I wrote down some lessons advertising has taught me.
Here are some lessons I’m too modest to post on LinkedIn.
1. If you can’t write well, say something interesting.
When I moved to the US and got my first briefing, I realized I had to write in English now.
Not speak it. Write it. Professionally. For a living.
Which is a different kind of terrifying.
You become suddenly aware of everything you don't have:
The vocabulary that isn't quite there, the instinct for rhythm you never developed, the perfect word that exists somewhere in the language but that you'll never find in time.
So I stopped trying.
For a long time I thought that was a problem. Turns out it was a filter.
Because when you can't seduce people with how you write, you have to seduce them with what you say.
You have no choice but to actually have a point.
The writing has to earn its keep through the idea, not the decoration around it.
Instead I focused on the thought itself. Is it true? Is it surprising? Does it make you see something differently?
If the answer was yes, I'd just say it. Plainly. Directly. Without decoration.
And something strange happened. It worked.
Because writing, at its core, isn't about how you say something. It's about whether you have something worth saying.
Nobody remembers how beautifully you phrased something. They remember whether it was true.
I've made a living writing. Which either means I figured something out, or everyone's been too polite to tell me the truth.
I prefer to think it's the first one.
2. The easiest way to make great work is to care about the client’s business.
It’s strange I even have to say this, but a lot of people still treat creativity like it’s the extra part.
The thing you add after the “real business stuff” is done.
It’s not. Creativity is the business stuff. Or at least it should be.
The easiest way to make great work is to deeply understand what the client is actually trying to achieve.
Not just the brief. The real problem.
Why is the brand losing relevance?
Why are people ignoring it?
Why is growth slowing down?
Why does nobody care?
That’s where the great work is.
The best ideas don’t come from trying to look creative.
They come from trying to solve something important in a way nobody else saw.
A lot of creatives think effectiveness limits creativity.
In reality, it sharpens it.
When you truly understand the business problem, the work becomes more focused, more ambitious, and more inevitable.
Because the strongest ideas don’t feel like decorations added onto a business.
They feel like solutions only creativity could solve.
3. Everybody invents a philosophy that makes them a genius.
People are very good at mistaking their strengths for universal truths.
I've seen it happen my entire career.
Someone develops a very strong opinion about what the "right" kind of advertising is.
This kind of work is effective.
That kind of work is award bait.
This kind of work moves business.
That kind of work is self-indulgent.
And, almost by coincidence, the "right" kind of advertising always seems to be the exact kind of advertising they make.
Funny how that works.
The older I get, the more suspicious I become of people who need entire categories of work to be invalid in order for their own work to matter.
Great advertising is not one thing.
I've seen emotional work work.
Funny work work.
Data-driven work work.
Purpose-driven work work.
Product-focused work work.
Award-winning work work.
Award-losing work work.
The best creatives I know don't spend much time explaining why other approaches are wrong.
They're too busy making their own work better.
Whenever someone starts drawing rigid lines around what advertising should or shouldn't be, I pay less attention to the argument and more attention to what they stand to gain from it.
A philosophy that only validates your own work is probably not a philosophy.
It’s branding.
The world is full of different ways to make great work.
Stay curious enough to learn from all of them.
4. Would your former boss hire you again?
A great career is not measured in awards, titles, or attention from strangers on LinkedIn.
Don't get me wrong. Awards, promotions, and recognition are all great.
But they don't tell the full story.
I've seen people with impressive titles who couldn't do the job the title suggested they could do.
I've seen people build impressive portfolios with work they barely touched.
The thing that matters most is your reputation.
Not the public version of it, but the private version that exists in the minds of the people who actually worked with you.
What are they saying about you?
Would your former boss hire you again?
Would your former colleagues want to work with you again?
Advertising is a surprisingly small industry.
People move. Agencies merge. Clients change jobs.
But we all leave a trace.
People remember who helped them.
Who showed up when things got difficult.
They also remember who burned bridges.
Who did what.
And who took more credit than they deserved.
A great career isn't measured by how many people know your name.
And it's certainly not measured by what strangers on LinkedIn think about you.
It's measured by the respect you've earned from the people who actually worked with you.
The quality of your relationships is the ultimate scorecard.
5. Ideas are your armor.
Advertising can be a political jungle.
Not everyone you’re working with will have your best interests at heart.
If you’re weird, shy, quiet, anxious, or simply allergic to the performative side of this industry, the room won’t always feel built for you.
But ideas are your armor.
They protect you.
They shield you from people who underestimate you, misread you, or quietly hope you trip.
