Nick Snelling: Creatives are an endangered species
Written by Nick Snelling, freelance creative director, senior copywriter and author with illustrations by Dean Mortensen.
Bad news just in: Creativity is no longer a uniquely human trait. A new study proves AI is now performing in the top percentile for originality and fluidity of idea-generation.
In recent months you will have spotted a spate of bravely optimistic op-eds popping up in trade press which set out to address the growing encroachment upon advertising by the Great Pulsating All-Consuming Amoeboid we know affectionately as ‘AI’. Penned by the usual gallery of creative agency head-honchos, these thought-pieces more or less trumpet the same stoic line: “Chin up, folks. Artificial intelligence shall NEVER replace the likes of us!”
Nice sentiment. Alas, a quick scroll through the Find-A-Finder’s-Fee community on Facebook — once a reliable noticeboard for picking up freelance gigs — reveals the palpable sense of desperation out there. The forum has devolved into an endless hellscape of cracked earth dotted by the odd sun-blasted skeleton, as seasoned creatives snatch greedily at whatever morsels they can scavenge. Job listings are few. People spruiking their creative chops are many.
Not that this grim state of affairs has dissuaded any of the aforementioned pep-talks: “True creativity,” the agency rockstars continue to expound with a sideways glance, dry gulp and uneasy titter, “is a fundamentally human virtue. If brands hope to unearth real insights and dream up culture-changing ideas, then our unique meat-based brains remain indispensable. Sure, AI might disrupt a few things, but fear not. At the end of the day, it’s just another cool tool we have to fold into our skillset.”
The problem with such stirring stump-speeches is that they not only ring a little self-serving but are patently false. Creativity is no longer the sole purview of humans in the way we like to believe. Certainly not according to a new experiment conducted by a clinical professor named Dr Erik Guzik at the University of Montana in June this year.
The good professor roped two dozen of his unsuspecting undergraduates into taking the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking. For Frankensteinian shits ’n’ giggles, he got ChatGPT-4 to undergo the same test. To be clear, the AI’s bots did not have prior access to either the TTCT test or its judging criteria as it was proprietary material and not available anywhere online. Which means that ChatGPT could not cheat. After submitting the AI engine to the exam eight times — and comparing it against tests taken by another 2,700 human guinea pigs in 2016 — Guzik and his colleagues then engaged the Scholastic Testing Service to independently assess the results.
Scarily, ChatGPT-4 ranked in the highest 1% of test-takers. To quote the media release: “The AI application was in the top percentile for ‘fluency’ — the ability to generate a large volume of ideas — and for ‘originality’ — the ability to come up with new ideas. The AI slipped a bit to the 97th percentile for ‘flexibility’, the ability to generate different types and categories of ideas.”
Now, before you scoff… I was sceptical, too. First off, it’s one study. Secondly, these were entrepreneurship students not professional creatives. Thirdly, one doubts either the TTCT or the Scholastic Testing Service’s methodology for scrutinising good ideas vs shit ones were as brutal as either:
- a) an ECD judging Award School for the first time, or;
- b) that jaded client who hates everything, or;
- c) an embittered creative whose primary pastime is to anonymously shit-can every other agency’s TVCs in the Campaign Brief
No one is suggesting the TTCT could hold a torch to any of the above. No, sir. Nor is Sam Altman’s semi-sentient LLM close to skittling the D&AD awards and returning home with a quiver of golden pencils… yet. Even so, this is sobering news for anyone who self-identifies as a creative. And to claim otherwise is to join the ranks of those old chess grandmasters or former Go champions who both once snorted, “Bah… a mere machine will never be able to conquer me at my game!”
Still not worried? Here’s an anecdote. I held my nose the other day and went on LinkedIn, thumbing through the tedious ‘thunk-leadership’ pieces and clumsy humble-brags, only to be greeted by a paid post for a new AI-powered product (which I refuse to name) that promised to ‘automate creativity’. Yes, I repeat: AUTOMATE CREATIVITY. Oxymoronic much? As a proposition, it seems almost satirical… until you try uttering it with a Dalek voice, and then it’s just terrifying. But what dismayed me far more was the unspooling toilet roll of comments below the post — mostly by folks sporting titles like ‘Head of Marketing’ or ‘Head of Brand’ — expressing genuine interest in the product.
At this point, anyone working in advertising has to consider the fate of another great creative endeavour – music. It’s a safe bet there were plenty of musicians who once similarly poo-poohed the ridiculous suggestion their craft could ever be made redundant: “Nah, I wouldn’t fret over this whole streaming trend. Real music-lovers prefer the physical, tactile experience. Fans want to admire the artwork. Read the lyrics. Pore over the liner notes to learn who mixed, produced and played which part. Our gift of song is too special. Too profound an articulation of the shared human experience for it to be cast aside. People will always value real music…”
Well, we all know how that story ended. Sure, there’s still good music to be found, but most people don’t ascribe any value to the artform itself anymore. Certainly not beyond their $12.99 per month Spotify subscription, of which only an infinitesimally tiny percentage goes back to the musicians who pen the songs we all profess to love. As for liner notes? Pffft… no one gives a rat’s proverbial.
