will morph into one, but
agencies will have different areas of emphasis. For example, PR
will remain focused on real stories and conduct small buys that are
well placed. The prime of the boomer generation was the 90s, so
that will be retro nostalgia marketing. There will still be quality
news, but based on circulation revenue, not advertising.

Jean Lin, global CEO, Isobar
Today the creative director is the perfect conceptual storyteller,
and they're mostly from copywriting or art direction backgrounds.
Maybe even starting in three to five years there will be wonderful
creative directors that come from software engineering backgrounds,
because technology is becoming such an important part of appealing
to humanity.
Steve King, CEO, ZenithOptimedia
I suspect that from a media perspective our business will see the
same transformation as has happened to the travel industry. The
days of buying mass media based on syndicated data will quickly
become anachronistic as it is replaced by highly measurable and
addressable placements across all forms of media, both on and
offline. Hyper-targeting will become the norm, as will
machine-based buying. As a consequence, we'll see a massive
acceleration of advertising investment as every dollar invested
pays back. Media agencies will be largely unrecognizable from today
and will be led by business strategists and data scientists.
Clients will increasingly look to the media agencies to replace the
management consultants as their critical partners in their own
business transformations. Lord Sorrell and French President Maurice
Levy's children become happily married with the two former
competitors happily sharing a holiday chateau on the French
Riveria.
Lori Senecal, global CEO, CP&B; president & CEO, MDC Partner
Network
The Future of advertising will be linked to the future of human
behavior. Advertising will move from just messaging to
understanding and predicting based on individual human behaviors
and needs. It will leverage technology in service of making people
feel understood and cared for. Essentially brands can leverage big
data by monitoring people's needs to deliver big service and big
emotion.

Harris Diamond, chairman-CEO, McCann Worldgroup
Today's teenagers, now in their mid-20s, will no doubt bemoan the
"good old days" when videos went viral and you could count yourself
cool if you cut the cord. There won't be any cords. "Viral" will go
back to being a purely a healthcare term. No one will quite
remember what a "video" is. In the advertising industry -- whatever
it will be called then -- we will still discuss the importance of
creativity. If anything, creativity will only become more
important, despite the influence of data. We will still be reached
by the power of imagination and emotional truth about our lives. We
can also expect to see significant and meaningful demographic
changes in the character of our business -- not only more diversity
in our work force, but more diversity at the very top levels of
leadership.
Bill Koenigsberg, CEO, Horizon Media
There will no longer be creative agencies and media agencies
clients will be looking for "consumer experience" agencies led by
the media agencies of today who will manage content, comms
planning, activation and analytics and innovation. Agencies will be
led by content strategists who will architect the consumer journey
and engage along the path. Agencies will employ psychologists who
will understand human behavior and how that relates to product
purchase and media consumption. We will target consumers based on
mood, mindset, and receptivity.
Cilla Snowball, group chairman, group CEO, AMV BBDO
Everything will be wireless, wearable and watchable. Our lives will
run simpler and faster; we'll do everything from our watches,
phones and key rings. We will be content leaders and we will create
content leaders. And, as now, the best work and the best talent
will define the winners.
Andrew Essex, vice chairman, Droga5
There will be a rebundling of certain services, after years of
unbundling media, creative, digital and PR. It's inevitable that
you want that consolidation because it's what's best for the
client. It'll change the shape of how agencies look, and it'll be
much more efficient. As for TV, the idea that there's a show
interrupted by a series of spots will go away. Brands will produce
the shows themselves and there will be good content and bad
content, not primary content and secondary content. As long as the
content is good, the consumer will accept it from anywhere.