Brands Go Bold: From Gap to Heineken, Creative Ads That Stand Out

Plus: LinkedIn leans into auto-targeting and AI ad variants

Author

Avinash Duggempudi
October 01, 2025

ClickZ Indie Agency News

Here's what's happening this week in the world of independent agencies and performance marketing:
- Brands Go Bold: From Gap to Heineken, Creative Ads That Stand Out
- LinkedIn adds AI auto-targeting and creative variants
- UK Indie Media Agency Climbs Global Rankings as Top Five Hold Firm
- IPG consolidates Bayer consumer health under one roof
- Brands tap agencies for fractional leadership roles

⏱️THE MINUTE READ

Juvenon suspected upper-funnel spend were fueling growth, but pixel reporting undervalued them, pushing spend to the bottom funnel.

With Fospha’s Halo, they unified DTC and Amazon sales and uncovered the truth: TikTok was 9X stronger than reported, DTC performance was under-credited by 2.9X, and upper funnel became their growth engine.

  • 📈 +18% revenue growth QoQ

  • 📉 20% CAC improvement YoY

  • 🚀 10X upper-funnel SoW growth

📌WEEKLY MUST-KNOWS

AD & CREATIVITY
Brands Go Bold: From Gap to Heineken, Creative Ads That Stand Out
Leading brands are leaning harder than ever into bold creative strategies—using surprise, emotional hooks, and cultural links to cut through the clutter. Gap taps star power; Heineken leans into digital detox; Pizza Hut and Starbucks flex food-as-experience; Subaru doubles down on authenticity. What ties them together: campaigns that don’t just sell—they spark conversations, lean into identity, and meet people in evolving cultural moments.

LinkedIn rolled out AI-driven auto-targeting, “Draft with AI” creative variants, and in-product recommendations with A/B testing. This reduces manual setup and pushes more budget into platform-optimized delivery, especially for B2B growth teams with limited resources. Marketers gain speed and scale, but face greater black-box dependency and must enforce exclusions, brand safety and measurement guardrails.

Pinterest introduced Top of Search ads (beta), expanded Local Inventory Ads, and launched Media Network Connect ahead of holiday. With Gen Z increasingly starting shopping on Pinterest and 96% of searches unbranded, this moves the platform deeper into high-intent discovery and retail media. Brands can now capture top-slot visibility, drive nearby store traffic, and activate retailer first‑party audiences directly in Ads Manager.

MEDIA & ADVERTISING
UK Indie Media Agency Climbs Global Rankings as Top Five Hold Firm
A UK media agency has surged ahead in the global independent rankings, showing that local strength can punch internationally. Meanwhile, the established top five — Horizon Media, Empower, Brainlabs, Labelium, and GSD&M — held their positions, highlighting stability at the top even as competition intensifies.

⚡QUICK READS

Why Marketers Are Hiring Agencies To Fill Fractional Roles On In-House Teams: Brands are embedding agency leaders as fractional executives, creating new revenue streams for indies and deeper influence over in-house roadmaps.(More)

’The Red Line Keeps Moving’: Advertising Creatives Have Lost The AI Ick: Gen AI is now routine in production, with indemnities easing client risk; agencies slow to adopt face talent and efficiency gaps.(More)

Bose’s Butter Speaker Melts The Internet – But Can You Buy It?: A viral, scarcity-driven packaging play fuels demand without new features, underscoring how aesthetic alignment can outpull specs in premium DTC launches.(More)

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