When I resurrected this newsletter from the ashes of my previous endeavor—dusted it off like some overambitious Frankenstein experiment—I wasn’t entirely sure where it was going. I envisioned a space to unite adtech, marketing, media, and agencies under one roof. A bold concept, or so I thought.
Reactions ranged from “You’re nuts” to “You’re mildly unhinged,” with a hearty side of unsolicited advice: Keep them separate! Adtech is the brains, media is the fluff, and agencies? Well, bless their clueless hearts. The adtech folks smugly proclaimed their dominion over the world (and, honestly, my inbox), while the agencies tiptoed around adtech like a second cousin at a wedding—necessary but better left unmentioned.
The harsh reality? Many creative teams have no clue where their meticulously crafted ads end up. Those glossy campaigns, painstakingly storyboarded and art-directed, often land in the digital equivalent of a roadside billboard in the desert: a shriveled corner of some website, sandwiched between autoplay videos and pop-up clickbait. Mazel tov.
Plumbing, but Where’s the Poetry?
Had a chat with Fred Godfrey of Origin recently. We delved into life’s heavier topics—loss, resilience, the usual existential buffet—and then veered into adtech. Fred quipped, “Adtech is all plumbing and no poetry.”
And honestly, he’s not wrong.
Adtech often gets reduced to plumbing—a system of pipes, wires, and endless interconnections where data flows, but creativity seems to get lost in the maze. It’s a fair critique: the industry has spent years perfecting how to deliver the right ad to the right person at the right time, but somewhere along the way, it forgot that people don’t want pipes—they want experiences.
I got HBO Max with commercials just to watch the commercials. Yes, I’m that person. What struck me wasn’t the ads themselves but how little thought seemed to go into placement. It was like someone took linear TV spots and hurled them onto streaming, hoping they’d stick. Prime isn’t any better. Despite using an Amazon device to watch an Amazon app, there’s zero interaction. No pause screens, no contextual offers—zilch. Just a firehose of ads.
Back in the day, I booked ads on platforms like BigFishGames, where advertisers got creative. They’d skin the site, integrate with the games, and make ads feel like part of the experience. Now? The industry’s big idea is slapping offline commercials online.
The plumbing metaphor fits because adtech is all about infrastructure: DSPs, SSPs, CDPs, APIs—a Scrabble board of acronyms moving ads from point A to point B. But where’s the poetry? The kind of work that makes someone stop mid-scroll, not because an algorithm said they should but because it genuinely resonates.
Fred’s observation isn’t new. Sir John Hegarty once argued that media fragmentation robbed us of shared cultural moments—the lifeblood of creative storytelling. Seamus Higgins at R/GA Australia echoed this, highlighting how agencies undervalue creative work, focusing more on timelines and mechanics than ideas and inspiration. Somewhere in this mad dash for precision, the art—and the heart—of advertising got left behind.
Seven Ways Adtech Lost Its Mojo
Data Worship Gone Wild:
Adtech’s shrine to the gods of data is adorned with CTRs, impressions, and conversions. And while these metrics have their place, the industry’s obsession with numbers has created a performance-over-storytelling vortex. Think about it: when was the last time you were emotionally moved by an ad tailored for clicks? Spoiler alert: never. Metrics can only measure the visible iceberg, not the submerged emotional impact. And here’s the kicker—while brands focus on data perfection, they miss the human experience entirely. It’s like painting by numbers instead of creating art. The result? Ads optimized for algorithms, not people. Sure, the numbers might look good in a quarterly report, but does anyone actually remember your campaign? Didn’t think so.
Fragmentation Nation:
The adtech ecosystem is a Rube Goldberg machine of platforms, tools, and vendors. You’ve got DSPs talking to SSPs, with a sprinkle of DMPs in between, all vying for their slice of the budget pie. Creative teams and media planners rarely meet, operating on completely different wavelengths and timelines. By the time a campaign launches, what was supposed to be a well-orchestrated symphony is more like a garage band on its first gig. Even worse, no one can pinpoint where the breakdown happened. Did the creative get lost in translation? Did the media team over-prioritize inventory over placement? Who knows? What’s clear is that the audience gets a fragmented, disjointed experience, and the brand gets… well, confused.