All of which is why, sadly, it seems kinda deluded to be soapboxing about how marketers must “celebrate and nurture human creativity” when the canary in the coal mine isn’t just dead, it’s fully mummified. And especially when such noble proclamations seem predicated on the naïve assumption that our clients — not to mention the overwhelming majority of consumers — genuinely value ‘real stuff’ over ‘artificial stuff’.
Do they? Do they really? Does anyone?
Take a look around. The artificial abounds…
We eat fake food. Read fake news. Watch fake sex. Wear fake hair. Fake lips. Fake tits. Fake nails. Fake teeth. Play with fake money in artificially sustained economies. Gaze into our fake little portable oracles lit by fake blue light. Follow fake people with fake lives and fake faces altered by fake filters pulling fake smiles on their fake Insta-sham accounts.
Even music—that quintessential human art—is becoming increasingly artificial, and we still pour it down our earholes. The use of Pro Tools and pitch-correction software is now so ubiquitous in modern sound production that every note, every chord, every beat is dragged into perfect time and perfect key. Ask yourself when was the last time you heard free-time in a song, much less a slightly bum note that somehow still worked? Music is now digitally clinical. Even so-called acoustic instruments are laid out against the same rigid grid. Terms like ‘groove’, ‘swing’ and ‘feel’ – once defined by their flexible, elastic relationship with time — are rarely present in music the way they once were. Meanwhile, there would be very few centennials kids who can even detect when a singer’s voice has been artificially tuned. Nor would they care. The glassy sheen that distorts most vocal tracks these days is so commonplace that the majority of younger listeners now assume this is how the human voice sounds.
All those small flaws, those perfect imperfections that once gave music its ‘human-ness’, are being smoothed away. Character cleansed. Soul scrubbed. And all this before the latest trend of deep-fake abominations started popping up all over YouTube, whereby iconic, long-dead singers are digitally resurrected to perform uncannily believable covers of modern songs. Are the likes of Frank Sinatra, Freddie Mercury, Whitney Houston, Amy Winehouse, Kurt Cobain or Chris Cornell turning in their graves? No, because the indignity is far worse than that – they’re being fully disinterred and strung up as all-singing, all-dancing marionettes. Unsurprisingly, the so-called fans not only applaud this parade of AI facsimiles performing undead karaoke but demand more.
In much the same way it is only a matter of time before our feeds are inundated with feature films assembled entirely by AI. Hell, you could make a solid argument most Hollywood blockbusters are already fake. Green screens, virtual production and CGI are embraced by every superhero flick or sci-fi franchise you care to name, and it hasn’t deterred throngs of people from packing out cinemas. Is it at all reasonable to believe that the masses won’t flock to an AI-generated movie that slavishly hits every archetypal story-beat simply because it wasn’t first dreamed up by a human being?
Quite rightly, directors, scriptwriters, actors and cinephiles have expressed horror at this inevitable tsunami of AI-hallucinated dreck. They’re striking en masse over it right now. If a film is not created by a fellow human being who has something real to say about the human condition, they protest, then how can it be true cinema? I, for one, agree with them. But I am one in a dwindling minority.
Let’s face it, we dig fake stuff. We prefer the artificial over the real. It’s cheap and it’s fast. And just as all of us so easily betrayed the musicians who made the music we love, we will also forget the film-makers who once made the great movies. Just as we will forget the painters and illustrators and cartoonists and visual artists who once graced our walls or beautified our spaces. Because, thanks to the onslaught of Midjourney, everyone is now a finished artist.
My point is, unlike the beloved arts of music or cinema, no one feels any residual loyalty to advertising nor its professional creatives.
In case I come across as some angry old man shaking his fist at GPU-powered cloud platforms, I’m really not. Nor am I the stubborn luddite who refuses to upskill in AI. It’s true I choose to veto ChatGPT out of some threadbare sense of principle, but I regularly use Midjourney. I’ve even become pretty damn good at it. It sucks for storyboarding, but if you get your prompts right it can be great for bringing concepts to life in a creative pitch. And consequently, I now commission waaay less illustration jobs than I ever used to.
Hypocrite, you say? Guilty as charged…
But how long do you think amazingly talented artists like Dean Mortensen — who not only illustrated the pieces you see in this article but who is considered a legend within our industry — will survive once Midjourney and its ilk can knock out fully detailed storyboards with consistent characters and properly composed frames?
Like it or not, Dean is next. I am next. You are next. Creatives are an endangered species (and we’re nowhere near as cute as koalas, so don’t expect NRMA to swoop in and save you). As much as we like to believe we hold the monopoly or moral high-ground on creativity and cool ideas, we don’t and we won’t for much longer. Right now — as you’re reading these words — AI is scraping the web, studying our work, and learning how every single one of us cracks a brief, solves a problem, writes a slogan, designs a key visual, pens a script or sells an idea.
And once it has, then it will be better than all of us combined. Forever.
Check. Fucking. Mate.
By all means, keep telling ourselves that our agencies are ‘all-natural’. Proudly staffed entirely by organic, homegrown, hand-crafted, artisanal, free-trade intelligences. That we eschew artificial smarts for the old-school, salt-of-the-earth, turd-flinging primate kind, because it’s the real deal, maaan. But the realist in me doubts whether clients or consumers will give two shits for too long.
