
Marketers’ cooling optimism, uncertainty around US trade policies, the impact of AI adoption and the dominance of digital channels on media planning, are the top themes examined in WARC’s Voice of the Marketer report.
Part of WARC’s Evolution of Marketing programme, The Voice of the Marketer uncovers marketers’ opinions on where the industry is headed in the coming year and examines four different themes that have emerged from the annual survey of 1,000+ marketers worldwide fielded between September to October 2025. The survey also fuels trend analysis in the recently released Marketer’s Toolkit report.
Stephanie Siew, Senior Research Executive, WARC, said: “Despite the decline in marketer optimism, it’s worth pointing out that the majority of both brand and agency marketers (54%) still expect next year to be better than this one. However budget expectations are a lot lower, which will heap more pressure on marketers in 2026.”
Aditya Kishore, Insight Director, WARC, added: “A significant red flag for marketers is the tension between poor macroeconomic visibility and the need to plan for long-term business growth — which is why more than half see short-termism as a major industry concern.”
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