Futuregazing: full-stack creative strategists
The rise of AI reveals one big trend
A fortnight ago, we launched our Annual Report, which you can download this week. For the three weeks, we’ll be publishing key stories from that report followed by our usual Annual Book Review and reflection of the best articles of the year.
AI became a real possibility for ads creation this year.
At the centre of much of the AI backlash is the fear for job losses. And there’s certainly already data that suggests AI has reduced hiring.
My current view is that it cost minimisation will be a fraction of AI’s impact, but the much, much greater upside will be the creative expansion.
Here’s one of the key takeaways from this year’s report1.
Full stack creatives
Here’s a standard workflow from a year ago.
Growth Strategist & Creative Strategist co-create a Messaging Framework that identifies how we should advertise to customers
Growth Strategist sets requirements for new ads based on what’s in an account
Creative Strategist takes brief from GS + the Messaging Framework and gets to work briefing ads
Client signs off idea
Brief goes into production where creators, designers, video editors might all play a part in its making.
Client signs off ad
Ad goes live
Now for the Creative Strategist, once the brief has been signed off, their involvement used to effectively stop. Sometimes they’d have feedback on final assets, but generally speaking as we take a “test, don’t debate” mindset, we rarely would intervene for further edits oureslves.
That system worked well and was a division of labour. It was akin to the old partnering of a copywriter and an art director, but for the modern day and at 100x scale of Ad World 1.0.
But what if there was another way.
AI has changed the game because creating visuals and videos no longer requires a production arm.
Over the last 12 months, AI created content is still getting in total spend terms much lower levels than creator-first or studio-first content. But it is outpacing its investment on a ‘spend per ad’ basis.
This is exciting, not because it means we can spend less on creator or studio headcount, but because the creativity levels increase.
New workflow
The new workflow looks something like this:
Growth Strategist & Creative Strategist co-create a Messaging Framework that identifies how we should advertise to customers
Growth Strategist sets requirements for new ads based on what’s in an account
Creative Strategist takes brief from GS + the Messaging Framework and gets to work briefing ads.
Creative Strategist designs the ad themselves
Client signs off idea and ad in one go
Ad goes live
The creative strategist is now much closer to the finished output, which arguably is a great thing. It increases velocity and speed, because it cuts down production time, which is a great thing as pace is one of the most important variables in success.
But most excitingly, it now opens up the ideas of what’s possible.
Take these example ads as a few examples.
In this ad for YourParkingSpace, we had the hypothesis that:
Parking tickets / parking wardens are the ‘monster’ – in a lighthearted and satirical way rather than a serious one, but the emphasis is there
We had lots of ideas which were more ‘out there’ / ‘out of the box’ that may not have had made it past brief stage.
This is one example, a take on a PCN that we were playing around with. In this instance, the Creative Strategist ran this process end to end. Originally the ad was there as inspo, but actually we went with it in the end and the ad did well.
In this ad for Thirva, we had a few insights:
Thriva’s Autodraw device removes the pain from home blood testing
We were brainstorming fun and creative ways to demonstrate that
Someone mentioned the Princess and the Pea
30 minutes later we had this ad, thanks to AI
The Creative Strategist again took this idea from insight & idea to finished ad very quickly.
It’s hard to predict how we would have created this ad otherwise. Given the topic, it likely would have required illustration, at which point we never would have done it. This isn’t time not paid to an illustrator, it’s creative time that wouldn’t have had an outcome otherwise.
Similar to the YourParkingSpace example, this ad did really well as well.
What I’d do as a creative strategist today
Creative Strategy is a brand new function in direct response advertising. And it differs significantly from the old school ad world Creative Strategist roles.
Creative Strategists today have to be able to think and brief quickly, meeting the demands of paid social.
But one thing we’ve found is often there’s a gap between their creativity and final output. And this is where, fantastically the full stack creative strategist comes in.
AI still remains a small percent of our ad mix in production terms. But it’s growing.
If I were a Creative Strategist (or wanted to get into it today), I’d do the following:
Invest as much free time as possible experimenting with the latest AI tools.
Learn as much as you can about how the models work and where their advantages and disadvantages are
Get used to creating ads direct from your ideas
Learn as much as you can about visual prompting: maybe study some photograph tutorials, or some high-level graphic or video design.
I think the outcome will be a huge leap in our creativity
Some other directions the ‘full stack creative strategist could go’:
“Meta Ads analyst” – i.e. they’re highly comfortable in Ads Manager combing through data
Customer interviewer – the person who learns the very best ways to get exactly what they need out of customers – and is responsible for insight → brief → ad → outcome
Producer – rounding up the video editor / designer / creative production team to manage them.
At the moment we’re in a big unknown future. But one thing I’ve found about Creative Strategists is its a highly optimistic bunch – maybe that’s because it’s a role that’s brand new and being reinvented every six months.
Either way, I’m more convinced at the end of 2025 than I was at the start, that AI will be a net benefit for creativity. To me it now feels like the dawn of the internet allowing hackers in bedrooms to create tech companies, or Shopify launching enabling millions of would-be entrepreneurs create product ecom businesses. This feels like a new era for creating advertising.
This was just one of my predictions from this year’s annual report, which you can download in the footer below.
Are you a full stack creative strategist?
I’d love to speak to more people in this specific role doing this thing. What have you designed and come up with. Either drop a comment below or drop me an email.
Josh Lachkovic is the founder of Ballpoint, a growth marketing agency that helps brands scale from £1-10M ARR. Visit Ballpoint to learn more, or subscribe to Early Stage Growth for weekly insights on profitable scaling.
Note: Ballpoint works with brands looking to grow their spend from £30k per month to £300k per month.