AI is coming for us all. And with it a cultural wasteland of flickering light and sound optimised via predictive analytics and machine learning to keep us entranced. Bedazzled. Swaddled within our customised digital utopias and always, always consuming. But ultimately empty. Soulless. Bereft of any true meaning.
Until then, I guess I’ll see you out there. Busking with the musos and the mimes on the corner. Flick us some change, if you can spare it. We have kids to feed.
Nick Snelling is a freelance creative director, senior copywriter and author. Dean Mortensen is an illustrator and storyboard artist. Both are considering investing in a Video Ezy franchise.
92 Comments
the dude can write alright, give him that much. I REALLY hope he’s wrong, but yeah he can definitely write. the pics are fun too!
probably not intended but this guy manages to disprove his own point. I’ve tried Chat GPT plenty, and there is no way it could write as good as this. Great article!
makes a good point. if this is true about ai, then we are all screwed. career change anyone?
It’s about time someone called out all the false positivity in advertising about what AI will mean for all our jobs. Peoples heads are in the sand. This is a very funny read, but a pretty dark one. Nice work with the illustrations. Helped lighten the mood a lot.
If you’ve tried to get it to write ad copy then you’ll be relieved that it combines the world’s shittest ad copy into a melange of cliched vomit.
The bad news is that it’s improved month on month, and is improving to where there won’t be a noticeable point where it overtakes us because it’ll leave us behind faster than you can say SkyNet.
Chat GTP is currently awful at writing ads. It knows the shape of ‘advertising’ but is, at the moment, at super-cliche level. But given enough time it seems inevitable it will be able to what we do, and in the shorter term it will be able to create the average work that we see on Tv everyday – the work clients seem to either want or more likey accidentally end up with because they either employ the wrong agencies or force their agency in to mediocre results, or direct them to a position which they think they want but then realise, when its too late, isn’t great.
One of the best articles I’ve read about AI. Bravo.
For further reading check out Life 3.0 by Max Tegmark in which he predicted all this and how far it’s going to go.
Agreed 100%. tegmark is all over it. Same for yuval noah harari and sam harris etc. This shit has been coming for a while. oh well, guess it was fun while it lasted. sort of.
Reading this, a small part of me wondered if Campaign Brief are simply joshing us, and the entire thing was really written and illustrated by AI. Now that would be impressive, but also probably make me quit my job.
Seriously, if this bloke can pen ad copy as well as he writes crushingly funny op-eds for Campaign Brief, then someone PLEASE give the man a gig. Slightly jealous I must say, as that was a killer read. Also, how good to see the mighty Dean Mortenson flex on the illustrations? Always my number one pick for storyboarding any spot. What a combo!
not to be controversial for the sake of it, but i prefer midjourney to this old school comic-book style of drawings any day.
do we just give up? is that the solution? i thought advertising was about solving problems, not whinging about them.
really well-written, but what does the picture of Video Ezy and the big Netflix OOH sign got to do with AI?
amazing read, funny pictures. been thinking this exact thing for a while now, so glad to see it finally put to print. hope our industry takes note!
Nick Snelling on the marks. Even though you make it all sound a little bit sexy in an apocalyptic way.
All of the posturing in AdLand around gender parity, misogyny, yes/no votes, death to white creatives, ageism and the like are all kids stuff compared to the future of AI.
This brilliant piece highlights the truth, and how we are all distracted by culture wars, click bait, and squabbling over things that matter for nought when we are driving our entire industry, and its people (he/she/them/white/black/brown/yellow) into oblivion at our own hands.
Wake up people. Get out. Do something else. Seriously. Start now or you will be unrequited when AI does EVERYTHING.
… but couldn’t think of anything. Excellent wordplay. Clever illustrations. Damning predictions.
I know its meant to be a joke, but reproducing that old meme of the guy leering at the other girl is a bit off, don’t you think?
Thanks for your incisive contribution. We were all secretly waiting and hoping for somebody super-woke like you to eventually weigh in with such an insightful observation and wield your feminist broomstick. I’m sure both the writer and the illustrator are really closet misogynists and chose to satirise this popular internet meme specifically to trigger you, but thankfully you rose to the bait and exposed them. Golf clap.
Nice piece. Nailed it. I’ll be sharing this one.
As a tragic Doctor Who fan, I would have really loved it if Dean drew the picture of the Dalek shrieking ‘AUTOMATE CREATIVITY!!!’ that the piece references. Is it too late, Dean? Missed opportunity. But overall, what an entertaining article. More, please!
Very funny take on a very bleak situation we’re all facing. In particular, i really loved the line “Frankensteinian shits ’n’ giggles”. for some reason it made me splutter in hilarity as I was sucking on a beer after work reading this. What a lovely turn of phrase.
My ecd is guilty of writing one of the same ‘no need to stress about AI’ articles that this piece is poking fun at. Too funny. Also, his was NOT as good as this. Nowhere near.
Love to know what it is that is the greatest worry about AI – in advertising.
Worried about losing your job? Poor us. Poor you.
Change has always been part of the landscape. Change is what makes this game fun.
AI helps me in my job (as a suit) everyday.
As a result of AI, I get more free time to attend to my clients personally, and focus on selling in great work (Is that irony)?
Well written article, sure, but more hubris and vanity than anything else.
So, you admit to being a suit who uses chat GPT to compose client comms? How admirable. Did your own impending obsolescence never occur to you?
