What is the number one quality you look for in talent?
Curiosity. A curious mind is the irreplaceable quality in a creative. Our job mostly comes down to, “how can I say or do this differently?” And on some level, you have to be a curious person to think that way. Also, unless you’re working in-house for a single brand, the nature of advertising is that you’re going to be working for clients across a lot of different industries, many of which you’re probably unfamiliar with. To really understand their business, you have to be inclined to dig into the details, ask questions, and find little nuggets of truth no one else noticed. That’s where the gold is. With enough effort and hard work, just about anyone can learn craft. But you can’t teach curiosity. It’s innate.
What is something the industry isn’t paying attention to that they should?
The power of emotional connections. It’s what changes minds, builds brands, and creates lasting value over time. I think the industry’s almost fetish-like, hyperfocus on technology has been to its detriment. At its core, advertising is about persuasion and changing perceptions and behaviors. You can’t do that by simply bombarding people with the equivalent of windshield fliers. You do it through high-attention media that makes people feel something. And a lot of digital media channels aren’t conducive to conveying emotion. It’s not that I think technology is unimportant. I just believe the balance of our attention is out of whack. I wish we could take a month off from talking about using AI as a means to an end and talk instead about how AI can be used to make a piece of communication more impactful.
What are you most proud of in the last 12 months?
I wrote my first book, due out February 11. It’s titled Zombie Brands: How brands lost their humanity—and how they can regain their appeal in the age of AI. It explains why so many brands today seem so lifeless and dull, and what can be done about it. As a creative director working in New York, I’ve had a front-row seat for the tectonic shifts in our industry that have led us to this unhappy place. And a significant development over the past 10-15 years, one that is rarely discussed, has been the broad shift away from fame to targeting.
Brands used to aspire to make themselves as attractive and appealing to as many people as possible. That meant they had to put a lot of effort and care into how they looked, sounded, and showed up in the marketplace. But with so much data and the collapse of mass media—along with the rise of social media and the introduction of the smartphone—marketers became seduced by the idea that all they had to do was talk directly to people who will “BUY NOW” right now. But, as I argue in the book, that approach is unsustainable. Brands like Nike and Adidas found that out the hard way. It’s not all doom and gloom, though. The book maps out a way forward: how brands can use the very same technologies that hollowed them out in the first place to regain their humanity and appeal. In the age of AI, being human will be a business advantage. It always is.
