The Creative Idea: A Hero’s Journey Through Advertising’s Chaotic History
I have been in advertising long enough now to see that “creative ideas” have had a hell of a ride. Depending on the decade, ideas have been the champion soaring to glory, they’ve been battered by industry upheavals, and nearly lost in a sea of endless channels. What follows is my interpretation of the “hero’s journey” of the creative idea through advertising’s chaotic past—its triumphs, trials, and a future where I believe it’s poised to reclaim its rightful throne.
The Golden Age: The Hero’s Glory
Picture the mid-20th century: advertising was a simpler game. Agencies basically had five channels to play with—TV, radio, print, outdoor, direct mail. That was it. With the media landscape fixed, the creative idea was a marketer’s only variable. So great value was attached to the creative idea. Ask Don Draper.
A brilliant concept could make or break a company. Take Volkswagen’s “Think Small” in 1959: a minimalist print ad that flipped car marketing on its head. Pure genius, no fancy channels pretending to be ideas was required.
So the creative idea benefited from fixed media choices, but there was something else. Agencies generally offered both creative and media services under one roof (as well as account services) and lived on a healthy 15% media commission. Revenue wasn’t determined by “time of staff,” which meant there was no creative bias driven by an agency’s ability (or more to the point, inability) to execute the idea. Creative and media could work together to figure the right media mix and message without bias (other than to spend the whole budget!).
Creativity wasn’t just king—it was everything. The idea was the hero, basking in its golden age, free to dream big.
But then came the big divorce.
The Media-Creative Divorce: The Hero Constrained
Then came the 1980s and 1990s, and the creative idea hit its first major roadblock. Clients, chasing cost efficiency, split media buying from creative services. Media departments started breaking off into separate companies. Media agencies like Starcom and MPG took over ad placements, which left creative agencies without a revenue model. To survive, creative shops turned to time-of-staff billing—charging by the hour, like lawyers.
Oddly enough, the great majority of a creative agency’s billable hours were in the execution of ideas and not in the generation of ideas. Suddenly, creative ideas had a new agenda: the idea had to fit within the staff’s skill set in order to generate revenue. Why even pitch a concept if your team can’t execute it and bill for it?
The hero wasn’t dead, but there were now headwinds due to a business model dependent on billable hours.
The Digital Revolution: The Hero eclipsed
The digital revolution of the 1990s and 2000s landed like a meteor. It was a new frontier. The internet exploded with web pages, banner ads, followed by Google AdWords, MySpace, Facebook, and iPhone apps (quick aside, I remember creating the very first Shockwave banner ad—a “Pong” game you could actually play in the banner—for HP while I was at Goodby). Channels multiplied faster than agencies could keep up.
The big agencies tried to hire their way out of it. I remember when I was at Arnold we’d bring in digital superstars to help us shore up that side of the ever-growing house. But if I’m honest, it was mostly just pretend. The “digital” industry was growing and morphing too fast. Worse, traditional creatives who had worked on high-profile TV campaigns in the 1990s looked down upon “digital” creative as just below the line like retail circulars of the past. They’d do it if they had to, but they didn’t want to. It wasn’t real to them.
But soon it was unavoidable. “Digital” became more than the “below the line” work, but the below the line, the line, and above the line work. And it was at this time the very definition of an “idea” got warped. It was an "idea" suddenly for a brand to do a TikTok video even if the video itself was devoid of any real idea. Everyone scrambled to jump on the latest channel, terrified of missing out, whether it made sense or not. Our hero was eclipsed, lost in a frenzy of platforms over messaging, lost in a mix of what appeared to be random acts of marketing.
Brands have become more discerning over time with their branding, but as a result have started to shift away from the concept of “AOR” (agency of record). Back when there were five channels an AOR made lots of sense. Agencies claiming they could do it all weren’t lying. So there was real value in having one agency who understood the client’s business intimately and could shepherd the brand creatively over time. But now there are like 5,000 channels and there will be 6,000 tomorrow, and not one agency can do it all (though some still claim to—lol).
This is not to say the “AOR” is completely dead. It’s not. Many clients like having a powerful outside partner for the big brand creative. But advertising is looking more and more like a project-only business.
In this shift away from the AOR, clients are wisely building up their in-house agencies for speed, flexibility, and for the value of having a knowledgeable constant in an ever-changing marketplace. The in-house agency isn’t dependent on client revenue and so the biasing “time of staff” model doesn’t apply. They can come up with any idea that will solve the problem and outsource execution, as needed. Or even outsource creative ideas at times (in-house agencies are a sweet spot for us, in fact).
What does all of this mean for advertising agencies in the the future?
The Future: The Hero’s Return
I think the future of advertising requires agencies to stop chasing the future with staff and instead chase it with ideas. Ideas are THE product. Regardless of channel, make the idea the most important thing. Conversely, make the idea the most important thing regardless of channel. Let outside specialists—AI production vendors/artists, social media gurus, VR wizards, video production houses—handle the execution, like a doctor would refer a patient to surgeons or dermatologists (see our own Hallmark Case for an example where our creative team worked closely with several outside AI vendors to produce an ad campaign). The doctor still sees it through, just like the agency would (with greatly reduced staff).
Fear not. Don’t be afraid to innovate within this pure “idea space.” Invent new pricing models that correlate to an idea’s value. Or maybe there are ways agencies can own their IP and lease it to clients. Experiment with outside resources, with AI for research and inspiration (leave ideas to humans), or with other agencies combining forces and experience.
We’ve got our virtual model. What’s yours going to be? Want to try ours? Want to build your own? Already have one?
The unfolding of the entire advertising universe since its beginning has led to this very moment: brands get channel-agnostic concepts that hit hard and agencies get back to what they have always done best, the creative idea.
The hero is back, my friends.
Will Burns is the Founder & CEO of the revolutionary virtual-idea-generating company, Ideasicle X. He’s an advertising veteran from such agencies as Wieden & Kennedy, Goodby Silverstein, Arnold Worldwide, and Mullen. He was a Forbes Contributor for nine years writing about creativity in modern branding. Sign up for the Ideasicle Newsletter and never miss a post like this. Will’s bio.