As for asking what on earth creatives in advertising have to be worried about, then why hire a junior copywriter when AI does a better job? Why hire a junior art director? Why hire an account manager for that matter?
It sounds like you haven’t really thought that far ahead. But then again, as a suit, perhaps empathy is not your strong suit?
Hubris and vanity? How so? In the words of the great Inigo Montoya… “That word? I do not theeeenk it means, what you theeenk it means.”
Booking meetings. Remembering coffee orders. Contact reports. Mining insights. Chasing invoices. Timesheets. Workflow management. Most importantly, generating positive astroturf on Campaign Brief.
Print is dead, radio is dead, TV is dead and now creativity is dead?! I think not, agencies maybe, but not creatives or creativity for that matter. AI is great when prompted well, the word ‘prompted’ being extremely important in this sentence.
Honestly, how creative agencies will even be a thing in the future, I just can’t see it. Single creatives who’ve mastered every aspect of AI, yes. But agencies or even production agencies, nope. Ads will be made in talent people’s bedrooms, not offices. You can say its not going to happen, but its inevitable.
i don’t know nick at all, but its clear he’s a superbly talented writer. i actually bought his funny children’s book Barebum Billy for my kids a while back, and it’s still their favourite at bedtime. it’s very, very funny and quite out there. On a whim, I also bought his fantasy novel the wyvern & the wolf for my husband but i ended up reading it first. I have to say, its amazing. Brutal and dark, but so beautifully written. A bit like this article, i suppose. haha!
cool piece and very timely. nicely strung sentences too, if thats your bag. But c’mon… a moment of appreciation for the illustrator here. Dean’s a bloody gun. There’s a reason why every agency in Oz uses the guy for storyboards. A round of applause, pls?
Strat is also not needed now that chat GP does all the work for them.
Are you kidding? No strategist worth his or her salt would rely on AI to write strategy, and if they do, then I feel sorry for the creatives in your agency.
When AI spits out a Graham, Palau Pledge, Flip/Pitvertising, NRMA Until Then, Check you Balls, Bonds Balls, KFC Hidden Menu or FitChix we can give up. Until that date, let’s invest in great creative talent, ideas and client relationships.
You’re right in that creativity is about making unlikely connections work. Currently, the sorts of big, winning tentpole ideas you’ve listed here would be impossible for AI to arrive at now because it simply doesn’t have the human or cultural or physical context to make those connections. But give it time, and it will. All those examples are probably being fed into the machine as we speak, so AI will learn how to apply those connections more laterally. In the meantime, more and more grunt advertising work – like writing social copy or basic design stuff – that sustains the industry and is it’s bread and butter is being siphoned off by AI. Work that might have otherwise gone to younger creatives. What happens to them? They never get to become the midweights or CDs who come up with the big flashy ideas you’re talking about. So simply pouting ‘let’s invest in creative talent, ideas and client relationships’ rings a little hollow, sorry.
Pretty sure AI could’ve come up with NRMA Until Then as long as it had access to youtube, given it was already done by Bangkok Insurance in 2015:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMyhAnzITEI
Even still, ChatGPT could spit out ‘A man designed to survive a car crash’ but it takes a real people to:
Identify that being a good idea
Sell it in to the client
Shift budgets to make it happen
Craft the idea and deciding every decision that goes along with that
Then finally, slagging the idea on CB.
Creatives aren’t going anywhere. We just need to learn that great ideas can come from not just anyone but anywhere, and it takes real people to turn ideas into actuals things.
On a side note: I think AI will impact numbers – Big agencies may soon be considered 150ppl. Small agencies 15-20.
@ECD you sound a lot like that guy…. whathisname again? … ah that’s it… Captain Edward John Smith… Look him up.
Thanks Champ. Have a read of my comment. We have amazing creative talent in this country and until the machines take over, let’s nurture them or better still, train them on how to get the best out of AI. The more creative the input, the more spectacular the output. Plus, i’ve been doing this long enough to remember sitting in scores of digital presentations where people walk in play “The revolution will not be televised” as they decry the death of film. And, we aren’t going to be living in a legless metaverse any time soon as we sell our soul as an NFT. Is AI a fad, no. Is the iceberg in our path. Maybe. Can we navigate through it as we have done for decades. Yes.
Circle-jerk
For all the champions of AI know this.
It isn’t progress. It isn’t a new piece of tech you need to get behind.
AI isn’t curing disease or solving economic crisis because it isn’t being asked to.
Creativity costs too much. Artists cost too much. This is what those in power believe.
It is progress only so much as Uber was progress. Or AirBnb.
The solution has been happening in LA the last 4 months. You either unite or get left behind.
Brands don’t value your creativity. Brands don’t care about stories involving the human condition that only another human could write.
It will happen in Advertising first.
Film and Television won’t be far behind.
I agree with @ECD. If you want to churn out a mediocre script that feels derivative, or write some caption copy or basic headlines, AI has a place. As for unexpected, inspiring through the line conceptual thinking that caters for all the annoying things within a client brief – that’s where you need human creative ingenuity. Who knows, it might get to a point where it can literally do everything. But I think that’s a fair way off. Embrace it as a tool, sure. But if you’re a decent creative who prides themselves on original, multi channel ideas, then no need to worry just yet.
Home Taping Is Killing Music. Again.
