# Where did all the great Creative Advertising go?

Source: https://rickyrichards.com/blog/where-did-all-the-great-creative-advertising-go
Author: Ricky Richards
Published: 2026-08-21
Category: Essay
Keywords: advertising industry decline, creative talent tech salaries, why advertising changed, agency compensation vs tech, creative careers economics

> How tech salaries and risk-averse brands drained advertising agencies of their most ambitious creative talent over the past decade.

[https://www.instagram.com/reel/Db_TXGFqJrf/?igsi=MWsxd3BzOXBmcXQ1aA%3D%3D](https://www.instagram.com/reel/Db_TXGFqJrf/?igsi=MWsxd3BzOXBmcXQ1aA%3D%3D)\

I saw this reel the other day, and it made me think about the ad industry.

I made an award-winning [Coke ad](https://clios.com/winners-gallery/details/45610) when I was 20.

At the time, I wanted to pursue a career in advertising. I was obsessed with the incredible work agencies produced back in the day, and I genuinely wanted to spend my days coming up with ideas, making things, and pushing creative. I still have an original VW Think Small ad on my wall in my office. Folks like [George Lois](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wo_h3SKDxU4) and [Paul Rand](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yq04jK9ZBIQ) were my heroes back in the day.

Then I got offered a job at Apple earning over 3x what I was earning in advertising, before equity, and I left my idea-generating, art-directing days behind. I think that’s a big part of why advertising feels so different now.

A huge amount of the best creative and strategic talent got sucked into big tech and often ended up nowhere near the marketing departments. The economics made it too hard for advertising to compete for ambitious talent.

Meanwhile, agency budgets have shrunk, salaries haven’t kept pace, and the industry has become increasingly risk-averse. Brands are terrified of putting a foot wrong. Advertising used to be home to rebels and misfits. Nowadays, you’d struggle to squeeze a scandal out of the annual Christmas party.

And then there’s the media economics.

A brand can spend a couple hundred grand on a speculative creative idea and hope it generates some eyeballs, or it can put that money behind influencers who already have a captive, highly targeted audience. Nine times out of ten, the latter is going to look like the safer bet. But certainty often kills creativity. It’s the unpredictability and the unexpected that excites people.

Great creative and creatives do still exist. Folks like [Toby](https://www.linkedin.com/in/tobytreyerevans/) and [Laurie](https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurie-howell-78877110/) at [Isle of Any](https://isleofany.com).

I was an intern when they worked at Wieden+Kennedy in London, under [Tony Davidson](https://youtu.be/csNxw_ZjNqE?si=lbkWX_xQ_M9s0irf&t=55)’s tutelage, the creator of Levi’s [Mr. Oizo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hY6WTuvyF7Y), among other great work. He would always espouse the importance of sound to make an idea come to life.

Laurie especially always struck me as a bit of a genius, despite being early in his career. They had both transitioned from industrial design, where they said they were fed up with designing air-conditioning units. Not long after, they got a big move to Droga5 in NY and have been on an amazing trajectory ever since.

There are fewer and fewer who remember what great advertising can be that have stuck it out. A lot of the industry is either feeding on scraps, or the genuinely talented have moved on to filmmaking, tech, or somewhere else where the economics make life easier.

I personally miss the work. I still think if I went back into advertising, I could create great work. The issue is, a single one of my quarterly vests is double what most ad creatives make in a year.

It’s not that the talent disappeared. It’s that it stopped paying to make great ads. \
I sometimes tell myself that once I've got fuck you money, I'll create a studio of my own, underpay a bunch of talented youngsters like everyone else and create cool shit again just for the fun of it.