Info

Posts tagged advertising

Choose another tag?

For most of its history, advertising thrived on context.

Marlboro could posture as rugged freedom in the pages of Life.

Coca-Cola could sell happiness in the glow of a family television. Brands borrowed gravitas from the stage they performed on.

That stage has collapsed.

Open any feed, and the juxtapositions border on derangement. A luxury perfume ad sits next to footage from kids dyeing a war zone. A “get ready with me” makeup tutorial plays before a video of protesters clashing with police. A parody song about eugenics algorithms trends, while a new snack food launches in the same scroll. Luxury and suffering. Irony and sincerity. Progress and regression. All jostling for the same square of glass.

This is not culture. It is collision.

Algorithms, of course, insist they are solving the problem. They offer “personalization”. But what they actually know are the following: They know when you are restless, when you pause for three seconds on a video, when you hover over a product before abandoning it. They know your pulse. What they do not know is your soul. Why you can’t sleep, why you feel sad, why you are crying.

Prediction is not the same as understanding.

Machines are superb at exploiting moments of weakness—2am insomnia, doomscroll fatigue, payday jitters. Yet they cannot tell you why people yearn, what they aspire to, or what makes life meaningful. The industry has mistaken behavioural prediction for intimacy, and in doing so, has surrendered its one true advantage: the ability to craft enduring meaning.

This is advertising’s awkward dilemma. Do brands add more shards to the pile, fighting for a microsecond of fractured attention? Or do they resist the gravity of the feed and try to create coherence instead?

The uncomfortable truth is that advertising has become a contributor to the breakdown. By chasing “relevance” at all costs, brands pour gasoline on the chaos. Every campaign becomes another dissonant signal fighting for scraps of cognition.

Yet the opportunity is hiding in plain sight. In an environment where everything is noise, coherence becomes radical. In a feed where every signal contradicts the next, a brand that offers consistency, clarity, or even a moment of calm stands out far more than one that shouts louder.

Yesterday’s diagnosis was economic: loyalty is no longer earned, it is rented, renewed only as long as the offer makes sense. Today’s diagnosis is cultural: meaning itself has fragmented.

The future of advertising will not be won by algorithms alone, nor by nostalgia for heritage brands. It will be won by those who can do what machines cannot: give people a story that makes sense of the chaos.

The algorithm may know your pulse, but only humans can write your soul. The question for brands is brutally simple: do you want to feed the collapse—or carve coherence out of it?

Covering the latest campaigns, news and trends, along with industry interviews, events and case studies.

WARC’s The Future of Programmatic 2025 is a meticulously composed document. The charts are polished. The language is neutral. The predictions are framed as progress.

But read it closely and a deeper truth emerges:
It’s not a report. It’s an autopsy.
What’s dying is unpredictability. Creativity. Humanity.
And we’re all expected to applaud as the corpse is carried off, sanitized and smiling.

We Are Optimizing Ourselves Into Irrelevance

Every year, programmatic becomes more “efficient.” More “targeted.” More “brand safe.”
And with each incremental improvement, something irreplaceable is lost.

We’ve mistaken precision for persuasion.
We’ve traded emotional impact for mechanical relevance.
We’ve built a system that serves the spreadsheet, not the soul.

74% of European impressions now come through curated deals.
Which sounds like order. Until you realize it means the wildness is gone.
No chaos. No accidents. No friction. No magic.

We didn’t refine advertising. We tamed it. And in doing so, we made it forgettable.

Curation Is Not a Strategy. It’s a Symptom.

Let’s stop pretending curation is innovation. It’s not.
It’s fear management. It’s an escape hatch from a system that got too messy.
We created an open marketplace—then panicked when it did what open things do: surprise us.

So we closed it.

We built private marketplaces, multi-publisher deals, curated “quality” impressions.
And we congratulated ourselves for regaining control.
But in truth, we just shrank the canvas. The reach is cleaner, sure. But the resonance is gone.

Personalization Has Become a Prison

We’re shown what the machine thinks we want—again and again—until novelty disappears.
We call it relevance, but what it really is… is confinement.
When every ad is customized to our past behavior, we stop growing. We stop discovering.
We become static reflections of data points.

We aren’t advertising to humans anymore. We’re advertising to ghosts of their former selves.

AI Isn’t Making Ads Safer. It’s Making Them Invisible.

