Agenda: Most Contagious / London 2025

The Great Escape /
Chloe Markowicz, Editor, Contagious

Wars, economic uncertainty, societal division and the looming threat of AI. 2025 hasn’t exactly been a Jet2 holiday. This session draws on how the most creative brands are helping people get away from it all by turning existential dread into creative fuel. You'll learn how to leverage escapism to reconnect with disillusioned audiences, create immersive worlds that turn followers into fans, and use absurdism and play to drive cultural resonance.

Igniting the Big Idea Generation /
Anto Chioccarelli, Director, Creative Outdoor, Global

Anto Chioccarelli, a proud Neapolitan, didn’t come to Britain for the food or the weather. She came for its world-leading creativity now she wants the UK to believe and dream big again. We don’t need more noise or fearmongering. We need ambition, tools and opportunities to realise our potential as the BIG IDEA GENERATION. That’s why Global Outdoor champions and cultivates British creativity in a time of uncertainty, on the public stage woven into the daily journeys of people across this country.

Vaseline Verified / From Viral Hacks to Verified Facts
Leandro Barreto, CMO, Beauty & Wellbeing, Unilever
Julianna Richter, Global CEO of Ogilvy, PR, Social & Influence, Ogilvy

How do you continue to make a 155-year-old brand culturally relevant for a new generation? This session will dig into how Vaseline partnered with online creators to find surprising new uses for the product beyond skincare. Learn how the Vaseline Verified campaign, one of the most awarded campaigns at Cannes Lions this year, made every day hacks trusted, shareable and shoppable and turned user creativity into a global growth engine.

The CMO’s Survival Guide /
Sunil Bajaj, Lead Brand Analyst, Contagious

Ever wanted to turn a CMO upside down and relentlessly shake them until all their industry secrets spill out onto the floor? No need, Contagious has done it for you (figuratively at least). We’ve spent 2025 shucking insights out of the best marketers in the business – from their winning business strategies to their biggest challenges – and harvesting some priceless pearls of wisdom along the way. In this session, we’ll connect the dots and package those hard-won learnings into a survival guide for the year ahead.

PHD / Experience 2.0: Building Brands in the Age of Abundance
Rohan Tambyrajah, Worldwide Chief Experience Officer and EMEA Chief Strategy Officer, PHD

As we cross the inflection point where AI-generated content surpasses human creation, we enter an age of abundance — where content multiplies faster than attention and decisions about what to see, do, or buy are increasingly delegated to agentic AI. Amid this transformation, the challenge is not how to keep up, but how to stand out. This session explores the new imperatives for growth — rethinking how brands are built, how experiences are designed, and how organisations adapt to thrive. It helps marketers answer a fundamental question: what do we automate, and what do we elevate?

Lucky Saint / Thou Shalt go to the Pub
Kerttu Inkeroinen, Chief Marketing Officer, Lucky Saint

No drinks, no fun? Not according to Lucky Saint, which has become the UK’s number 1 independent alcohol-free beer by fostering a new type of pub culture that doesn’t involve booze. Marketing director Kerttu Inkeroinen will break down how the brand has become a category leader by creating a product and drinking experience that doesn’t make people feel like they’re compromising on either taste or social connection. This session will uncover how the brand is aligning with social shifts to eschew the virtuousness previously associated with drinking alcohol-free and create a pint people can’t say no to.

Brands of Love and Belonging /
Katrina Stirton Dodd, Trends Editor, Contagious

The golden age of connection is showing some rust. Loneliness is described as an epidemic. Social media is no longer social. Individualism may be dominating the cultural mood music but, despite this, some brands are thriving by reading the room and playing to our deeply rooted desire for love and belonging. In this session you’ll discover the ROI of IRL, learn how to recalibrate for community and understand why brands that prioritise 'we' over 'me' are valued in the billions.

The Ordinary x Uncommon Creative Studio / Truth Bombs
Nils Leonard, Founder, Uncommon Creative Studio

Skincare can’t erase pores, eliminate cellulite or remove wrinkles. Yet, the beauty industry continues to peddle these myths to sell products featuring secret ingredients that promise impossible results. The Ordinary does the exact opposite and by challenging category conventions with its radical transparency has grown into a multi-billion-dollar brand. Developed with Uncommon Creative Studio, its platform The Truth Should Be Ordinary reaffirms its commitment to scientific research and empowering consumers through education. Nils Leonard, founder of Uncommon, will share how the brand leverages transparency as a competitive advantage, and how you can build a world beating brand with objects.

The Future of Attention /
Alex Poultney, Analyst, Contagious

Caught between the late lamented monoculture and the AI slopocalypse, attention is fragmented, fleeting and harder to capture than a limited-edition Labubu. So when culture isn’t one-size-fits-all and there’s no clear choice between the Super Bowl and pickleball, how do brands make the most of blockbuster moments while not overlooking the niches? In this session, you’ll learn how to harness creators, collabs, and cultural micro-moments to reach people where they actually are. (You will not get a Labubu).

KitKat / Don’t have a break, have a timeless brand
Wael Jabi, Global Head of Marketing & Communications, KitKat
João Caputi, Global Strategy Director, VML

For 90 years, KitKat has shown that timeless consistency is a superpower when paired with timely relevance. In this session, have a peek under the hood on how the brand has stayed true to its core while adapting to cultural shifts and changing consumer needs. From protecting distinctive assets to the dangers of bored marketeers, discover what it takes to maintain the longevity of a brand platform that keeps on delivering.

The Unmistakables / Division, Exclusion and Isolation in 2025
Asad Dhunna, Founder & CEO, The Unmistakables

This year, it’s apparently caused plane crashes, forest fires and sparked a global battle of jeans advertising. And yet, DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) is actually the best lens to understand what happened in culture in 2025. This session from The Unmistakables will help you better understand the most divisive moments from the past year and what they mean for how brands should behave in 2026.

AXA Three Words / A Systematic Solution to a Systemic Problem
Alice Holzman, Chief Customer, Brand & Marketing Officer, AXA France
Sarah Lemarié, Creative Strategy Lead, Publicis France

Being a woman shouldn’t be a risk. With domestic violence worldwide impacting one in three women, insurance brand AXA felt it needed to step in. Through the seemingly small act of adding the phrase ‘and domestic violence’ to its home insurance policies, AXA made a massive difference, creating an escape for women trapped in abusive relationships. Find out how just three words enabled AXA to upend industry standards, stand out in a commoditised category and help the brand’s consideration soar to the number one spot.

O2 Daisy / How an AI Granny Scammed the Scammers
Simon Valcarcel, Marketing Director | Fixed, Mobile & FM, Virgin Media O2
David Masterman, Executive Creative Director, VCCP

Last year phone fraudsters targeted 70% of the UK public and stole billions. Telco O2 had enough and to protect its customers, it unleashed an AI-powered scambaiter that sounded like an innocent granny, but had no mercy when it came to fighting fraud. In this session, David Masterman, VCCP's Executive Creative Director, and Simon Valcarcel, O2 Marketing Director, will show how the brand made headlines and significantly boosted its reputation by taking a creative approach to solving the issues that matter most to its customers.

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