Make Something Procurement Can't Price
People Hate Advertising
We had a mural on the wall of our office at john st. that read, "People hate advertising.
"Really, people hate interruptions that feel like advertising. But they have plenty of time for things they want to spend time with. And that's really what our job in marketing and advertising is about.
For the last decade, the industry's answer was volume. We built a machine optimized for scale, reach, and frequency. We made advertising cheaper and more efficient. Then platforms started charging a premium for that reach, procurement turned creativity into a line item, and AI arrived to do the executional work for almost nothing. But there is no evidence anyone is the better for this. Consumers don’t look up from their phone and say, "Geez, that was an efficient little ad." And most marketers are struggling with anemic growth.
Now, the industry is staring at an existential question: What, exactly, is an agency for?
The smartest shops have found an answer. They are realizing that the future of the agency isn't work-for-hire; it's entertainment.
The Entertainment-First Pivot
A few agencies are starting to evolve from creating "content" to building entertainment properties, IP, and media brands. Why? Because entertainment is the one part of the creative business that cannot be procured, optimized, or automated by AI. You cannot put a kids' TV show through a procurement process the way you can a display campaign. You cannot performance-market your way to a hit.
Take Ralph, a creative agency that transitioned into an entertainment business. Rather than talking about how they “automate the funnel”, they publish a print magazine (deliberately designed to swim against the algorithmic tide) launched a TV channel, and are developing IP with licensing and merchandising in mind. As Ralph's CEO Chris Hassell puts it, if your business model is still hours and fees, you aren't future-proofed.[1]
Or look at Small World, built entirely on "entertainment-first creativity." (I'm a fan of their Oatly work.) When tasked with reviving Hot Topic for Gen Z, they didn't make a commercial. They created Mall Rats, a TikTok-first sitcom starring five creators, shot in malls, and rife with insider alt-culture energy.[2] The result was a social-first series that blurred the line between advertising and entertainment. Advertising that doesn't feel like advertising.
Then there is Elvis, a UK agency that launched this year with what it calls a "SeriousEntertainment" mission. They recently hired Claire Prince as Head of Entertainment, bringing a decade of TV production experience alongside branded content work at BBH London and Droga5. "We're building entertainment businesses with brands, not just making content for them," Prince said. "When everyone has skin in the game from day one, you make bolder, more authentic work."[3]
The Data Proves It Works
As agencies blur into commodities, this approach isn't just an attempt at being cool. It's an attempt at relevance. And the evidence that entertaining brands grow is not new.
The IPA's effectiveness databank (the most comprehensive body of advertising evidence in the world, built from decades of real campaign results) has shown consistently that emotional, entertaining advertising outperforms rational advertising on long-term business metrics. Binet and Field's analysis of that data established what has become the industry's most-cited finding: emotional campaigns are the primary driver of market share and profit growth, not performance marketing.[4] The IPA reaffirmed this as recently as March 2026: "Despite huge economic uncertainty, the evidence suggests that the rationale for using emotional creative advertising still holds. Indeed, there is more need for it now than ever."
A more recent joint study by System1 and Effie, analyzing 1,265 campaigns across the U.S., Europe, and the U.K. between 2007 and 2023, found that high-emotion advertising delivered 52 to 57 percent more business results than low-emotion work — consistently, across every market studied.[5] The same research cites economist Paull Dyson's finding that creative quality is a 12x profit multiplier, second only to brand size. Targeting, by contrast, is a 1.1x multiplier. Most marketers have this exactly backwards. If you haven’t seen the Extraordinary Cost of Dull by now, you need to.
Someone has to help banks, toilet paper, and yoghurt feel unboring. That is still the job.
Entertain — or Be Ignored
If brands don’t have something people want to see, using AI to automate more of it only adds to the problem. Attention cannot be bought the way it used to be; it must be earned.
For decades, agencies commoditized their own services, failing to highlight their strategic minds and creative talent as the true brand. By pivoting to entertainment, they can reclaim their value. When you build an audience that seeks you out, you take back control from the algorithms. Brands need entertainment more than ever, and for the first time, entertainment genuinely needs brands as creative and strategic partners not just funding sources.
If you are a CMO, ask yourself: Are you buying reach, or are you earning attention? And if you are an agency leader, ask yourself: Are you building a fee-based service business, or are you building an entertainment empire? Because the brands figuring this out the fastest are the ones behaving less like advertisers and more like creators.
Footnotes
[1]Stack Magazines, "Ralph magazine is publishing for the fun of it," April 2026. https://stackmagazines.com/humour/ralph-magazine-is-publishing-for-the-fun-of-it/
[2]LBBOnline, "Hot Topic Brings Chaos with TikTok Sitcom for Gen Z Alt Royalty," September 2025. https://lbbonline.com/news/Hot-Topic-Brings-Chaos-with-TikTok-Sitcom-for-Gen-Z-Alt-Royalty
[3]MediaPost, "Elvis Enhances Brand Partnerships, Names Prince Head Of Entertainment," April 2026. https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/414435/elvis-enhances-brand-partnerships-names-prince-he.html
[4]IPA / Binet & Field, The Power of Emotion, updated March 2026. https://ipa.co.uk/initiatives/effworks/effworks-ft-reports/the-power-of-emotion
[5]System1 & Effie, The Creative Dividend: How Creativity Multiplies Profit, January 2026. https://screenforce.nl/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20260113-The-Creative-Dividend.pdf