Automation Overload:
Automation was supposed to be the savior of adtech, the genius that would free up time for the big ideas. Instead, it’s become the crutch that sacrifices creativity on the altar of efficiency. Programmatic campaigns are churned out at record speed, but they all look and feel the same—cookie-cutter templates built to satisfy algorithms, not people. And let’s not forget the human cost: creative teams are relegated to filling out forms and selecting from dropdown menus instead of ideating and innovating. The irony? Automation should enhance creativity, not stifle it. But when the process prioritizes precision over passion, the only thing automated is the audience’s disinterest.
Privacy Panic:
GDPR, CCPA, cookie deprecation—it’s the unholy trinity of modern adtech headaches. The industry’s response? A full-blown panic attack. Suddenly, everyone’s scrambling to comply with regulations, pouring resources into consent banners and data collection policies. And while compliance is crucial, it’s also a distraction. Instead of focusing on creating ads that audiences actually want to see, brands are caught up in ticking legal boxes. Consumers aren’t anti-advertising; they’re anti-invasive advertising. They want relevance, not redundancy. But the industry’s obsession with privacy policies has turned it into a bureaucratic mess, where creativity is sidelined in favor of endless meetings about compliance frameworks.
Short-Term Thinking:
The always-on mentality might keep campaigns running, but it’s running them straight into the ground. Adtech’s focus on quick wins—flash sales, retargeting, and immediate conversions—comes at the expense of long-term brand equity. Think about the most memorable ad campaigns in history. Chances are, they weren’t built around limited-time offers or “act now” messages. They were crafted to evoke emotion, tell a story, and create a lasting impression. But in today’s performance-driven landscape, those ideals are often sacrificed for the sake of short-term gains. The result? A sea of forgettable ads that achieve their immediate goals but fail to build lasting relationships with consumers.
RTB Ruins Everything:
Real-time bidding sounds like a marvel of modern technology—a system that allows advertisers to target the right audience, at the right time, with the right message. But here’s the dirty little secret: it often sacrifices the quality of that message. RTB’s focus is on inventory and efficiency, not storytelling. It’s a game of speed, where the emphasis is on filling slots rather than creating impact. And while it’s great for squeezing every penny out of an ad budget, it’s terrible for creativity. Ads become afterthoughts, slapped together to fit auction criteria rather than audience needs. The result? A creative desert, where ads might be precise but are also painfully bland.
Budget Mismanagement:
Let’s talk about the adtech tax—a dirty little secret that’s draining budgets faster than you can say “ROI.” Between platform fees, tech stack costs, and middlemen, a significant chunk of advertising dollars never makes it to the creative team. Instead, it gets swallowed up by the machinery of adtech, leaving pennies for the actual content. The irony? Brands are paying top dollar for campaigns that look like they were produced on a shoestring budget. Meanwhile, the audience is left with uninspired ads, and the brand wonders why its investment isn’t delivering results. Spoiler: it’s not because people don’t like ads; it’s because they don’t like bad ads.
Time for a Renaissance: Making Ads That Resonate
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: adtech has become a maze of pipes and plumbing diagrams, with all the elegance of a utility bill. What we desperately need is fewer pipes and more poetry. Fewer spreadsheets, more stories. Less “always-on,” and more moments where someone asks, “Why are we doing this in the first place?” Because let’s be honest: if your ad doesn’t inspire, entertain, or at least make someone stop and notice, what’s the point?
The good news? It’s not too late to fix this mess. But it will take a cultural reset—a renaissance, if you will. Here’s where we start.
Integrate the Teams: Stop the Creative-Data Divorce
Adtech and creative teams have spent the last decade acting like estranged relatives forced to share Thanksgiving dinner—cordial at best, resentful at worst. The media planners are holed up in one room obsessing over impressions, while the creative folks are busy debating whether blue or green evokes more “trust” in a logo. Neither side understands the other’s priorities, let alone speaks the same language.
