This document contains quotes from marketing and advertising experts discussing the decline of creativity in their industries. Many note that a focus on short-term data and metrics over brand ideas and long-term creativity is limiting innovation. Additionally, some experts express that an over-reliance on data and automation is marginalizing human creativity. A few quotes also discuss how this corporatization of marketing is driving creative talent to other fields.

1. The Decline of
Creativity in
Marketing
Quotes From Imaginative Minds

2. “Advertising is oppressing itself with the
one-off project. In the name of efficiency,
we’re risking the consistent voice that
determines real brand value, dividing a
brand’s resources against itself, and limiting
its opportunities for innovation and
relevance.”
John Trahar
Greatest Common Factory
“Project Work is Killing
Innovation”
May 25, 2017

3. ““[T]he uniqueness that creativity brings to
the world and its decision-making process
is being marginalised by…continual,
systemic automation, where everything
now is being targeted in terms of [turning
it into] a process.”
- Mike Fitzsimons
Business Analyst
“The Future of Creativity in an Automated World”
March 6, 2017

4. “Since data is only predictive, research
should inform creative, not dictate it. We
must also empower copywriters and art
directors to develop and execute ideas
beyond the spreadsheet.”
Haley Robinson
Senior Copywriter
MMI Agency

5. “The short-term thinking that permeates
the current business mindset…drives the
industry to focus more on money, data,
and short-term results than on real
brand ideas...”
Edward Boches
Professor of Advertising
Boston University
(Former Chief Creative Officer at Mullen)

6. ““ Marketing used to be a creative
challenge, but it’s a data challenge now.”
Philip Mehl
Former Head of Marketing, HSBC EMEA
“The Recipe for Marketing Effectiveness”
Marketing Week
January 30, 2017

7. “[T]here are a lot of creative people who are
not comfortable sitting at what Rich Siegel
calls ‘the long table of mediocrity.’ As a result,
they are taking their talents to other
industries [outside advertising].”
Bob Hoffman
@AdContrarian
“Advertising and the Old-Guy Syndrome”
June 13, 2017

8. “The days when advertising had the
power to shape popular opinion, to really
move the needle culturally, have given
way to the quick fix, the quick buck, the
quick turnaround.”
Ernie Schenck
“The Worry Question”
Communication Arts
May/June 2017

9. “One of the big problems [with advertising] is
it’s become very corporatized. Large
corporations are investing in everything but
creativity. They’re investing in technology,
data, and metrics, but not creativity. I think
creativity is the real business of advertising.”
Bob Hoffman
@AdContrarian
“On the Contrary: The State of the Agency
World”
March 8, 2017

10. “There’s an assumption that just because
everybody has got a camera and access to a
YouTube channel, suddenly everybody is a
creative director…That’s why most advertising is
terrible and most films are not very good.
[Creativity] is a precious skill.”
Dan Izbicki
Global Director of Creative Excellence
Unilever
“Most Advertising is Terrible, Says Unilever”
Marketing Week

11. ““Mixing data and creative can be like boys
and girls at a middle school dance. If you
don’t do it well, it’s awkward.”
Ryan Joe
Managing Editor
Ad Exchanger

12. “Paradox! Feeling Machines and the
Rise of Postmodern Marketing.”
The Drum
June 9, 2017
“It never had to be digital math or
emotional magic. It always should have
been ‘and.’”

13. Got a quote to add?
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