Creative Studies podcast interview with Marty Swant on his recent report for The New York Times on why creative agencies might be cooked.

In this conversation, Geoffrey Colon, founder of Creative Studies, and Marty Swant, freelance ad tech journalist, discuss the evolving landscape of advertising in the context of AI and technology. They explore the implications of generative AI on creative processes, the potential displacement of agencies, and the challenges marketers face amidst rapid disruption. The discussion also touches on future predictions regarding the role of advertising, the rise of user-generated content (UGC), and the impact of agentic browsing on consumer behavior and privacy.

* The generative AI boom has sparked interest in technology's capabilities.

* Advertising agencies are grappling with the potential displacement by AI.

* Brands are experimenting with AI in creative campaigns, facing mixed reactions.

* Concerns exist about agencies losing control over the creative process to platforms.

* Data privacy and trust issues are significant in the ad tech landscape.

* The workflow of creative processes is changing due to AI integration.

* Marketers are uncertain about the future amidst multiple disruptions.

* UGC is becoming increasingly prevalent in media buys.

* The creator economy is generating more revenue than traditional media.

* Agentic browsing could create new challenges for advertisers and consumers.

Chapters

00:00 The Intersection of AI and Advertising

05:31 The Future of Marketing in a Disrupted Landscape

10:14 Predictions for the Future of Advertising

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Microsoft and LinkedIn just announced layoffs as I’m writing this. 3% of the company or over 6,000 people. This seems to now be the norm in what kicked off in February of 2023 where nothing is stable. I even underwent my own layoff like many in my own big tech job in what feels like forever ago in April 2024. Over that time period I had 50 conversations with people close in my network and have applied to over 300 roles.

I won’t say nothing has happened. Do I have one, stable W2 paying job?

No.

Am I employed with work?

Yes.

Will I ever have another W2 paying job ever again?

Not likely.

And this is what many are missing as they seek to find work in this new normal of the 21st Century.

Finding work is broken along with the fact the economy as a whole is also busted.

Most of this originates back to 2008 but this piece isn’t about the Great Recession. It’s about where job hunting will go next as the job market evolves.

For as long as I can recall over the past three decades as a member of Generation X, we’ve been told that the future of work would be like producing a film. You have a skill, you bring it to the team, you do the job, you depart, you look for your next line of work.

There’s just one issue with this. It’s unstable.

Add in this factor with the fact job board sites like LinkedIn are more like Facebook Lite and a job hunting, referral and networking revolution is long overdue.

Enter Posted.Careers.

When I was laid off last year I noticed that many people wanted to help but the systems and architecture we rely on are all old and antiquated. Spend $20 to apply to an Upwork job with no transparency. Spend $90 for a monthly LinkedIn Premium account to apply with thousands of others.

There’s no differentiating advantage. Zero community.

The new solutions provide all the NEW job posts delivered fresh daily to your inbox so you can apply in a timely manner. And the entire service is donation only of $1, $3, $5 or an amount you want to offer on a monthly or one-time basis.

It’s the de-corporatization or un-privatization of job hunting and it’s long overdue.

Watch or listen to the podcast with co-founders Chuck Heckman, George Nguyen and myself, Geoffrey Colon, on why we built Posted.Careers as a rallying cry for the creative class to find work and create a DIY collective job hunting movement.

Somewhere on this platform there is another thought piece being penned about why Encanto is this huge boon for creativity.

They're not wrong. But they're possibly missing the point of how the "Wisdom of Crowds" and "Community" got "We Don't Talk About Bruno" to the top of the music charts. A feat that wasn't possible 20 years ago in the early stages of Web 2.0.

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Let's rewind for a second here while also not taking away from the talent who wrote all the music for this film. That talent is a big reason for why the movie has done so well. But talent alone isn't the reason why a non-traditional song topped the charts. Radio has been a huge promotional vehicle for music. We know this and even with the likes of TikTok, YouTube and Spotify it is still a necessity for songs and artists to push mainstream. Just ask any big artist even in the past five years how they truly tipped. It wasn't solely the usage of social media. It was a combination of factors and it relied on the big machinery that we know of as traditional or terrestrial radio.

If it were 2002, the label that released Encanto (in this case, Walt Disney Records) would have sent promo reps into specific radio stations that program Contemporary Hit Radio or CHR to push the song to be added to the playlist. This usually required a ton of data and information exchange. Here's where the song is trending. Here is where it is big. Here is where it was added. Here is the reason you should add it. It was pure barter economy. Maybe the program director would take the risk and add it into late nights for a few spins to see how it would do. Maybe they would program it on a voter listener time slot. When they play the song against another and if it gets enough "phones" it would then be added to the official playlist.

It was a long slog. It would take sometimes a year for a song like "We Don't Talk About Bruno" to maybe ever hit the charts. But now things have changed what tips radio programming. It's called the community sharing effect.

Now we know this isn't news. Lots of things tip because of social media. Lots of things go viral. But there is a combination of "killer data," as I like to call it, stats that program directors and other curators or gatekeepers cannot deny. "We Don't Talk About Bruno" got used in millions of TikToks and tens of millions of views on YouTube and streams on Spotify. It made an undeniable case that if program directors didn't add it into rotation they were denying reality. They're opinion mattered little. The voice of the people is what matters here. And how the crowdswell really helped push this to more people and forcing the hand of gatekeepers who have relied on "data" forever. People wanted the song programmed and they weren't going to take no for an answer. And when it was added and ended up being regularly programmed on big stations like New York's Z100 and Los Angeles' KIIS-FM?

The song just got even bigger.

How? Because it reached even more people who may have not watched the movie. They now heard it and wanted to hear it more.

Radio is now a jukebox taking requests from us via social media. Program directors still think they have power but some artists and songs on the fringe are going to go mainstream whether they want it to or not. As a result it's giving us more interesting, not less interesting artists.

This is why the era we live in is more, not less creative than ever before. Yes, we hear tons of essential reporting about how technology is terrible and used to kill democracy and make big tech even bigger. But then there are stories like Bruno. A little song that in the past would have just been another track on a movie soundtrack. Now it's a Number 1 chart topping hit.

We should be talking about Bruno.