It’s time to fix that. Get everyone in the same room—literally. Stop siloing media and creative like they’re two entirely different planets. Media planners should understand the storytelling objectives, and creatives should have a basic grasp of data and targeting tools. Collaboration isn’t just nice to have; it’s essential for creating ads that both perform and resonate.
Imagine a world where media teams design placements with creative input baked in from the start. Maybe that 15-second ad isn’t the best choice for a pre-roll, or perhaps that banner ad needs a dynamic element to fit the context better. When these teams work together, the result is something greater than the sum of its parts—a campaign that feels intentional, thoughtful, and human.
Bring Back Context: Make Ads That Belong
One of the biggest casualties of programmatic advertising is context. Ads today don’t belong anywhere; they just show up, uninvited and awkward, like a party guest who didn’t check the theme. You’re binge-watching a gritty crime drama, and suddenly you’re hit with an ad for bubblegum. Or you’re scrolling through a news app, and a banner ad for cat food flashes across the screen—except you don’t even own a cat.
We need to stop this madness. Ads should feel like they belong to the environment they’re in. That means tailoring content to the platform, the audience, and even the mood of the surrounding content. Remember the early days of online advertising, when brands would skin an entire website to create a seamless, immersive experience? What happened to that? Where’s the creativity? Where’s the effort to make the ad feel like part of the experience, rather than an interruption?
Want to advertise in a mobile app? Don’t just slap a banner at the bottom of the screen—integrate your brand into the app’s design. Running ads on a streaming platform? Use pause screens and interactive overlays to create engagement, not annoyance. Context isn’t just about where your ad appears; it’s about how it makes sense in that moment.
Prioritize Emotional Engagement: Create Moments, Not Metrics
Let’s talk about clicks. Everyone loves a good click-through rate—it’s tangible, measurable, and easy to throw into a PowerPoint slide. But clicks are transactional, not emotional. And while transactions pay the bills, emotions build the relationships that keep people coming back.
Instead of designing ads to maximize CTRs, what if we designed them to create moments? Think about the ads that have stuck with you over the years—the ones that made you laugh, cry, or gasp in awe. They didn’t do that because an algorithm predicted they’d work; they did it because they made a connection. They told a story. They made you feel something.
Emotional engagement doesn’t mean abandoning performance metrics; it means redefining what success looks like. Instead of asking, “Did they click?” ask, “Did they care?” That could mean creating an ad so beautiful it stops someone mid-scroll, or crafting a campaign so clever it becomes a conversation starter. The point is to make ads that matter, not just ads that meet the minimum threshold of attention.
Fred’s Right—Plumbing Isn’t Enough
Fred Godfrey said it best: “Adtech is all plumbing and no poetry.” And here’s the thing about plumbing—it’s necessary, but it’s not exciting. Pipes don’t inspire people. Faucets don’t evoke emotion. Plumbing gets the job done, but it doesn’t make anyone sit up and take notice.
The plumbing analogy fits adtech perfectly. The pipes are in place, the systems are running, and the data is flowing. But what’s coming out of those pipes? Tepid water. What if, instead of water, we delivered champagne every once in a while? What if the end product wasn’t just functional, but delightful?
Plumbing is the infrastructure; poetry is the experience. And the best ads combine the two. They use data to inform creative decisions, but they don’t let the data dictate the story. They’re precise and targeted, but also human and relatable.
Make It Worth Watching, Engaging, and Remembering
Here’s the vision: a world where ads don’t just find their audience—they captivate them. Where every impression isn’t just a number but a chance to make an impact. Where adtech isn’t just a system of pipes but a platform for creativity, innovation, and connection.
It’s not a pipe dream—pun intended. The tools are there. The talent is there. What’s missing is the will to prioritize creativity as much as we prioritize efficiency. It’s time for a renaissance in advertising, one where data and storytelling work hand-in-hand, and where every ad is an opportunity to inspire, entertain, and engage.
Water’s great, but champagne is better. Let’s stop being satisfied with pipes and start creating something worth celebrating.
