In December 2024, Omnicom merged with IPG, cutting roughly 4,000 positions. Among those affected were hundreds of brand strategists who had devoted their entire professional lives to mastering positioning, differentiation, and cultural resonance. Their jobs didn’t disappear because they lacked talent or commitment. They vanished because the system they depended on—the promise-driven machinery of the classic advertising era—collapsed under its own obsolescence. This wasn’t a temporary downturn. It was a structural reset. To grasp what happened, you have to understand how brands have fundamentally transformed the way they generate value for both shareholders and customers. This article appears in Branding Strategy Insider’s newsletter. Join the world’s most forward-thinking marketers and subscribe here for practical insights delivered straight to your inbox.
The Shift Everyone Anticipated (Yet Still Found Shocking)
For over a hundred years, the formula for building brands barely changed: Make a promise. Express it beautifully. Repeat until it embeds in memory. Sneaker brands promised an athletic identity. Banks promised safety and partnership. Consumer brands battled over who could tell the most compelling story about what their products symbolized, not what they could tangibly do for you beyond their core function.
Given the limitations of the time, this approach was logical. A sneaker company couldn’t literally improve your athletic performance—but it could make you feel like a better athlete. A bank couldn’t erase the real complexity of managing money—but it could promise that you’d feel secure and in control. Around this logic, an entire industry architecture took shape: Agencies optimized persuasion. Research tracked perception. Media maximized reach. Success…