Most human adoption follows a sigmoid (S) curve driven by social proof and habit. Companies that kill promising products like Google Glass too early fail to understand this. They expect linear, overnight success and lack the patience for the slower initial phase of the curve.
The word 'creativity' alienates business leaders who want better, more effective solutions, not just artistic ones. Focusing on competence, common sense, empathy, and imagination builds more trust and positions marketing as a core problem-solving function.
The greatest value from advertising professionals is their unique approach to problem-solving. This thinking should be applied to core business challenges like pricing, product, and customer experience, repositioning the industry's value beyond just communications.
Businesses often waste resources on expensive technical solutions when a cheaper psychological fix would solve the root problem. For instance, reducing a customer's 'range anxiety' for an EV is more cost-effective than physically increasing the battery's range.
The engineering-driven view of advertising (e.g., from Musk or Zuckerberg) optimizes for last-touch attribution and immediate ROI. This model is flawed because it ignores the crucial, long-term brand building that made a customer consider the product in the first place.
For products that rely on social contagion, market penetration should be geographically concentrated. Seeing multiple neighbors adopt a product is a more powerful purchase trigger than having more customers spread out thinly, as it creates visible momentum and trust.
Instead of the traditional client-brief model, production companies could leverage AI to speculatively create brilliant ads, then sell the finished products at industry events, transforming places like Cannes from an awards show into a trade fair.
Demanding a step-by-step logical justification for every new idea prevents exploration of truly innovative solutions. This process inherently limits a company to the same 15-20% of the solution space that competitors, using the same logic, are also exploring.
Be wary of technologies that seem like a convenient choice at first, like parking apps. Once they demonstrate cost savings for the provider, the old method is often eliminated, forcing adoption on everyone and removing user choice.