You cannot become the person or agency you wish to be by doing the type of work you wished you never had to do.

The proper response to “we don’t want the audience to think too hard” is “yes, but we do need them to think a little.”

If “close enough” is “good enough” you’ve been failing more than you realize for longer than you think.

Good judgment is a talent not all talented people possess. Remember this when hiring, promoting, and seeking advice.

Those who think a “brand ad” can’t or won’t drive sales either have no idea what branding actually is or no clue how to do it.

It doesn’t matter how many views your ad gets if every one’s a side-eye.

Worry less about if anyone else could say it and more about if everyone else will ignore it.

Everyone in your agency defines success differently. Even if they use the same phrases like “produce great work” or “build strong brands.” Define your terms. Define your goals. Cite examples. Assuming everyone knows where you’re going all but guarantees you won’t get there.

No consumer ever said “that sounds interesting” about something that didn’t.

If you don’t have the money to waste on a branding campaign, make sure you produce a great one.

Our job is to make ads that make choosing our clients’ products easier. It is not to make it easier for our clients to publish banal content that makes ignoring them the easiest decision of all.

Like most things in advertising, it’s impossible to attribute the decline in creative quality solely to the industry’s rising insistence on direct attribution. The irony would be delicious if it wasn’t so despiriting.

Any advertising is better than no advertising, but is something that’s barely better than nothing even worth bothering with? Most of your audience would say no if they were aware you did anything at all.

That good enough is good enough for most brands is great news for those who strive to be grand.

You can’t take a stand while jumping through hoops.

It’s human nature to seek control of what we don’t understand. On a separate note, good luck with today’s client presentation.

Your brand is a promise that is easily broken by making people call an 800 number to cancel their subscription like it’s 1992, and then offering deals you should’ve given long ago as rewards instead of bribes. But I digress.

Great advertising can change minds. Even the client’s. But like the public, they need to see it more than once.

Chances are that great idea got produced because someone outside the creative department helped sell it. So instead of ganging up to dilute the work, consider the radical idea of collaborating to defend it.

Great copy carves a path from doubt to desire in ways that are often subtle yet only appear simple.

Focus on being personally relevant to your audience and being culturally relevant will take care of itself. The inverse is not guaranteed.