Avid Introspection: 2025 & beyond
As 2025 draws to a close, we’re busy reflecting on what has been another successful year at Cracked. Prompted by the growing dominance of AI, much of this year has been about asking how we do what we do, and why it matters. It’s fair to say that AI has been at the centre of every conversation—it’s made us sharpen our thinking on what requires genuine creative intuition and human judgement, and has helped us further understand the importance of authenticity in creating genuinely compelling work.
I’m excited to share a standout piece of work for Chartwells: the kind of ground-up branding work that reminds you why craft matters. Building a brand where every decision earns its place, as purposeful as it is playful.
We’ve also put together our own Cracked Awards for 2025, celebrating everything from breakthrough moments to the brilliant work that never quite made it out the door.
So grab a brew, take a minute away from your emails, and immerse yourself in our world for a little while.
Watch this space for our trends roundup in January. We’ve done the hard work so you don’t have to.
UK
This bubble tea brand brings café-quality drinks straight to your fridge with 100% vegan, ready-to-drink bottles made from loose leaf tea and actual fruit.
dotdottea.com
The latest drops worth knowing
Miss Kim Korean Snacks
Traditional Korean snacks reimagined with clean ingredients, from toasted rice Nurungji bites to impossibly crispy lotus root Bugak, plus tinned vegan kimchi for instant flavour hits.
misskim.co.uk
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Functional ice cubes that melt wellness into your drink. From collagen-packed Glow to magnesium-rich Chill, these frozen cubes turn any beverage into a stealth health boost.
Unseasoned crisps with eco-friendly credentials that you season yourself with eight flavours of ‘Spud Dust’. Oh and they’re Dragons’ Den approved, of course.
Functional mushroom chocolate made with organic ingredients — no artificial anything, just natural support for sharper focus and deeper sleep.
High Street Hottest on the
From the team behind upscale Kolamba comes this casual spin-off serving kothu — a theatrical street dish where chopped roti, veg and eggs are thrown together on a piping-hot plancha with the kind of drama that demands you stop scrolling and book. Add impossibly crispy mutton rolls, vadai and chilli prawn toast, and you’ve got South Asian cuisine beyond the clichés.
Michelin-trained chefs applying fine-dining discipline to burgers, with wine pairings to match. The Superfutures-designed space feels more sci-fi than greasy spoon, proof that premium ingredients and thoughtful curation can make even comfort food feel like an occasion. Get ready to reset your burger standards.
A family business bringing a fresh take on Balkan dining. Mystic Burek serves endless plates of food alongside Macedonian wine and rakia. Expect a warm welcome and hearty generosity— slippers at the door, good conversation, and a seat at the family table. This isn’t a restaurant. It’s intimate, intentional, and fiercely independent.
Late-night cravings meet fusion done gloriously right. This Soho spot serves Indo-Chinese cuisine, a wildly popular style that’s criminally underrepresented in London. Post-theatre, post-drinks, post-everything — Tangra’s filling the gap for proper food at improper hours, the kind that makes you want to order everything twice. Your 2am self will thank you.
New York’s notoriously hard-to-book Carbone has landed in Mayfair, bringing
While everyone else experiments with QR codes and robots, Carbone doubles down on service as performance art. Maximum human interaction, zero shortcuts and food that tastes like luxury never went out of style.
Stop picking platforms, start building </smarter>
The website dilemma
every brand now faces
There can be a lot going on when deciding whether you should build a new website or update your current one. The potential is huge. You could show off the new brand. Build something with genuinely better UX. Get actually useful data to work with. Then someone says it: “So…how much is this actually going to cost?” The excitement shifts to spreadsheets and doubt.
The three approaches
BESPOKE
Full control, seamless integrations, built for complexity. Higher investment, longer timeline. Best for enterprise brands with serious compliance needs.
“What You See Is What You Get”
Fast, affordable, non-coder-friendly. Limited customisation, platform-dependent. Perfect for limited budgets and/or smaller scale launches and campaigns.
WYSIWYG front end, bespoke integrations behind the scenes. Creative freedom meets commercial sense. The new default for growing brands who refuse to compromise.
