Hey — I’m new here, but let me share a few lessons from my years as a creative director, both agency-side and in-house.
Creativity as we know it has evolved. It’s no longer a skill, a team, or a department you go to for “ideas”; it’s a fluid operating system that powers every business touchpoint for our clients.
A few observations on how the old lines have blurred:
1. Strategy and Execution are Happening Nearly Simultaneously
Once upon a time, you used to wait for a bulletproof, end-to-end strategy before you even thought about executing. Today, AI can generate a hundred high-fidelity assets to immediately pressure-test a plan. We aren’t blindly hunting for strategy in execution, but we are using execution as a real-time feedback loop to validate the approach.
2. Brand and Performance are the Same Thing
The idea that “brand creates the halo, performance gets the clicks” is kinda dead. Today, every performance ad is expected to be wildly entertaining, and every brand campaign is asked to drive measurable impact. The OS doesn’t distinguish between the two; it just optimizes for human attention.
3. The Walls Between “Us” and “Them” Have Collapsed
There used to be a very clear line where the client ended and the agency began. Now, we’re all jamming in the same Figma files and AI sandboxes. The media buyer is tweaking the creative based on real-time feedback. The client is prompting their chatbot to show us “a vibe.” The creative director is analyzing the data dashboard. The boundaries are permeable.
If creativity is the operating system, AI is the processing power that makes it infinitely scalable and blindingly fast. But an operating system still needs a user with an agenda. It needs direction. That’s why human insight, deep empathy, and impeccable taste are more valuable than ever before.
The OS can build us whatever we want, instantly, but we still have to know what is actually worth building.
– Kim Baffi, SVP, Executive Creative Director