Has There Been a Decline in Creative Quality from Digital and Social Media?
"John Anonymous," former ECD of a holding company agency, experienced the shift to digital and social media. He is now a brand consultant, advising clients on how to manage today's complex media mix.
John Anonymous. During my tenure as Executive Creative Director, I witnessed the dramatic shift in the advertising landscape as digital and social deliverables began to take precedence over traditional TV, radio and print ads. This transition marked a significant change in the creative marketing mix, where agencies had to adapt their traditional deliverables into formats suitable for digital and social media platforms.
The sheer volume and speed with which these adaptations had to be produced for digital consumption was staggering. Junior creatives, in particular, found themselves under immense pressure to deliver high quantities of work at an unprecedented pace. This often left little room for the deep reflection and strategizing that traditionally fueled high-quality creative output.
Michael Farmer. Do you think that this trend was accompanied by a decline in creative quality?
John Anonymous. Yes, absolutely. The rapid increase in workload and the shortening of timelines did impact creative quality. The focus shifted towards quantity over quality, with a need to produce multiple versions of content for different platforms. This led to a more fragmented and less cohesive creative vision. Agencies increased their adaptability and responsiveness, but the depth and richness of individual creative pieces surely suffered.
Michael Farmer. What about measurability of results?
John Anonymous. The rise of platforms and technology that allowed real-time measurement and analytics pushed brands to divert money into areas where the impact could be easily measured. Performance marketing became the go-to strategy because it provided clear attribution. Attribution is every CMO’s best friend, but too often it came at the cost of the deep, engaging work that marketers need to drive brand sales. Just because something is measurable does not mean that it is effective.
Michael Farmer. Do you think that advertising became less effective during this shift?
John Anonymous. Yes, advertising became less effective, but there were other factors, like e-commerce and changes in consumer behavior. The proliferation of digital platforms and the fragmentation of audiences made it more difficult for advertisers to reach their target consumers effectively. Moreover, the rise of ad-blockers and consumer resistance to traditional advertising required marketing responses that were more authentic than what was being developed and promulgated. The emphasis on performance marketing and measurable outcomes overshadowed the importance of genuine brand-building efforts that drive long-term sustainable growth. Although performance marketing provides immediate results, it can lead to short-term thinking and an over-reliance on tactics that may not build brand equity or growth.
Michael Farmer. What advice would you give Creative Directors who are sticking it out in the agency world? Do you think that they can get their mojo again?
John Anonymous. Creative Directors need to advocate for the time and space needed to produce high-quality work. That cannot be done when agencies are paid for guesses at man-hours — and unknown quantities of creative work are dumped into Scopes of Work. Creative quality and agency remuneration go hand in hand — the industry needs a change in its pricing philosophy in order to unleash great creativity once again. Once this is done, Creative Directors will be able to find a healthy balance between meeting the demands for quick turnarounds and maintaining the integrity of brand-building creativity.
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John Anonymous has a few valid points, though he sounds like a crusty agency guy longing for the past. "Depth and richness of individual creative pieces" as the main output is great for captive audiences on a couple of TV networks and forced-exposure 30-second cinematic video ads. Which people still don't want to watch, most of the time. That's the past. Why does a world with more environments to connect with consumers necessarily mean loss of creative? There are more creative options in which to create the magical cocktail of audience, creative and media context -- with more personalization. The "new creative" is orchestration of all of these ingredients, not just a few "individual creative pieces". Sure, creative has had its own challenges with scaling (not necessarily linear), though the tools to support creative execution at scale, at high quality, are emerging quickly (i.e., GenAI and much more). This is not the end of creative quality, this is only the beginning of a richer world! The definition of creative quality is changing, and hopefully it will be judged not on intuition of ad tirekickers, but of validated measurement. Separate related topic: Why do ad creative people shun data so often? Why do attribution systems (i.e.. MMMs) omit creative and creative quality 99.9% of the time when the creative has disproportionate influence the sales outcomes of campaigns?
Cheers!
- Max