If you’re seriously asking that, just give up now. AI is ready to take your job today.
Methinks this might be cutting a little too close to home for a lot of us. Time to consider a career change, anyone?
This is very well written. A lovely article. But i’d just point something out in regards to AI. AI is great, it’s innovating at speed. It will indeed surpass all of us at one point. We have given birth to our successor. However, at its current state, and for the foreseeable future (I’m 26 so not for the next 50-100 years) AI will not understand right from wrong. The ability to have a psychological compass of values and perspective, is a very, very unique to the human experience. It is an intelligence of something deeper. Ideas are formed by our ability to pin two unexpected “things” together that are unrelated and create something new. Then we decide whether our creation is right or wrong. Until AI can do this we will be left in the dust, but as a race, not just as creatives. If you think CEO’s will be safe from this we are sincerely misunderstood. The human race will cease to exist as we know it.
I did touch on the topic ten years ago…
https://dingosbreakfast.wordpress.com/2012/12/03/you-work-in-advertising-are-you-sure/
The problem as I see it, and as this piece spells out rather bleakly, is that creatives actually still believe we’re special. It’s part of our conditioning. We grow up being told we’re so creative and imaginative all our lives, and then we do award school and that only reinforces the belief we’re somehow special because we think differently to others. And then we move through the industry, picking up awards if we’re lucky. Meanwhile our whole sense of identity remains tied to being more creative or artistic than others. But it’s all just ego. Because now that AI has come along, it threatens to shatter that illusion… and from what I can see here, lots of people here just cannot accept that. They refuse to accept it. And I get it, because it really stings to be confronted with the reality of your own redundancy. As much as I want to believe all this talk of investing in young creatives and smart ideas or fostering strong client relationships is the solution, it just isn’t going to work in the long term. If the study cited in this article is accurate, then AI will soon be too strong. Nor is it likely to be decades away. More like a few years at best. So, with deep reluctance, I have to side with the author of this piece, as pessimistic an outlook as they might have. There’s really, really scary times ahead for all of us, and I feel immense sympathy for all those just starting out in advertising who imagine they’re going to be the next heroes of our industry. They aren’t. No one is.
“I held my nose the other day and went on LinkedIn, thumbing through the tedious ‘thunk-leadership’ pieces and clumsy humble-brags…”
Gold, Jerry. Pure gold. This guy’s a funny bugger.
but just remember that as AI gets smarter it also gets dumber https://www.platformer.news/p/the-ai-is-eating-itself
How depressing
An enjoyably grim read, but in my experience, it’s less ChatGPT or Midjourney we need to worry about and more the pervading trend of ageism within advertising. I see lots and lots of woke folk harping on about diversity all the time, eager to ridicule every other agency’s perceived transgressions when it comes to casual racism or stereotyping or white cis males being overrepresented, blah blah blah, but they’re remarkably nonchalant when it comes to the most glaring prejudice this industry is guilty of every single day. Ageism is alive and well, and no one gives a shit. Who knows, maybe AI can solve that one first for us?
You’re all missing the point. AI won’t bother getting better at ads than us – it will replace the need for ads altogether. When your little pocket oracle does your family’s online grocery shopping automatically and tells you which 3 cars you should be test driving, you don’t need fucking ads. Also, those people saying it’s just progress and we’ll up/reskill, you’re ignoring the fact that most every white collar job will go at the same time – it’s not just overpaid creative monkeys who’ll be looking. Lawyers are just as fucked. Accountants even fuckter. The world only needs so many massage therapists and lawn mowers.
So good to see this. Nick’s amazing, for the record. One of the best creatives we’ve ever hired as a freelancer. Whenever we give him a brief, he always has so many great ideas and is such a strong writer. He’s a total machine… and no, not that sort of machine. The super creative human kind. Recommend highly.
Agreed, we’re fucked. Time for a UBI – everyone needs to read the war on normal people by Andrew yang
When Kodak was shown the first shitty, grainy digital photo and went ‘yeah, nah, we’ll stick with film thanks’, they completely underestimated how quickly a new technology can develop when very well funded companies compete for a big financial prize. We all know how that turned out. But this is far worse, because in this case the competing companies have basically bottomless funding, the more the product improves the more it can be turned on improving itself further, and most of all, because it’s not just one technology being disrupted. It’s intelligence in general. To everyone saying ‘I’ve tried it and it writes shit copy’, consider that it’s a little infant at the moment. An untrained, unfocussed little baby. And, if you ask it the right way, it already writes better copy than some writers I’ve worked with. This technology is literally in its infancy – so ask yourself, how good was your copy when you were a baby? Now imagine it as a 6 year old. Like it or not, our jobs as ad creatives are not long for this world. And if you think clients are going to come to our rescue, I honestly believe that they’d get rid of the whole fucking lot of us tomorrow if there was a cheaper, quicker solution that got them 80% of the way there. Honestly, how many clients do you know who want cutting-edge, original work?
100% correct about the 80%.
Here’s a question for the naysayers.
If you owned a business and could get Ai to do an 80% good job (on 90% of the work you need) that costs you nothing, is ready in real-time and you don’t have to deal with a bunch of ad agency wankers , would you be paying some agency $100 when they they take forever and rarely get it any better than 80% good anyway?
