Manhattan, New York, THE PENN DISTRICT —
This fall, the heartbeat of the global marketing industry remained firmly in New York. From October 6 to 9, 2025, Advertising Week New York (AWNewYork 2025) offered an unparalleled opportunity to experience marketing, media, technology, and culture trends all in one place. Over 1,200 speakers, 500+ sessions, and 28 specialized content tracks welcomed industry professionals, providing critical insights and connections for today’s change-makers.
28 Tracks Covering the Core of Advertising
This year’s event went beyond standard keynotes and panels, exploring the most pressing topics across 28 specialized tracks, including AI, Brand & Marketers, Culture, Gaming & eSports, Retail & Commerce, Modern Marketing & Measurement, Technology, Storytelling & Media, Travel, TV & Streaming, and SMBs, offering a broad and deep perspective on the industry.
Notable session highlights included:
The Reality of AI: Panels hosted by Chalice AI showcased real-world applications of AI in advertising, highlighting the role of multimodal AI for high-performance targeting and next-generation advertising strategies.
Fandom and Effectiveness: Spotify’s Global Thought Leadership lead shared insights on how fandom and consumer passion translate into measurable brand performance.
Commerce Transformation: “If everything is shoppable, make it unstoppable” became a central theme, exploring thriving strategies in today’s shopping-enabled world.
Ethics and Measurement: Leadership discussions tackled trust and integrity in post-AI advertising, combining ethical standards with actionable best practices.
The Secret of New York’s Vertical Week
Global conferences in the U.S. each leverage city spaces differently:
West Coast CES: Las Vegas hotels and massive convention centers spread horizontally across the city.
SXSW, Texas: Austin Convention Center serves as the main hub, while surrounding hotels, cafés, restaurants, and temporary spaces function as branded houses, creating a citywide horizontal-vertical festival experience.
The Penn District
In contrast, Advertising Week New York utilizes densely packed buildings and hotels to create a vertical week. Multiple floors across nearby blocks host sessions, networking, exhibitions, and events in a compact, walkable format, allowing participants to move seamlessly between experiences.
This highly concentrated week format reflects New York’s urban structure, offering a unique approach that transforms a conference into a city-centered immersive innovation experience.
Advertising Week New York create a vertical week
Immersive Experiences for Leaders and Innovators
AWNewYork 2025 provided more than observation—it offered actionable connections and opportunities for collaboration:
Creator Experience (sponsored by Meta): A dedicated lounge and live production area for exploring brand-partner collaborations.
B2BMX @ AWNewYork (sponsored by LinkedIn): Deep-dive sessions and networking for B2B marketing leaders, including Thursday-exclusive B2B networking lounges.
The CMO Experience: Dedicated space for senior marketers to share forward-looking strategies and challenges.
Accelerate 2025: A global startup program focusing on the Creator Economy, offering education, business development, and partnership opportunities.
The Gaming Summit: Programs exploring the intersection of gaming, culture, and brand engagement.
Costa Rica Participates as a “National Pavilion”
AWNewYork 2025 also highlighted how smaller countries can make a big impact. Costa Rican advertising agencies organized themselves like a “national pavilion”, creating a concentrated space to showcase local culture and creativity.
Agencies collaborated to present Costa Rica’s advertising industry and creative capabilities.
They offered immersive programs featuring cultural storytelling, innovation examples, business case studies, and partnerships with local creators.
Attendees experienced Costa Rican creativity as a single, unified national brand, illustrating how a small country can establish a powerful presence in a global event.
This approach demonstrates how focused, strategic participation can amplify visibility even for smaller nations in a global advertising landscape.
Costa Rica Couches
Key Speakers and Networking Highlights
Top speakers included Meta CMO & VP of Analytics Alex Schultz, Mastercard CMO Raja Rajamannar, actor and philanthropist Kevin Bacon from SixDegrees.org, and PepsiCo CMO Jess Spaulding.
Special events and award ceremonies included:
Future Is Female Awards (Oct 6, invitation-only): Honoring outstanding women leaders and their advocates.
The AW Playmakers Awards (Oct 8, invitation-only): Held at the New York Stock Exchange, celebrating innovators at the intersection of sports, creativity, technology, and culture.
Wrap Party (Oct 9): Celebrating the 21st AWNewYork at AW COCKTAIL LOUNGE, 5–7 PM.
SixDegrees.org Partnership: Delivering custom ad campaigns to six nonprofits, amplifying social impact.
Practical Networking Spaces and On-Site Amenities
Participants enjoyed The WEBTOON Diner’s iconic atmosphere, recharged at Contentful Cafe, or refueled at Epsilon’s Protein Bar.
Platinum and Super Delegate pass holders gained fast-track session access, and Platinum Pass allowed reservation of private meeting tables at the Meeting Hub.
In line with sustainability efforts, reusable water bottles were encouraged instead of disposable cups. On-site food vendors, including Jacobs Pickles and Pastrami Queen, and nearby restaurant discounts with badges added convenience.
Experiencing Marketing Innovation, Planning for Next Year
AWNewYork 2025 connected technology, culture, data, and creativity, allowing participants to gain actionable insights and business opportunities. In a rapidly changing global marketing landscape, attendees walked away with strategies and connections to enhance their competitive edge.
Looking ahead to next year, industry professionals should consider joining AWNewYork again. Beyond the event itself, New York hosts numerous “week-style” gatherings—among them, Black Week, which often takes place around the same time. Exploring multiple events provides unique opportunities for cross-attendance, overlapping insights, and broader networking, maximizing the value of a single trip.
In other words, attending AWNewYork is not just about one conference—it’s a chance to immerse yourself in New York’s dense ecosystem of overlapping marketing weeks, connect with more peers, and discover ideas that can shape your strategy for the year ahead. The city becomes your playground for innovation—don’t miss the chance to make it your stage next year.
Editor’s Note – Beyond the Conference, Into the Vertical City
Advertising Week New York 2025 isn’t just a conference—it’s a masterclass in urban-scale innovation. Here, Manhattan’s dense blocks and vertical towers aren’t obstacles; they’re the stage. Every floor, every building, every corner becomes a node in a citywide network of ideas, connections, and experimentation. Unlike sprawling CES in Las Vegas or the horizontal-vertical hybrid of SXSW in Austin, New York teaches a radical lesson: innovation thrives when compressed, concentrated, and made walkable.
But the real magic? It’s not only AWNewYork. Step outside, and you find the city humming with parallel weeks—Black Week, Fashion Week, Design Week—each overlapping, each a potential cross-pollination of insights, contacts, and unexpected collaborations. The savvy attendee doesn’t choose one; they navigate many. The city becomes a living lab where ideas collide, merge, and evolve across overlapping weeks, turning a single trip into a multi-dimensional growth experience.
And here’s the takeaway: next year, don’t just attend a conference—play the city. Walk the vertical blocks of AWNewYork. Cross paths with Black Week. Let the density, diversity, and deliberate chaos of overlapping weeks reshape your perspective on what a week of marketing can be. In New York, participation isn’t passive. It’s strategic, immersive, and endlessly surprising. Innovation isn’t just on stage—it’s in the streets, the lounges, and even the stairwells between floors.
AWNewYork is more than an event. It’s a rehearsal for thinking differently, connecting differently, and acting differently. Next year, make the city your playground—and your laboratory.