The report praises AI for enhancing brand safety.
But here’s the problem no one wants to name: AI doesn’t understand context.
It understands keywords, sentiment scores, and statistical tone.
So entire stories, entire voices, entire truths are algorithmically scrubbed out—because the machine can’t read between the lines.

It’s not safety. It’s sanitization.
It’s censorship with a dashboard.

We’re not avoiding risk. We’re avoiding reality.

Out-of-Home Might Be Our Last Chance

Digital out-of-home is the only space left that still feels human.
It’s dynamic, unpredictable, environmental. It responds to mood, weather, location.
It doesn’t follow you. It meets you.

It’s flawed. It’s physical. It’s not entirely measurable.
And because of that—it still has soul.

It reminds us that real advertising doesn’t beg for clicks.
It stops you mid-step.
It lingers in your head hours later, uninvited.

The Real Threat Isn’t Bad Ads. It’s Forgettable Ones.

We keep polishing the system, but forget why the system existed in the first place.
Advertising isn’t a math problem.
It’s a cultural force. A punchline. A provocation. A seduction. A story.
And we’ve allowed it to become… efficient.

That should terrify us.

Because efficient ads don’t change minds.
Efficient ads don’t start movements.
Efficient ads don’t get remembered.

Only real ones do.
Messy. Emotional. Imperfect.
Human.

In Case You Skimmed, Read This:

  • Curation isn’t strategy. It’s shrinkage.
  • AI brand safety is quiet censorship.
  • Personalization killed surprise.
  • The future of programmatic isn’t what’s next—it’s what’s left.

We didn’t lose the plot. We wrote it out of the story. Stay Curious

There’s a scene in every horror film where the radio keeps playing cheerful music long after the massacre has begun. That’s Greek advertising in 2025.

The consumer confidence index is at –47.6. 5, a decline from -42.7 points in May 2025.,That’s not a dip. That’s not even a recession. That’s a psychological evacuation. People haven’t just stopped spending—they’ve stopped believing. Yet here we are, still peddling dopamine-rich campaigns, summer sales, and plastic optimism with tiktok influencers like it’s 2005.

It’s as if brands believe that if they pump enough enthusiasm into a room full of dread, the mood will shift.
It won’t. You’re not lifting spirits—you’re gaslighting them.

The Data is Screaming. The Ads Are Whistling.

To put it bluntly:
– Greece has one of the worst confidence scores in Europe (worse than Ireland, worse than the UK, which is impressive in itself).
– Inflation fatigue, political distrust, and existential drift are thick in the air.
– Yet your average Greek campaign looks like it was written for Ibiza and Mykonos

This is emotional mismatch at scale. And in advertising, tone-deafness is expensive.

Why It’s Not Working Anymore

Let me be brutally “British” for a moment:
Most advertising works not because it persuades, but because it resonates with the unspoken.
But what’s being unspoken now?

  • “I don’t trust institutions.”
  • “I’m tired of pretending things are normal.”
  • “Hope feels like a scam.”

And yet, we’re still pushing 20% off Nike shoes and Bluetooth speakers like the national mood is “beach rave.”

Three Delusions Driving This Disconnect

  1. The Affluence Illusion
    Brands still act like everyone has disposable income. In reality, most people are disposing of illusions.
  2. The Global Copy-Paste Complex
    Local agencies borrow Western campaign tropes, forgetting Greece has different ghosts—older, sharper, and far less forgiving.
  3. The Positivity Trap
    Adland still believes that happy sells. But in dark times, truth sells better—especially when it’s spoken softly.

What Good Brands Do When Confidence Collapses

They don’t shout. They anchor.

They say:
“We’re still here.”
“We’ll keep your costs down.”
“We won’t pretend this is easy.”
And then, they deliver.

They don’t sell status. They sell stability.
Not hype. Help.

In a market like this, consistency is charisma.

Advertising Isn’t Broken. It’s Just in the Wrong Room.

Imagine walking into a hospital waiting room and trying to sell dancing shoes.
That’s what a lot of campaigns feel like now.

Greece doesn’t need to be cheered up. It needs to be understood.
And that starts with creative work that listens before it speaks not with idiotic tiktoks

The next great Greek campaign won’t be the most viral.
It will be the most accurate.

It will say:

“We see you.
We know what this moment feels like.
We’ll meet you there.”

Until then, we’re just selling confetti in a war zone.

You Didn’t Choose That Thought. It Was Chosen for You

You scrolled.
You paused.
You liked, reposted, laughed, shook your head.
And just like that—a seed was planted. A preference shaped. An emotion nudged.
You didn’t notice.
You weren’t supposed to.