Welcome to the photographers world – we got wiped out by idiots with phones.
It’s already happening, to a degree. Clients are going direct to creatives and loving it. They don’t want an agency. They don’t want to piss around with the 20 people between the CD doing the work and them. And thanks to years of stingy agencies insisting creatives needing to do almost everything – come up with the insight, pull the deck together, present the work, manage the client relationships and do the idea – guess what. All a creative needs is a producer. Which could very soon be AI-assisted.
As a small to medium sized agency, we had a roster of illustrators we’d call on once or twice a month to help us visualise our ideas. Can’t think of a situation in which we’d need their services again. And I like them – these are friends. But something far cheaper and (mostly) quicker has come along, so, that’s what we’re using. I guess that’s just the first domino to fall.
This makes me very sad. I don’t blame you, but it’s still a major bummer.
https://www.redrooster.com.au/careers-reds/
Amazing how we all thought that the menial jobs would go first. Turns out it’s infinitely easier for a machine to write Dumb Ways To Die than to cross a crowded floor holding a tray of martinis.
Way to give up the grift bro
Here’s a hypothetical. If the advertising creative collective in Australia would have formed a creative guild or a union back when it first was mooted (in the 90’s I think), would they have been able to strike and leverage their demands regarding AI impacting their jobs and livelihoods – in a similar way that SAG-AFTRA and AMTP have done recently in the US – and garnered at least some protection and controlled useage of AI in the creative product? Almost like a stay of execution as it were, at least in the short term…
Why I should have pursued my interest for carpentry instead of being a smart, creatively driven individual who has led global and National agencies creatively, has won all the awards, and who is now struggling to find work…but that’s not because of A.I.though…but because my hair is gray. Too experienced, too expensive…too, not up with times.
To all you youngsters looking for a career in adland, god forbid, become a tradie and reap the rewards. Strive to be the winning builders on the block, it means a lot more than a fucking Gold Cannes lion!
Yes, A.I will displace ad creatives. But this will happen within a much broader displacement of white collar work and of how we use the web. You won’t Google things. You’ll A.I. the answers. In that bigger reshuffle, what even is advertising? What is the internet? What is work? That’s the piece this piece is missing.
I’m an Australian who works at Berghs in Sweden, a communication school with a good reputation for producing great creative thinkers. We’re wrestling with these issues more than most people in the industry. It’s our job to work out the skills that young creatives need as they move into the creative industry. And we don’t have crazy clients to keep happy. So we have the time.
The way that we’re approaching it is very similar to the way Microsoft is marketing it. As a Co-Pilot. A tweet went around a while ago, “AI won’t replace your job. Someone who uses AI will replace your job”. We also subscribe to this.
But generally, the creative skillset increasingly frames and constrains a problem in conjunction with AI. These are skills that we’ve traditionally seen developed in strategists. The other thing is that working with AI means that all creatives have to become their own creative directors, decision-makers, and filters. And then problem re-framers.
The definition of creativity being a human-only thing might be best left to psychologists, philosophers and PhD candidates. It doesn’t matter for our industry. Sure, it will always be a relationship business, but we’re all people who use ideas to fix problems. We define an idea as a unique combination of new and old things that solves a specific problem. In that case, AI is well-positioned to have ideas if problems are well articulated.
Anyone who thinks AI can’t write ads might have been looking to confirm a pre-existing bias. Ask all of these AI a naive or dumb question, which will match your tone with a dumb answer. Explain a problem like a highly nuanced professional; you might be humbled by its ability.
“AI won’t replace your job. Someone who uses AI will replace your job”.
Dear Adam,
I agree with everything you say except for the above quote.
I think we cannot safely confirm that;
AI won’t replace everyone’s job, but someone who uses AI will replace lots of jobs’
It’s already happening.
Someone told me about this article yesterday and only just reading it now. Goddamm what a powerhouse and totally gutting read. The point made around how none of us value musicians any more so why should we care about ad creatives really hit home. Also the chess analogy!!!! How can anyone argue AI isn’t going to reek total havoc?? We really are screwed arent we? Why isn’t everyone sharing this to the four f&$king winds? Not sure if Im more angry or quietly devastated.
but maybe dinosaurs like this writer and his illustrator are. So sick of scare tactics like this. I graduated award school a year ago, am working in the industry and I’m all about using Ai. Saying it will replace us is dumb terminator stuff. Catch the wave or swim back to shore mate.
Hey “creatives are NOT going extinct”, what is most insightful about your critique is “I graduated award school a year ago”. Could I suggest that you listen up Junior, to people who are not so wet behind the ears.
I know it’s the CB comments and this sort of shit is almost expected, but sorry I’m just not going to let that sort of bitchy ignorant comment slide. Don’t know Nick, but I do know Dean (at least professionally)… and while he’s got his fair share of grey hair (like me), he certainly ain’t no dinosaur. Can YOU bring ideas to life or write this well? You claim you’re a creative fresh out of award school, well then you ought to show some more respect for the display of craft here at a minimum even if you don’t agree with the premise. I consider myself a seasoned copywriter and CD and I’ve got nothing but kudos for the way this is written and illustrated. It’s also tapping into a lot of what we’re all rightly worried about in the industry. Speaking of which, if any job is going to get swallowed up by AI, hate to tell you mate, but as a junior creative yours is most likely first to go.