WYSIWYG
HYBRID
Which works for you?
BESPOKE
Speed: Months
Freedom: Unlimited
Best for: Multiple brands
WYSIWYG
Speed: Weeks
Freedom: Template-based
Best for: Launches
HYBRID
Speed: Weeks/Months
Freedom: High flexibility
Best for: A mix of priorities
TO GO BESPOKE OR WYSIWYG?
WYSIWYG stands for What You See Is What You Get and refers to drag-and-drop website builders like Squarespace, Wix or Shopify.
Marketing wants flexibility. IT wants security. Finance wants proof. The truth? The smartest brands don’t pick sides. They build smarter.
Click to view case studies
WHY DOES THIS DECISION MATTER?
A website isn’t just your digital shopfront anymore. It’s the kitchen, the counter and the conversation, the first place people actually taste your brand.
And the stakes keep rising. Accessibility and compliance are now law, not preference. Speed determines visibility. Privacy-first analytics demand smarter data. AI search engines reward structured content. And authenticity wins every time.
Build smarter with Cracked
We help food and drink brands balance creativity, control and commercial sense from strategy to launch.
Ready to stop compromising? Speak to our Digital team at hello@cracked.agency
Hottest High Street on the
TOKYO TO MEXICO CITY VIA AUSTIN
Austin’s beloved ramen stall is graduating from Hana World Market to a full izakaya with Japanese whisky and Mexican mezcal. The fusion isn’t random, it traces back to 1565 Manila galleon trade routes, and both cuisines share DNA: bold umami, slow-cooked meats and street food soul. Finally, a crossover that tastes as good as it sounds.
ramendelbarrio.com
A24’s first-ever restaurant is hidden in the West Village, and it’s as atmospheric as you’d hope. Dark wood panelling, ‘70s sex appeal and a menu from the Frenchette team (think lobster clubs and the showstopper Scorpion Bowl served in vintage Murano glass). Film screenings and book talks make this a cultural dinner reservation you’ll just have to brag about. INDIE FILM MEETS SUPPER
wildcherrynyc.com
THE SINGLE-INGREDIENT BAKERY
Greenwich Village’s latest bakery obsession isn’t cinnamon rolls, it’s halloumi. Imported from Cyprus, the squeaky cheese stars in bagel bites, triangles, fries and focaccia, filling the savoury gap in New York’s dessert-dominated bakery scene. It’s mono-ingredient specialisation that’s borderline genius if you ask us.
@hellohallouminyc
RADICAL SIMPLICITY IN COOKIE FORM
This Seaport bakery sells exactly two cookies: chocolate chip and sugar. No mix-ins, no weekly rotations, no build-your-own nonsense. Just perfected classics served with glasses of milk. Almost monk-like in its discipline, betting that excellence beats endless choice in NYC’s maximalist food scene. Spoiler: it does.
twocookiesnyc.com
Our bespoke food tours connect you with the trends and tastes making waves right now, before the rest of the industry catches up. Drop us a line to get involved.
How do you use AI in your role?
I often use it to transcribe and summarise client calls, which means I can be fully present with the person I’m talking to and actively listen to tone and body language, without having to scribble ferociously in the background.
Connect with me
Ellie Hubble Copywriter & Strategist
I now use AI the way I used to use Google. “ ” CHIARA
Connect with me
Janita Bold
I treat AI like a slightly inept, bumbling intern — think young Hugh Grant. You can’t rely on them, but they can do some of the grunt work, summarising and initial research to give you a few hints before the real work begins.
I use AI to support me with admin and sparking ideas. If I’m creating a complex proposal, for example, I’ll look to AI to help me find the best Excel formula to use or write basic copy. I now use AI in the way I used to use Google.
Connect with me
Chiara Ciarleglio Senior Marketing Executive
JANITA
What does AI do well… and not so well?
It’s undeniably good for taking a first pass at drafts or research, turning messy inputs into a clean starting point. But the biggest thing it can’t do is read the room. It can’t provide that human judgement to solve a highly individual and complex client challenge, especially when there are internal politics or budget restraints to work around.