This is not advertising as you know it.
This is not the billboard screaming “BUY THIS.”
This is not the banner ad you skipped on YouTube.

This is the invisible ad—the one that never announces itself, that never asks for your attention, because it’s already working beneath it.

We have entered the era of passive persuasion, where your identity, your politics, your choices are influenced by systems so ambient, so embedded, you mistake them for your own reflection.

You think you’re making decisions.
You’re reacting to design.

The Death of the Obvious Ad

We were trained to look for logos.
We were taught that advertising was about visibility.
That persuasion was about pushing, not pulling. About message, not membrane.

But those days are dead.

Today’s most effective ad is not an image or a slogan.
It’s the interface.
It’s the timing of a post.
It’s the platform bias that surfaces one narrative and buries another.
It’s the emotional velocity of a meme that disguises ideology as entertainment.

Advertising didn’t disappear.
It became everything else.

The Architecture of Influence

Let’s map the system that now governs attention:

1. Signal Hijack

Your senses are gamed before your mind even wakes up.
Designers don’t just choose colors—they calibrate for cortisol.
Copywriters don’t just use words—they borrow the grammar of trust from family, from spirituality, from protest.

You feel safe. Seen. Stimulated. But this isn’t comfort—it’s engineered consent.

2. Emotion Laundering

Most modern persuasion isn’t logical. It’s somatic.
That warm nostalgic TikTok?
That ironic leftist meme?
That perfectly timed AI-generated “spontaneous” tweet?
Each is a trojan horse—emotionally triggering, cognitively disarming.

The brain opens before it asks questions.

3. Context Erosion

Persuasion thrives in chaos.
When you consume headlines without articles.
When your feed scrolls faster than your thought.
When you mistake familiarity for truth.

There’s no time to think.
Only time to react.

When Politics Becomes a Brand, and Brands Become Your Politics

This isn’t just advertising anymore.
This is governance by meme.

Political messages are embedded in beauty trends.
Civic values are sold like sneakers.
Propaganda isn’t broadcast—it’s crowd-sourced.

Influencers now soft-launch ideologies.
Micro-targeted ads whisper to your fear center.
And language—once public property—is now owned by the platforms that decide what can trend.

Truth didn’t die.
It was quietly outperformed.

The Brain Can’t See the Frame It’s Trapped In

Here’s the most terrifying part:

The more personalized the ad, the less you recognize it as an ad.
Because it speaks your language. Feeds your belief. Reinforces your bias.

You don’t feel manipulated.
You feel validated.
That’s the design.

“The best manipulation leaves you certain you arrived at the idea yourself.”

The invisible ad doesn’t change your mind.
It becomes it.

How to See the Invisible

We don’t need more ad blockers.
We need cognitive firewalls.

We need a generation of readers who ask not just “What is this saying?”
—but “Why am I seeing it?”
—and “Who benefits if I believe this?”

The new strategist doesn’t sell identity.
They protect it.
The new creator doesn’t harvest attention.
They reclaim it.

And the new citizen?
They stop mistaking convenience for truth.

You don’t need to go off-grid.
You need to see the grid for what it is:
A reality-shaping machine powered by your attention, primed by your emotions, and governed by systems you never voted for.

But now you’ve seen the outline.
And that means power.

Because once you can see the architecture—
You can redesign it.

This is not about rejecting influence.
It’s about reclaiming authorship.
Of your choices.
Your identity.
Your internal narrative.

The world is full of invisible scripts.
You can either follow them.
Or write your own.

So here’s the real question:

Are you just an audience?
Or are you ready to be a strategist of your own mind?

Why Agencies Must Stop Selling AI Videos to Brands That Can Afford Humans

There’s something off in the air lately.
You feel it too, right?

AI is everywhere. In our workflows. In our brainstorms. Now in our videos.
But the problem isn’t the tool.

It’s who’s using it—and why.

The wealthiest brands on Earth…

…are now cutting costs on creativity.
Not because they have to.
Because they can.

Multinationals. Banks. Telcos. Luxury giants.
All of them have the money to hire real directors. Real actors. Real crews.

Instead, they’re asking for AI-generated everything.
Because it’s faster. Cheaper. Cleaner. No egos. No union hours. No mess.

But here’s the cost no one’s talking about:

Every time a mega-brand uses AI to replace a human creator, a door quietly closes somewhere in our industry.

AI was supposed to level the playing field.

Instead, it’s being used to bulldoze the little guys.

