FCB London 2025: A Eulogy for a Year of Quiet Brilliance

If 2024 marked the structural re-engineering of FCB London, then 2025 became the year Katy Wright, Owen Lee and Ben Jaffe steered the agency into a period of planned poised expansion. Together, this leadership trio shepherded the agency through a period that now feels almost poignantly transitional - the kind of year whose significance becomes clearer only when looked at in retrospect.

Under their collective leadership, the agency stretched again: deliberately, steadily, and with the kind of creative restraint that reveals a much larger ambition at play. Sadly, and through no fault of their own, this will never reach fruition following Omnicom's acquisition of IPG. Wright has now been parachuted into AMV BBDO as chief client officer as FCB becomes submerged into the BBDO network alongside MullenLowe.

But in 2025, CEB London's centre of balance shifted. Leadership elevations, the return of seasoned creative hands and the deepening of long-standing client partnerships all pointed to a business in rebuild mode. It was a year defined by clarity - in which FCB London recalibrated itself for what it fully expected would come next.

We asked the leadership team to share their reflections on the year.

Katy Wright, CEO, Owen Lee, CCO, and Ben Jaffe, CSO, on the agency's 2025:

What three words would you use to describe 2025?

Intrepid, Resourceful and Passionate.

Talk us through some of your agency’s highlights this year?

A big and exciting year filled with delivering creative excellence for our clients, brilliant people, awards galore and mammoth pitching. Highlights include:

• Andrex First School Poo – a difficult second album, but just wait till you see the third!!

• Helping Skoda reach their targets… five years early!

• Bolstering our government roster with Department for Transport wins.

• Brilliant Ben and Guy return as ECDs.

• Cannes, The Immortals, Clios, LIAs, Ciclopes.

• Another mammoth pitch year.

What one thing are you proudest of this year?

Pitching bigger, creating famous work and attracting great talent.

And what’s been your biggest challenge?

Navigating the ever-shifting industry landscape, ensuring the correct implementation of AI and integrated pitching.

What are you most looking forward to in 2026?

We have some outstanding work coming up which we can’t wait to make and share. Creating excellent work is the reason we get out of bed in the morning and has been our core focus over the last three years, so we’re looking forward to seeing it live and breathe in the world.

And what one change would you most like to see in our industry next year?

More positivity. More focus on why agencies, filled with real humans and creativity, are vital in the face of AI. More focus on our collective creative brilliance and less doom and gloom.

In a line - More positivity, less doom and gloom.

Creative Salon on FCB London's 2025

One of the clearest creative signals of FCB London's intent for the future came from Andrex, where the agency continued to build its 'Get Comfortable' platform with a campaign that sought to encourage school kids to overcome lavatory embarrassment.

In a category famous for bland euphemism, FCB delivered something warm, human and unexpectedly progressive and the original campaign won a Silver Lion at Cannes.

Other 2025 creative highlights included a brand platform, in collaboration with FCB Chicago, for Perfetti Van Melle's chewing-gum brand Trident aiming to inspire Gen Z to “break away from sameness”. The 'TriDifferent' spot included a mix of TV, digital, social and influencer-led content across key markets such as the United States, Canada, Spain, Portugal, and Greece

For Škoda, FCB London contributed to 'Ballsy Moves', subverting penis graffiti to encourage participation in the Tour de France Femmes - a playful, perfectly pitched piece of cycling culture hackery.

Also for Skoda, the 'Be more Elroq' global campaign for the launch of the marque's first electric compact SUV, Elroq, was playful.

It centred around the idea that everything in the world – including chipmunks, clouds and raccoons – can be a source of inspiration if you’re curious enough.

The agency was pivotal in Interpublic winning the NatWest account and as FCB it retained the Department for Transport business, which is testament to the strength of its relationship. It also focused on deepening relationships and improving the creative and strategic effectiveness of the accounts it already holds.

And the agency released its first work for another government body, THINK! with 'Don’t Put Drugs In The Driving Seat,' ahead of the festive season kicking off.

Taken together, 2025 was a year of tonal evolution rather than spectacle. The agency continued to play to its strengths - long-term brand partnerships, emotional nuance and strategic precision - while forays into more expressive spaces signalled an agency increasingly willing to take creative risks.

Creative Salon says: FCB London spent 2025 rebuilding with discipline and grace. The year was defined by smart evolution: reinforcing leadership, sharpening the creative output and demonstrating quiet confidence across a spread of brand-building assignments. The continued refinement of Andrex’s 'Get Comfortable' platform showed a deftness with behavioural insight.

There were flickers of edge too - from a playful Škoda Tour de France Femmes activation to a Gen-Z repositioning of Trident. If this year marked the end of an era for FCB London, then it was an ending steeped in craft, consistency and humanity - exactly the values that made it matter in the first place.