Creativity will never go extinct. What will also never go extinct are clients and agencies trying to get creative for free. AI is a slippery slope, and I for one am very glad I’m near the end of my career.
Has the writer commented on his own blog here?
Once. Now.
Unless… they’ll ALL my comments. In which case, you already know that, because you’re me…
[roll spooky music]
Are you me? Because if you are, then you’d also know that’s really not my style.
Or perhaps I’m you, replying to my own comment directed at me. Oh dear, now I’m confused.
Besides, I kinda said all I needed to say in the piece, but now that it’s Friday arvo I can finally kick back and read some of the commentary.
(On a separate note, thanks to everyone else who commented thoughtfully rather than cynically, even the ones who disagree about the perils of AI. For what it’s worth, I genuinely hope they are right and I am wrong.)
I’m middle-aged and I feel sorry for the younger generation of creatives. Our industry is undeniably in a death spiral. It’s not just Ai’s ‘fault’. Google search and then social media threw the first 50 punches to drop us to our knees. Mix in ubiquitous access to powerful smartphones and suddenly agency creativity has been relegated to nice-to-have status. We’re not obsolete yet, but we’re heading that way. To deny it is to stick your head in the sand.
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but here’s my heartfelt tip for young creatives. Even the super clever ones. Run! Run fast to an industry that is in growth. Don’t get pulled down by an industry in decline. There are simply better things to do with your mind. And you can make more money. And enjoy better job security. And be more creative. Which will all likely add up to you being happier.
Just another freelance creative predicting the end.
Well written though.
Not sure if you recognise it, but your choice of words reveal the disdain you must hold for freelancers: “Just another freelancer…” In other words, they’re dime a dozen. An expendable resource, is that it? Low-status. Menial scum. Always complaining. Most agencies would not survive or thrive without good freelancers, mate, but you keep yawning away like they don’t matter. Bet you don’t credit them for the work either. Hate to think how you must treat your junior creatives. Sheesh.
This article is written by a person who is not a Millennial or Gen Z. I don’t think he gets it.
@what the?
Can you elucidate on what part he doesn’t get exactly, pray tell? Not just being flippant, but as an older creative myself I’d like to understand the points you say the writer is missing here? It might give me a little more hope.
Just because you work in the creative dept doesn’t mean everything you do is creative.
90% of what agencies produce is bread and butter stuff.
You might need a creative to create the big idea, the templates etc but Ai can produce the 90% of outputs that flow from that big idea. Even if you don’t think Ai can now, it’s only a matter of time before it can; or have the ‘I’m a creative and can’t be replaced’ people forgotten that ChatGPT was only launched a year ago?
About as out-of-touch as Lars Ulrich’s original testimony against Napster.
Digital music and streaming – if anything – has obviously completely revolutionised how people *listen* to music, but it has also completely revolutionised – and democratised – how people create, share, and showcase music.
Think about how many artists are now able to make a living from their music after (basically) starting in their bedroom. The endless exposure and reach of digital music allows artists to make a living from *entertaining* audiences through performances and even merchandise sales. Music is now so much more than the label-backed big album from a big band, while everyone else is completely irrelevant.
To still be moaning about “liner notes” in 2023 is frankly pathetic. Why did people read liner notes in the first place? To find out who was involved in the recording, who was thanked etc. Now you can find all that out in seconds, and spend time exploring *those* names, and the exposure cycle continues.
Anyway, back to the topic at hand. This article is a great read, and yes we should all be concerned about AI. But not in the sense of “it will take my job as a creative”. Moreso in the sense of “how do we apply brakes to this thing in general”. Because we are ALL going to have to reckon with that one.
AI could not have written that article.
It could have mimicked it. But not written it.
Maybe, maybe not. But I bet you any money by the time ChatGPT-5 rolls around, if you were to take this article and feed it into the machine, and then directed it to come back with a new article written in the exact same way except rebutting the overall gist and saying creatives have nothing to fret over, it would be note-for-note perfect. I’d be curious to see what would happen if someone did it with ChatGPT-4 as it is. It’d be pretty damn close I reckon.
Below is part of an email sent by a major marketer requesting their agency start trialling the Waymark AI ad creation tech.
Regardless of whether Waymark is great, or crap, for a lot of small [and large clients] it might be all they need/perfect for
a lot of their day to day work. And that’s a decision clients will make [or their CFO’s when you see the pricing quoted]. It
won’t be made by their ad agencies.
Waymark has signed a deal with Fox to supply its AI-based video-creation technology to 29 Fox owned-and-operated TV stations in 17 U.S. markets. Waymark’s generative-AI software tool automatically produces TV commercials and voiceovers for clients using already created assets, lowering a key barrier to entry for smaller advertisers looking to reach audiences via broadcast TV. The startup’s tools have already been deployed by Spectrum Reach, Gray Television, Beasley Media Group and Morgan Murphy Media. “Video advertising for many has been perceived as expensive and out of reach,” said Jason Sirek, VP and general sales manager for Fox-owned KMSP-TV and WFTC-TV, in a statement. “Now, this innovative product gives our local sellers a tool they can add to their arsenal to generate new business in the OTT/CTV and linear space, while helping local businesses better visualize how they can utilize the power of video to tell their story.”
