When I filed my first column for Aurora 27 years ago in 1998 (yes, that’s right, around about the time most of you were born), the advertising world operated on three sacred truths: 1) The client is always right (even when they are patently wrong); 2) This will only take five minutes (possibly the greatest lie ever told in the creative department); and 3) The cheque is in the mail (the second biggest lie).

While these tenets still ring true, there are some things that actually have changed.

‘Going viral’, for instance, actually meant that you were in sore need of antibiotics. ‘Influencers’ were called ‘celebrities’ and, believe it or not, actually had something we loosely referred to as ‘talent’. What you call ‘content’ today was still tagged as ‘work’. The advertising industry was actually ‘industrious’ in the sense that it was populated by men and women who were citadels of ideas and not the marketing technologists that pepper today’s soup of algorithmic banality. And, lastly, being ‘data-driven’ meant asking the planning and client services team for their considered opinion on expanding the canvas of possibility that lay open before us.

The tools have changed (goodbye mechanicals and comps; hello AI-generated nonsense), but the fundamental challenges still remain surprisingly stubborn – like: 1) How do you sell things to people who don’t really want to be sold to? and 2) Does smoking weed really make you extra creative or just gets you fired?

I don’t really know the answers. But, over the past three decades, I have witnessed our industry cope precariously and endlessly through a cycle of our very own version of the Seven Stages of Grief:

1. Denial: Print isn’t dying – it’s evolving!
2. Anger: You want how many revisions – and by when?
3. Bargaining: If we win this award, we’ll never compromise our ethics.
4. Depression: Why did we spend six months on a campaign they’ll forget in six seconds?
5. Acceptance: Fine, we’ll make the logo bigger.
6. Relapse: Actually, what if we did try something spectacularly bold?
7. Amnesia: This time, I’m going to make a meaningful difference.

Despite this endless loop in a race to the bottom, the occasional miracle does happen. Great work still gets made. The kind that burns the edges of mediocrity and singes its magic into collective memory. The kind of work we get out of bed for – so that luck, circumstance or coincidence might hand us that golden wand of justified irreverence that can bend light or evaporate darkness.

Okay, I’m taking this too far… If the master-blender of these spells actually existed, that person would be a multi zillionaire. Sadly, he doesn’t exist. So you will have to bear with more unsolicited advice if you are new to the game – or still haven’t emigrated to Canada.

1. To Creatives: Pick your niche and develop a portfolio that scares clients a little. The days of the generalist are long gone. But the days of micro-speciality and co-creation are here. So become a silver bullet among a flock of blunt arrows.

Lousy presentation skills decimate your team’s hard work. If your firm doesn’t have a professional presenter, find one. Pay them handsomely. End of discussion.

The best revenge against bad clients is great work for good ones. Stagnant blood is bad blood. When people and clients move, that is great for the industry. But if you or your staff are getting abused, end the relationship. Immediately.

2. To Clients: Lazy briefs lead to lazy work. If you are a marketing professional, at the very least, you should know the art of making marks: Verbal. Visual. Vivid. Getting the agency to guess what’s on your mind is a wasteful and gloomy exercise. If the work is not visible, someone invisible is on the take. Know now that if you have a rat on your team, the damage they will do will fester long after they are gone. Ventilate your culture with rigorous brand policing.

Trust your agency. Instinct cannot be bought: It takes up to six months to get chemically aligned with your agency partners. Without underlying trust, you will turn them into psychopaths and yourselves into sociopaths.

3. To Everyone: Awards are great; paycheques are better. Of all the ways that are out there to pimp your ego, please remember that no agency has won business based on the number of awards they have won. None.

No one ever got fired for doing great work: Okay, maybe a few people – on weed. But it’s always easier to tone down an overly creative crackerjack compared to igniting the dead imagination of a well-meaning dullard.

The industry will change. Your integrity shouldn’t: No explanation needed here. I can’t leave without expressing gratitude to everyone who kept my column Above the-Line in Aurora alive and kicking. My ex-wife came up with the name, and I have to admit, it lasted way longer than our union ever did. I have also been asked on many occasions to send an entry to Guinness World Records for the record on the world’s longest running advertising column by a single author. Naturally, I refused. Because if you must do something that only exhibits your vanity, it’s best done in private.

To the Readers: You remain my favourite kind of focus group. Unpaid, but brutally honest. Your emails (from ‘Brilliant!’ to ‘Bullshit!’) kept me sharper than any editor.

To the Editors: For turning my rants into something resembling coherence, for pretending my deadlines were flexible rather than fictional, and for making my typos look like stylistic choices; few can compare with the editorial acumen of Aurora.

To the Industry: You are maddening, inspiring, frustrating and wonderful – often before lunch. Never change. (But, also, please do.) To close, a word or two about the future. As of right now, it’s commonly understood that AI will not replace creatives, but creatives using AI will replace those who don’t. I tend to agree. Technology is one of the many resources smart creatives have at their disposal. Secondly, the next ‘Big Idea’ will look nothing like the last one (which is a good thing). And if it’s laced with cultural resonance or moral courage, it has the makings of a real contribution to our craft and purpose. Thirdly, someone will finally crack the metaverse – probably right after the rest of us have given up.

And, lastly, advertising, at best, has never been about selling. It’s been about connecting. For three decades, this column has tried to do the same with the understanding that progress is not achieved by the guardians of morality or the status quo but by the mad men, hermits, heretics, thinkers, dreamers, rebels, sceptics, poets and artists. In other words, stupidity is filled with certitudes, but those with any degree of imagination are filled with doubt and anxiety.

Have I reached a thousand words? Yep. It’s over – and I’m out.

Faraz Maqsood Hamidi is CCO and CEO, The D’Hamidi Partnership, a worldwide partner agency of WPI.