Confessions of a senior creative on why advertising can’t let originality die

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity. 

You said there’s no originality in advertising anymore. What makes you say that? 

Everyone is obsessed with trends. When I started out in advertising, I started outside of this country. I remember one time my art director and I came up with this really cool [idea]. We spoke to our creative director about it. He looked at it and he said, “Look online, make sure this hasn’t been done. If it hasn’t been done, ‘Congratulations’.” Doing your homework and being aware of what was going on around you [was so important when I started]. We went online, spent about 30 minutes and then we found the idea. It had been done. We’re just like, that’s it. You’re not making that anymore. [That was the mentality. But that’s not the case anymore.]

What makes you say that? 

A lot of shops, you’re in meetings and you see people presenting [ideas that have been done], award-winning work that Nike did or some other agency did. This has been done but the response is always like, “Yeah, but we can do it differently.” Or we can find another way. People raise concerns but they aren’t bothered. 

What’s the issue with that mentality? 

For me, the reason why you want to be original is because this is what separates you. If originality was not a factor, then your clients wouldn’t need you. They can just go directly to the vendor. They can just take a famous campaign from the awards archive and be like, “Oh, this is cool. We think it will work for our brand, and you get someone to make it.” 

The whole point — a huge percentage of what we do is the fact that we come up with shit that is fresh and people look at it and they’re like, “Oh, we never thought about it this way.”

So, to you, without originality client’s won’t need agencies. 

[You should want] to get better. At your research, for one. And two, if you’re coming up with an idea that’s been done 34 times, then maybe you should be doing that idea. Go back to strategy and data. The ability of your audience being able to retain the work that you’re doing [should matter]. If you show them work that they’ve seen before, then your clients and your message is gonna get lost because they’ve seen it before. It’s going to get lost in the mix. That is another reason to be original. 

The complaint of lack of originality isn’t new for advertising. That’s a complaint that comes up regularly. Though, I did hear it more around this year’s Super Bowl. What’s different now? What makes you think the lack of originality is worse?

[One issue is the awards shows.] Where I start to get concerned is when iconic campaigns get remade years later and the agency is able to come out and say, “Hey, we just won a Grand Prix for this work.” They get all these accolades and clients based [who they work with] on those awards. But it is work that has been done before. There are so many versions of this when you start to pay attention to award shows. I think a little bit of this is because we are losing expertise on award show juries. … We need to bring in people that actually know they work.

I just feel like a big part of the industry is you being passionate about it and you caring about the work. I’ve sat down in interviews with CCOs that tell me they don’t care about advertising. But they are CCOs in this industry. I just feel like that is why when we start to talk about the Super Bowl commercials not being the best of the work this period or Christmas has not been great, [that’s the issue].

Lack of originality, if true as you’re saying, coming at a time when everyone is obsessed with AI and looking to cut budgets given the economy, isn’t great. Wouldn’t that make people more obsessed with originality? 

It should. You would think so. I think AI is a part of the conversation. When you push back on the importance of originality in a brainstorm or in ideation [to say it’s not important], you are basically giving power to people that do not do what we do to be able to take money off your plate. [If originality doesn’t matter], then it becomes easy to go to an AI company and tell them you want to build an ad that is like the [Volvo] “Epic Split.” You want your version of it and they can do that because you no longer care about the importance of originality. So I think we’re kind of shooting ourselves in the foot for lack of a better way to say it.

What do you wish the industry understood when it comes to the importance of originality?

It’s almost like we’re burying ourselves. If you remove originality and you lessen the importance of originality in the work that we make, then we democratize the work that we do. There is less reason to work with agencies. There’s less reason for Beyonce to take her haircare brand to Wieden + Kennedy if she can just take it to a single person that operates AI and has a great director by their side. They no longer need to go to agency brands for this. Then there’s going to be a need for less of us and there will only a CCO and an ECD that’s making the work. The whole point of internships, ad schools and hiring from the ground up is we’re bringing in people with fresh perspectives, with a fresh way of looking at things. But we are no longer allowing for that. 

What should the industry do to push the originality? 

We can start to push the importance at award shows. If award shows just did their due diligence around work and just held out work that had been done before. Part of it is award shows just like growing a platform and not thinking about it. You make yourself more prestigious if you don’t take in work that has been done before, but right now we are not doing that. It’s like very clear.