How To Tell If An Ad Agency Is "Creative".

I've been in the halls of many ad agencies. Here's what to look for.

Everybody is an ad agency these days. Thirty-billion-dollar accounting firms are ad agencies. Thirty-billion-dollar consulting companies are ad agencies. Media companies with a history of viciously mocking the ad industry, are now ad agencies. Ryan Reynolds is an (overrated) ad agency. Even groups of anti-social 20-something coder techies are (terrible) ad agencies.

If he works there, it’s a creative ad agency (Stock photo).

It’s getting so much harder to separate the creative wheat from the poseur chaff. Of course, if the agency’s work week-in and week-out is creative, well then whether they claim to be or not, they are a creative agency. A good creative agency.

But an agency doesn’t have to do good work to be allowed to call itself a “creative” agency, not at all! That’s the beauty of our industry: how meaningless the word “creative” has become

There are certain tells to look for:

(This is valuable info learned from spending 35 years in this stupid business. Like it says up there, there is a naked creative staff photo, plus a famous CD in a tiny hat, plus lots of insider creative department details. So, please buy a reduced-price subscription here.)