Ideas are the one thing no one can take from you, no matter how loud, political, or sneaky the environment gets.
You can't schmooze your way to a great idea. You can't bully one into existence. You either have it or you don't, and when you do, everyone in the room knows it.
If you consistently deliver great work, the politics will start to matter less.
Not because the politics disappear, they don't. But because your track record starts to speak before you do.
Because in the end, the idea always wins.
Ideas are the most democratic force in this industry.
And the person who always brings them becomes hard to touch.
Not because they played the game better, but because they made the game irrelevant.
That's your edge. Protect it. And use it.
6. How you do small things becomes how you do everything.
Great creatives don’t suddenly “turn it on” when it matters.
They’ve been practicing standards the entire time.
Fixing a typo.
Cleaning up a slide.
Rewriting a line until it finally sounds right.
Taking pride in the small tasks that will never end up in your portfolio.
People act like these things are separate from the real work.
They’re not. They are the work.
Because small actions don’t stay small for very long.
They become habits.
And habits become standards.
And standards become your reputation.
Standards don’t suddenly appear when the big opportunity arrives.
You either have them or you don’t.
You can’t score a bicycle kick in a Champions League final if you spent years giving sloppy passes in the small games. You won’t even make it to the final.
The small things train your brain.
They shape your instincts.
They become your default setting.
A person who consistently takes shortcuts eventually starts shortcutting their thinking.
And a person who treats little details without care usually treats people, ideas, and opportunities the same way too.
People can sense care. They can also sense the absence of it.
The best creatives I know aren’t obsessed with small things because they’re perfectionists.
They care because they understand something most people don’t:
How you do small things becomes how you do everything.
7. The best creatives are fueled by psychotic optimism.
If you want to make great work in advertising, you need a borderline irrational level of optimism.
Because this industry will test you constantly.
The budget will disappear.
The client will get scared.
The legal team will kill the line.
The strategy will change halfway through.
The timeline will become impossible.
The system will reward safe work.
You’ll present something great and watch it die in a room full of polite silence.
And yet somehow, the people who consistently make the best work keep going.
Not because they’re lucky.
Not because everything magically works out for them.
But because they believe there’s always a way forward.
A better version. Another route. Another crack at the script. Another idea hiding behind the bad one.
That’s psychotic optimism. And it’s a skill.
It doesn't mean ignoring reality. The best creatives I know see problems more clearly than anyone else in the room.
They just refuse to let clarity become cynicism.
They face the problems head on, with stubbornness, with energy, with an almost embarrassing belief that it can still be good.
Because great work almost never arrives gracefully.
It usually arrives covered in bad meetings, rejected ideas, and moments where everyone briefly thinks the project is doomed.
Cynicism sounds intelligent in advertising. Optimism sounds naive. But look closely at the people behind the work everyone wishes they made.
Most of them share the same slightly irrational quality: they genuinely believed something great was still possible. Usually when no one else did.
8. Craft is more than making things look pretty.
Imagine two comedians telling the same joke, word for word.
One makes the room explode.
The other gets silence.
The joke didn't change.
The words didn't change.
But something in the timing, the delivery, the weight placed on a single syllable, that's what made the difference.
That's craft.
Craft is understanding how you have to present the idea to the world.
It’s choosing the right production partner, the right method to execute it, the right words, the right look.
It’s knowing what to leave in and what to leave out.
A good idea can fall flat without craft.
A simple idea can come alive with it.
Craft is what makes the work land.
9. A deck is a love letter to your idea.
There's a romantic notion in this industry that a great idea sells itself on a napkin.
One line. No context. No setup. Just the raw thought, powerful enough to stand alone.
I've never seen that work.
Not because the idea wasn't good. But because a naked idea is a vulnerable idea.
Walked into a room without context, without story, without the case built around it, even the best idea looks fragile. And fragile things get picked apart.
A great deck doesn’t just show an idea. It shapes it.
While you write it, the idea gets clearer, sharper, more inevitable.
This is where you develop the story, the insight, the tension, the execution.
A deck is also your defense.
It’s where you build the case for your idea the way a lawyer builds one in court.
If the deck is tight, the idea becomes bulletproof.
If the deck is weak, the idea will fall apart.
The napkin is a lovely myth. The best ideas I've seen make it through because someone cared enough to build the case around them.
So please, honor your idea with a great deck.
It makes all the difference.
If you’re interested in more (from people way smarter than me),
here are some good reads:
Damon’s Brain: https://damonsbrain.com/
All books by Dave Trott: Find them here
Keep shooting until the fuckers smoke: A good book by Damon Stapleton