‘Figureheads’ were ornamental wooden carvings fixed to the bow of ancient ships, often depicting religious or martial iconography. Gods, dragons, lions. Added weight that served no real function other than a show of strength, intimidation, or superstition. Pirates would use them for target practice by blowing them off with cannonballs. Personally, I can see the attraction.

In my early 20s I worked for a huge corporation. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what people actually did all day. There were a lot of meetings about meetings about meetings that had to get rescheduled to another meeting next week to continue meeting about the meetings. Calendar-filling as a means of performative busyness. Everyone was always ‘so busy’, yet strangely nothing would ever actually get done on time. 90% talking about doing and about 10% actually doing. I’m sure plenty of others out there will resonate with this.

One of the mistakes that large agencies made, in my opinion anyway, was trying to look and behave in a similar way. Some years ago, at a big network agency, I worked on a pitch where I sat in a three-hour meeting with 4 or 5 CDs, an ECD or CCO, a Head of Strategy, a CSO, a regional CSO, I don’t know to be honest what all the titles were, but there must have been 3 million dollars in titles and salaries in the one meeting. We mostly achieved nothing by the end of it. ‘Borderless creativity’ is what a lot of large organisations sell it as. It might have been the least creative three hours of my life.

I laughed at this tote bag Uncommon made in 2024 and gave out at Cannes. To be fair though, if we’re all honest with ourselves, we could replace ‘A.I’ with almost anything. Or just remove the ‘about A.I’ line and go with ‘Stop wanging on and make some good work.’

Our industry is going through a rough time at the moment, on agency and client side. We’re being squeezed. The workforce is shrinking, and it won’t fully rebound. None of this is being said without empathy, but perhaps with a lens of pragmatism. Times of disruption are also times to take stock. The current shift we’re experiencing absolutely has some legitimate concerns and negative intent, but it’s also exposing some hard truths.

There has been a lot of bloat and bluster in this business. Seven marketers turning up to a creative presentation, none of whom can actually make a decision. Agencies with so many layers of titles that somehow someone ends up being a ‘Deputy Global Chief Creative Officer, Vice President’. A lot of time being spent talking about making work rather than actually making any. It kinda has that same feeling I had 20 years ago - what are all these people actually doing?

Almost every freelancer or new hire we make immediately comments on both the speed at which we work and the volume of work we put out for an agency of our size. The highest titles at SICKDOG probably seem a bit old fashioned. Creative Director, Design Director, Business Director, Strategy Director. Because that’s what the people do. And maybe that’s been the key to our success through a period where many agencies are struggling to find any. Everyone here makes work. Everyone knows their role. There is no mention of ‘on or off the tools’, because nobody is ornamental. There are no figureheads on the ship. Other than the ones dropping off all the hulking galleons around us.

Perhaps this is my attempt at optimism in a time that feels bereft of it. Once the squeeze settles, those that remain, on both client and agency side, will be the ones who are here to make work, not decks. The days of the ‘guy with a big title that wanders in and out of a presentation every now and then’ are coming to a close, and it’s probably for the best.

Curiously, there’s even been a trend of the ‘Chief Marketing Officer’ title being eradicated in some businesses. That probably means different things for different organisations, but it isn’t going to mean the end of marketing. Similarly, I’d provoke agencies into asking if they need ‘Chief Creative Officers’. I’m not questioning the talent of the people or their jobs, anyone that has risen to that point has likely earned it, I’m more questioning the posturing around these ‘figurehead’ titles. Are creatives really ‘officers’? What are we officiating? Are we ideas police? Should we be asking rogue junior creatives for their badge and gun if they don’t answer the brief? I reckon you’re probably just a Creative Director, and the Associate Group Creative whatever or other under you is probably a Senior Creative. What I’m getting at is when your ship is covered in shiny ornaments from bow to stern, the deck hand is called a ‘Group Deck Swabbing Officer’, and you’re going around in circles failing to find any land, it might be time to throw some clutter overboard and figure out what everyone actually does.

We work in advertising and marketing. We are the fun part of the capitalist machine. We get to spend large sums of money to make stuff that gets seen by millions of people. It’s why everyone started doing this. Creatives, suits, clients, we all chose this path because we got to do one of the few jobs that actually made stuff.

Anyway, more and more I feel like the flavour of the future is ‘Make some good work or get out of the way’. Chasing a career of tearing things down, poking holes in work to justify your existence, producing deck version 32, chair warming and title chasing is probably not the pursuit it once was. And maybe we’re heading towards an era of ‘put up or shut up’.

The era of ‘Stop wanging on and make some good work.’

We can only hope.

If you enjoyed this piece at all, please click the ad below. It’s either that or I have to move to a subscription model to cover hosting costs. Appreciate it.

Over 2,500 businesses already show up in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google. AutoSEO writes expert articles and earns backlinks while they sleep. No SEO learning curve. No agency. Set it up once and let it run.

Get my free plan