@the point about musicians:
Using “out of touch” and “pathetic” in online comments is the karaoke equivalent of ‘Dancing Queen’. You just summoned the “M’lady” fedora hat guy from the meme realm to sub in as the avatar for your anonymity. It’s like credibility seppuku covered in Dorito dust. Bit of a pet peeve I have…The whole casting rocks from the shadows biz.
That said…behind every cynic is a disappointed idealist. Maybe your jabs come from genuine concern. I’ll optimistically choose to believe that.
re: Lars Ulrich being the poster boy for “out of touch”…Fitting for some critiques (e.g his drumming here: https://youtu.be/WjYvScUfAnY?si=tstCplD0qOtqnLvo&t=103), but he was surprisingly prophetic about Napster. Many in the music industry have come around to this view over the past decade…So using Lars & Napster as an “out of touch” metric is, well, ironically…A bit “out of touch”!
On “democratisation”: This term suggests a meritocratic utopia where everyone’s music gets an equal shot (I wish this were true!). But in the Spotify buffet, it’s not just croquembouches next to Vegemite sangas; it’s a world where indie artists fight for crumbs while major labels get marshmallow man Godzilla obese. Major labels’ influence on streaming platforms from equity shares to opaque deals, isn’t exactly a democracy in action. And the royalty distribution model? Instead of what everyone generally believes happens e.g. “you listen, they get paid” in a user centric model…Spotify pools funds in a pro rata model and distributes based on total streams…On their entire platform. For context; a four piece band with what is considered a “good” label deal would need over 110 MILLION streams a year for each member to earn just a 3rd of minimum wage. ONE HUNDRED MILLION song plays…Do earn a THIRD of MINIMUM WAGE!?? Does that sound like “democracy” to you???
Physical formats like vinyl and CDs, aren’t just relics of the past; they make great frisbees and they’re the music industry’s equivalent of collector’s Basketball cards. While not everyone’s trading, you can’t deny their value and many sales trends corroborate this.
AI is shaking shit up and I personally welcome it like Captain Dan challenging God in the eye of the storm…All these frogs figuring out the spa is actually a pot on the stove invigorates me. I can hear Axle Rose in his prime, “Welcome to the jungle!”
All I have to say is:
“People should do what they do, because they LOVE it…Not to make money pffft! If that’s a problem…Then like…Get a REAL JOB!“
That’s what musicians have been told for the past 20 years (Yes even the high profile ones) As the landscape shifts we’ll see who’s serving up value and who’s just taking up space…
Great writing Nick. I’ll put in a good word with the AI overlords to spare you in “the great harvest” MwAhOHAHAHA! *BEEP BOP BOOP! EXTERMINATE!*
‘People should do what they do, because they LOVE it…’ –there are still, regional and global CCO’s asking highly awarded and very experienced professional creatives to work for ‘exposure’, aka you might win at Cannes. Even if you’ve done it 20x over. They’re also asking us to ‘show us your midjourney and ChatGPT prompts’. And if these f*ckers, from highly regarded networks are doing that – just wait until the algorithm takes their job. Advertising is a race to the bottom. Which team you’re on is up to you.
“Creatives” are people who decided that the term “creative” is a class of people who sit on computers and make websites for companies. You’re the people who write angry articles about having to go to an office 2 or 3 days a week, though when you all abandoned the offices and campuses, the bus drivers and janitors and cooks and groundskeepers who were “essential” for awhile were all laid off. “Creatives” who decided working from home should be permanent brought their higher salaries to smaller towns and bought up the homes, the prices of which increased by 20% annually. We’re all trying to get by. We’d all buy a house if we could afford it. I’m an Executive Chef, or maybe you’d allow me to consider myself a “Creative”. Perhaps a “Food Engineer”. Well, it doesn’t matter. After AI replaces the white collar jobs, they’ll figure out how to replace the more the difficult ones too. The “essential” jobs also happen to be lowest paying, so it’s just not their priority yet.
Never underestimate the amount of people who think they shouldn’t pay for creative, game-changing business ideas. These are the same people who believe they should be paid for putting you in touch with a client.m and frustrating the process.
It’s time. Unite.
There are so few of us in the industry who actually do the work. And of those, far fewer who do it well. My hope is AI will replace all the dross meddling middle. My fear is the dross will use AI to appear average, and the actually talented fall wayside to better paying industries. It’s a sad day when bankers are having a far better time than star creatives.
“As an early adopter of Meta’s AI Sandbox, Publicis is excited to experience how it will apply to important client use cases, “said Keith Soljacich, EVP, Head of Innovation, Publicis Media Content Innovation. “Ad creative development that is faster, smarter and integrated into the larger Meta ad platform will be a game changer.”
Generative AI can save time and resources while spurring productivity – According to a survey of advertisers that participated in early testing, most advertisers expect saving time and half of them estimate that generative AI will save them five or more hours a week – the equivalent of one month per year – noting they’ll be able to create multiple asset variations with the click of a button, reducing time spent between creative and media teams on time-consuming editing tasks and allowing for more strategic work.1 Nearly all advertisers also agreed that the products being tested in AI Sandbox will eventually help marketers drive campaign performance by enabling quicker development of more ad creative variations at scale.
https://www.facebook.com/business/news/generative-ai-features-for-ads-coming-to-all-advertisers