The debate over ad "quality" is often based on subjective opinions of brand fit. A more effective definition of quality is its ability to achieve the primary business objective: selling the product. Unconventional creative that drives sales, like Olay's "cat with lasers" ad, is by definition high-quality.

Marketers often silo brand-building and sales-driving objectives, but they are intrinsically linked. If a creative fails to generate a short-term sales lift, it's a strong signal that it's also failing to build long-term brand equity. An ad that sells inherently delivers an equity benefit.

As ad platforms like Google automate bid management, an agency's value is no longer in manual "button pushing." The new competitive edge is the ability to feed the platform's AI with superior client data and insights. Agencies that cannot access and leverage this data will struggle to demonstrate value.

The 'Mad Men' era of relying on a creative director's gut feel is obsolete. Many leaders still wrongly judge marketing creative based on their personal taste ('I don't like that picture'). The correct modern approach is to deploy content and use the resulting performance data to make informed decisions.

One-off creative hits are easy, but replicating them requires structure. Truly creative marketing integrates storytelling into a disciplined process involving data analysis (washups, SWAT), strategic planning, and commercial goals. This framework provides the guardrails needed to turn creative ideas into repeatable, impactful campaigns.

Amazon's CCO explains that at an agency, creativity is the core product. In-house, it's just one business function among many. This requires a humbling shift from "selling" ideas to deeply understanding the business constraints and priorities that drive decisions, moving from being listened to, to being the listener.

Many large agencies are not truly consumer-centric. Their business model incentivizes focusing on winning industry awards (like Cannes Lions), pleasing internal stakeholders, and navigating corporate politics. This creates a fundamental disconnect from where consumer attention actually is, leading to ineffective marketing spend.

The modern creator economy prioritizes immediate monetization via ads or subscriptions. The older model of patronage—direct financial support from an individual without expectation of direct ROI—can liberate creators from chasing metrics, enabling them to focus on producing high-quality, meaningful work.

The traditional client service model is flawed because it forces ambitious creatives to seek approval from clients who often have lower creative standards and care less about the outcome. This dynamic inherently limits the potential of the work.