For years, small businesses, NGOs, and startups couldn’t afford high-end production.
Now, with AI tools, they finally have access to the big leagues.

That’s a good thing. That’s progress.
But when global corporations with billion-dollar budgets start using the same shortcuts?

It’s not innovation.
It’s exploitation.

It’s like the CEO showing up at the food bank.

Agencies, we need to draw a line.

What if we made a pact?
Not a legal one—a moral one.

What if WPP, Omnicom, Publicis, IPG, Dentsu, and Havas could all agree on this. We do not sell AI video production to clients who can afford to pay humans.

Simple as that.

If you’re a major brand, you want a campaign?
Great. Hire a team. Book a studio. Feed the industry you profit from.

Save the AI shortcuts for those who truly need them.
Not for the top 1% to make even more with even less.

What we risk losing is more than jobs.

We lose mentorship.
We lose artistry.
We lose nuance.
We lose culture made by people, not pattern-matching algorithms.

And worst of all?
We normalize the idea that creativity is disposable.

That human input is optional.
That good enough is good enough—as long as it’s cheap.

This isn’t about being anti-AI.

It’s about being pro-choice—for creators, for clients, for culture.

AI can be a tool for empowerment.
But only if we choose to wield it with conscience.

The rich don’t need help making things faster and cheaper.
The rest of us do.

So to every agency out there:

Let the giants pay.

Let the small rise.

Let’s build a future where AI helps the underfunded create—
not helps the overfunded extract.

Two years ago, marketers used ChatGPT to draft blog posts.
Today, those who kept up are using AI to rebuild their entire marketing departments.

The shift is deeper than most realize.
We’re not just automating tasks.
We’re replacing entire teams with in-house AI agents.

And most agencies?
They won’t survive it.

The Hidden Transformation

Most small businesses are still stuck in 2023.
They think AI means asking ChatGPT for content ideas.
They don’t see what’s really happening.

But the smartest brands already do.

They don’t outsource anymore.
They build internal systems powered by custom GPTs and Gemini agents.
AI workflows that replicate the core functions of a digital agency—only faster, cheaper, and more aligned to the brand.

This isn’t a theory. It’s live.

The In-House Revolution

Here’s how it works.

Smart businesses now set up:

  • A brand-trained content engine that writes SEO-rich posts, links properly, and follows brand tone.
  • An internal brand assistant that remembers every meeting, every product detail, every customer persona.
  • A PR strategist that drafts releases and finds outreach targets.
  • A design agent that adapts templates to new offers and launches.
  • A media buyer that helps test and optimize ads.

Each of these is an AI.
Each one improves over time.
Each one lives inside the business.

So instead of paying $10,000 a month to an agency, they pay a few hundred for intelligent workflows that never sleep, forget, or outsource your voice.

The Future of Marketing Is Internal

Let’s break it down.

If you’re a business with under $2,000/month to spend on marketing
You’ll use software that does everything in-house.
Blog posts. Ads. Funnels. Designs. Email. All done instantly with your data and tone.

If you’re spending $2,000–$20,000/month
You won’t hire an agency.
You’ll hire an AI architect to build systems tailored to your brand.
One-time setup, continuous payoff.

Only if you’re spending over $50,000/month
Will it still make sense to bring in elite humans.
The visionaries. The top-tier creatives.
Even then, they’ll work with your AI stack—not in place of it.

Why Digital Agencies Will Vanish

This is the part people don’t want to hear:

Most digital marketing agencies will go extinct.

Not because marketing dies.
But because the need to outsource it dies.

Small and medium businesses will realize they don’t need external teams when internal systems do a better job.

And once that realization hits, it’s over.

Agencies that don’t evolve will fade.
The few that survive will become AI consultants, builders, or strategic partners—no longer execution factories.

The Only Thing AI Can’t Replace

What still matters?

Judgment.
Insight.
Taste.

The ability to ask the right question.
To find the right story.
To decide what not to do.

Everything else—copy, design, ads, funnels—is systematized and scalable.

Your only competitive edge will be your mind.

By 2027, marketing won’t be something you outsource.


It will be something you run internally, powered by your own intelligent agents.

Businesses that realize this will move faster, grow leaner, and make better decisions.

Those that don’t?
They’ll keep paying bloated retainers for work AI could have done better in seconds.

The age of digital agencies is ending.
Not because they failed.
But because they’re no longer necessary.

images via @freepic

Page 2 of 25
1 2 3 4 … 25