ELLIE
It’s great for things like naming. If I’m developing ideas for a new coffee brand, for example, I can ask it to list every word associated with ‘aroma’, ‘brew’, ‘grind’ etc. which then gives me a large playground to work with creatively. It’s a great compiler and sifter of information, but it can’t come up with truly original ideas that draw people in.
CHIARA
It can really help save me time with things like compiling research, but I do find that the results can be a bit hit and miss or the sources it looks to aren’t relevant, so you can never take it at face value.
Which of your skills are more important than ever?
JANITA
Relationship intelligence, commercial acumen, emotional intelligence. These skills are crucial for a successful career in Client Services, and they’re only going to become more important in the years to come.
ELLIE
Editorial judgement, hands down.
AI can offer us so much, but can it curate? Can it confidently tell you what good looks like? Can it come up with something creative that makes no rational sense but somehow just works?
I’m excited by AI as a tool to support my role, but it can’t replicate instinct. That messy, human arena will always be ours.
Communication and creative judgement are crucial to my role. We speak to and work so closely with our clients day in and day out. We know what they want, what they don’t and how to work best together. There’s just no substitute for the relationships we’ve built.
What’s next for AI?
JANITA
I think its development is certainly going to move very quickly so we’ll be working as a team to stay AI literate. I’m intrigued to see how it can help us track and report on campaigns on a much deeper level as AI gets more powerful.
ELLIE
I don’t know for sure, but it’s an opportunity not a threat and I’m excited to see how it can challenge and evolve our work. We’ll absolutely be watching, learning and experimenting here at Cracked.
CHIARA
While I imagine AI itself will only get more advanced, I think the real shift will come from the people using it. We’ll get more creative with it as it becomes more embedded in society.
AI can offer us so much, but can it curate? Can it confidently tell you what good looks like? “ ” ELLIE
CHIARA
toughest Branding for the of critics
Chartwells wanted a secondary school dining identity that would actually resonate with students. Not just look good in a presentation, but work in real school dining halls with real teenagers.
So we went straight to the source — the students themselves. Their feedback helped us shape a visual identity that feels fresh, not forced. Bold colours. Playful typography. Messaging built around a key line that lands without trying too hard.
The flexible toolkit means each school can own it their way, all while staying within School
Turns out, teenagers will engage (if you give
The Awards 2025
Awards season isn’t just for the big ceremonies. Here at Cracked, we’re celebrating our own 2025 highlights, from the campaigns that launched to the brilliant ideas that (sadly) didn’t, and everything in between.
Best Work
That Never Launched
Milk Freak - our own take on dairy alternative milk
Breakthrough
Brand Moment
Biggest
Faux Pas
Casting for a case study and having to make a last minute switcheroo because the model was too tall for the nursing scrubs!
Plot Twist of the Year
George and PT stepping in as models last minute at a shoot
The drool-worthy lasagne sandwich from Crunch Soho
Yorkshire Tea Iced’s showstopping stand at Lunch!
The People
Best Team
Social Moment
Making pretzels (and a mess) at The Big London Bake
Project of the Year
Nestlé Professional’s new brand videos for We Proudly Serve Starbucks® (stay tuned for their new website showreel)
Hero Moment
Paul for his unexpected IT wizardry
Team Chemistry Award
Chiara and Image Corporate for their close collaboration on the Yorkshire Tea case study
Well that would be telling, wouldn’t it?
The chef making entertaining look effortless
hello@cracked.agency
Earthy Jane is a nutrition-based holistic private chef who’s mastered the art of making healthy hosting look effortless. Jane takes people behind the scenes as she creates dinners for bachelorette parties, baby showers and intimate gatherings across the States. She’s not cooking for restaurants or fancy events. She’s cooking for real people, celebrating real moments.
Her content strikes that sweet spot between elevated and approachable. Aspirational without being intimidating. She proves healthy doesn’t mean bland and entertaining doesn’t mean stressful.
Perfect for anyone who wants elevated hosting ideas without the pretension.