Advertising has died. 

This happens too frequently for a funeral to be needed. Instead, this should be an occasion for unlikely optimism: a chance that what comes next will be better, evolving to match the world it exists in and offering pride to a new generation joining it.

However, we can’t sit back and assume that it will change itself for the better. We can’t just hope, we have to act so it does.

Advertising’s Creative Paradox

That’s because the worst characteristic of advertising is that it promises change but resists changing itself. It reincarnates with a striking similarity. It clings to business models. It demands flexibility while having a preference for rigidity. It has a habit of talking about potential, but often ignores its own or of those within it. 

“Advertising reincarnates with a striking similarity.”

It’s said that there is an artistic paradox, that artists always prefer their latest work at the cost of everything that came before it. Advertising is arguably the opposite. A creative paradox exists where the default is to look back in appreciation and reverence on what’s been built- while paying lip service to the future, despite rich potential to shape it. That an industry with so much creative capital often thinks in a way that inhibits genuine transformation.

Individual Strategic Optimism as a Transformative Force

While the shortcomings of the industry are collective – positive change is individual. It is on each of us to be optimistic in the face of wave upon wave of disruptive change and negativity.

We have to nurture potential around us where we find it.  The ‘better’ in advertising and marketing is out there amongst us, it just isn’t evenly distributed. We have to plan to not just celebrate it, but amplify it, repurpose it and build on it. 

“The key to this is strategy. It turns isolated executions into sustainable approaches.” 

An inspiring creative execution. An insight that inspires understanding. A brand that we wish we built. An analysis that reframes how to think of the world. Each is a tool for optimism and improvement through strategic thinking. Strategy is the enabler of the optimism we need. A plan that makes hope more actionable. 

Creativity and craft are its indispensable partners, but they won’t do it alone. 

Creatives are problem solvers by default. However, creativity is often more evolutionary than revolutionary. It naturally builds out in every direction and with looming technology – it is also primed to behave more like a glacier than lightning. It can be overwhelmed by the breadth of problems it tries to address.

While creativity often moves outward, strategy can relocate it to new places. It can transform an idea into new formats and shift it to new audiences, turning the creative glacier into an avalanche by paradoxically stretching it and focusing it. 

Reimagining Strategy as a Discipline

You may doubt that strategy can do this. It may seem too weak in today’s industry. Too ponderous. Strategy may not seem fit for purpose, but that is a failure of how we’ve defined it. 

Slow strategy. Introspective strategy. Rigid strategy. Buzz words and disconnection. Any more chat about ‘data killing creativity’. Each must die with this iteration of advertising. 

The next iteration of advertising requires a new iteration of strategy. Empathy and understanding of people. Adaptation. Perspective. Objectivity. Innovative Research. A realistically broad definition of what ‘data’ means beyond spreadsheets. These are at the heart of the strategy we need. 

Ideas need strategy to flourish and optimism to show their potential. Strategic optimism isn’t just the partner of effective creativity – it is the infrastructure for impactful imagination and change.

Strategically Investing Optimism

Being strategically optimistic in today’s landscape recognizes optimism and effort are resources – which we need to invest wisely. It means recognizing what can change and staying optimistic while recognizing what can’t. 

It means looking at an industry that faces a disconnect between business model and output, agency mergers, looming waves of redundancy, thousand application job posts, an AI that always says ‘yes’ and a computer that says ‘no’ – and finding the components of a plan amongst them. 

It requires resisting the banal drone of ‘enshittification’, ‘mehvertising’ or ‘the averaging of everything’ conversations. It views each of these as tired distractions from meaningful discourse – quagmires for progress. 

It means acknowledging that we can discuss work constructively, not blindly cheering it or condemning constructive criticism – especially when more and more of our industry brethren will be left with no way to promote themselves between briefs except for ‘thought leadership’.  

It means acknowledging that green screen TikToks, Substack essays, and deeply researched reports are all distinct, valid, strategic acts—each contributing to a new way of thinking in an industry that is increasingly remote and decentralized.

It means simultaneously acknowledging the potential and risks of AI. Exiling the ‘see it failed’ and ‘look it has 6 fingers’ retorts alongside blind enthusiasm ignoring its costs – shifting towards strategic exploration and use. 

It requires accepting that AI content can still have a point and that it gives a voice to more people. That the cost to our feed is less than the cost of losing someone’s contribution. That scouring posts for ‘em dashes’ and ‘rocket emojis’ often keeps us from finding a valid point trying to be shared. 

The Thing With Teeth

It requires dogged positivity and urgency, the gap between where we are and where the industry could be.

That  changes in the  industry today, from a retreat away from idealism to questioning the value of diversity or shirking ESG commitments – can be countered with understanding and clarified with strategic thinking. That their value, like all good ideas, must be protected through strategy. 

It requires recognizing that if, as Dickenson said, ‘Hope is the thing with feathers’, then optimistically, strategy can be ‘the thing with teeth’.