GSD&M continues to prove it’s in touch with today’s culture

It’s not every agency that loses a top-three client and ends the year with a 5% revenue increase. But that’s what happened at Omnicom Group’s GSD&M. Though it lost Pizza Hut in August, the shop made up for the loss with new business from Crocs, Corona Extra, Warner Bros. Discovery, Boehringer Ingelheim and AstraZeneca. The agency—which brought on Lee Newman as president in late 2023—continues to prove that after more than five decades in business, it is still in touch with today’s culture. In its entry, GSD&M said it is piloting a dozen AI initiatives and much of its current work points to a fluency in social trends. See all of Ad Age’s 2025 Agency A-List winners here For Southwest, it created a Gen Z-friendly way to buy airline tickets directly on TikTok that helped drive a 5.7% increase in third-quarter passenger revenue versus the prior year. View this post on Instagram A post shared by GSD&M (@gsdmaustin) For client Stanley, the shop earned 3.3 billion media impressions with a social media amplification of a post from a person whose car was destroyed in a fire—but her Stanley bottle inside the vehicle remained intact, ice unmelted. That led the brand to its best quarter in history and a 275% annual sales lift for its Quencher Tumbler. GSD&M also held true to the political leanings of its founders, producing work for the Center for Reproductive Rights that shone a harsh light on the abortion ban in the agency’s home state of Texas. And for Capital One, it dreamed up a big idea—literally—creating a 128-foot blimp resembling Charles Barkley to celebrate March Madness. That March Madness push for Capital One included a remake of Dionne Warwick’s “That’s What Friends Are For” featuring Barkley along with Samuel L. Jackson, Spike Lee, Jennifer Garner, Magic Johnson, Jim Nantz and Jeremy Brandt. Last year’s results were impressive, but 2025 will bring another challenge for GSD&M to maintain momentum following the loss of its 23-year Goodyear relationship in a consolidation at Publicis. See all of Ad Age’s 2025 Agency A-List winners here

GSD&M continues to prove it’s in touch with today’s culture

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