Field Notes
But when Sweathead, a global community of strategists and marketers, asked me to speak about the urgent problems in advertising, I said yes. The event, Advertising, We Need to Talk, took place online on August 28th.
In person, you get immediate feedback—people’s body language tells you when you’re losing them. You can adjust, shift gears, cut things short if needed. But speaking into a screen? It’s like talking to a one-way mirror. You can’t see the audience, you don’t know if they’re engaged or distracted, and the moments that make conferences worthwhile—grabbing coffee, trading ideas between sessions—don’t really exist.
There are smart people trying to fix this, working on ways to make virtual connections more meaningful. I can’t wait to see what happens next.
For now, here are the slides and notes from my talk. It was designed for strategists and marketers in advertising, but it probably applies to most people in the creative business.
Introduction
Over the past decade, something has been shifting. More and more talented people are leaving the agency world—and this didn’t start with the pandemic. COVID-19 may have accelerated the rethink, but the truth is, people have been questioning their careers for years.
They’re leaving to start their own shops, become content creators, build communities of like-minded people, and form direct relationships with audiences worldwide. Others are choosing independence, working as creative nomads on their own terms.
I’m Felix Ng, co-founder of Anonymous. And today, I want to talk about why the most talented people in the world no longer want to work for agencies—and what we can do about it.
I’ve observed at least 12 reasons why people are leaving agencies, but we only have 8 minutes—so let’s focus on three: Flexibility, Meaning, and Control.
They want more… Flexibility, Meaning and Control
Flexibility
People want to work for themselves, on their own terms, from anywhere.
It used to be that success followed a fixed path: go to school, get good grades, land a job, work hard, climb the corporate ladder, win awards, get promoted, and collect more benefits. That was the only way.
But things have changed.
Today, all you need is a laptop and an internet connection to work from anywhere and build a career on your own terms. You’re no longer limited by geography or traditional structures. The old model of work doesn’t hold the same power it once did.
Meaning
Agencies are still selling things instead of making better things.
Seth Godin wrote Permission Marketing 20 years ago, arguing that instead of interrupting people with ads, brands should earn their audience’s trust by being so good that people want to engage with them.
But even after two decades, advertising is still built on disruption. It has just become more covert—wrapped in content, disguised as stories—but it’s still the same.
Many people in agencies see this. They know their audience sees it too. But the way client relationships are structured forces agencies to maintain the illusion that their work is essential. That they’re making their client’s product better.
But they aren’t.
Control
There’s an old joke: the smartest kids from art school go into advertising, while the hardest-working ones become designers.
If that was once true, today, the smartest ones are moving into tech, startups, and in-house roles—because that’s where the money and control is.
More and more people in advertising are realizing how limiting their work is. Even when they know a product lacks real value, they still have to sell it. That used to be fine—because brands could control the narrative.
But not anymore.
Before we buy anything, we ask our friends, read reviews, compare options. The control has shifted to the consumer.
At a fundamental level, people want their work to feel useful. And over the last decade, value has shifted from selling to building. The closer you are to the product, the more control you have over the impact of your work.
Rethinking Teams: From Competition to Collaboration
All of this makes building a team today—and in the future—really difficult.
So what can we do? If the best talents are leaving, how do we still make the best work possible?
The answer isn’t competition. It’s collaboration.
At Anonymous, we don’t try to keep talent in-house. Instead, we assemble teams based on what each project requires—bringing together independent marketers, creatives, advertising agencies, design studios, researchers, illustrators, and artists from around the world.
We used to call this the Avengers model—curating the best talent for each project. But it’s actually more like LEGO—building a team of teams, assembling the right pieces based on what the project needs.
This way, we don’t compete with the most talented people in the world. We work with them.
Hire the Right People—Then Get Out of Their Way
We’ve been on both sides of the table—writing briefs and receiving them. And the same question always comes up:
How do you get the best work from people?
The answer is simple: Hire the right people and stay out of their way.
It’s tempting to manage, oversee, and direct someone’s work. But that’s missing the point. The whole reason you hire someone is because they can do something better than you can.
That’s the goal of any business owner, entrepreneur, or employer—to hire people who are better than you.
You don’t hire a photographer and then tell them how to take a photo. You hire them because you trust their vision and their craft. The same applies to any creative, strategist, or problem solver.
And something powerful happens when you give up control.
The benchmark for success shifts from your expectations to theirs. Now, they’re personally invested in the outcome. They take ownership. They push beyond what you imagined—not because you told them to, but because they want to.
When people take full ownership of their work, the excuse “my boss/client wanted it this way” disappears. There’s no one to hide behind. The work is a reflection of them, not just the brief.
And that’s when the best work happens.
Build Marketing Into the Product
Instead of building a marketing plan around a product, build marketing into the product itself.
Rather than spending money on disruptive ads or gimmicky social media contests—where people tag friends for a chance to win—invest that budget into research and development. Make the product so good that people naturally want to talk about it.
Great marketing isn’t about finding better ways to sell. It’s about creating something worth sharing.
Focus on What Won’t Change
We’re obsessed with what’s new, what’s next, and how to get there first. We chase trends, trying to predict the future. Blockchain, NFTs, the Metaverse, AI—every few months, something else promises to change everything.
To be honest, I can barely keep up.
So instead, I focus on what won’t change.
In the future, people will still want more flexibility, meaning, and control. Not less.
Building a team won’t get easier—it will get harder. And it won’t be about perks, free lunches, or hybrid work policies. Those are surface-level fixes. The real challenge is deeper:
We need to rethink our entire belief system—not just how we build companies, but why they exist, why people should care, and how we can make better things instead of just finding better ways to sell things people don’t need.
How to Make a Product People Love
For this exercise, I’ll share a few things we’ve learned from building products—principles you can apply to whatever you're working on.
You can use an existing brief, a new business idea, or just test these concepts against something in progress. The exercise is simple:
How do you make a product people love?
First, let’s establish a baseline.
At its core, marketing works because of one simple truth:
Every person has two selves—the person they are and the person they want to be.
Marketing makes a promise: that a product or service can help bridge that gap.
So if you want to create something people want or need, it should help them become the person they aspire to be.
But here’s the challenge—most client briefs don’t allow us to change or improve the product itself. We’re expected to sell it as-is.
Instead of finding better ways to sell a product that claims to help people, why not actually make the product better?
Step 1: Identify the Missing Piece
The first step to making a product people love is simple:
Find out what people want or need that no one is making—yet.
Alternatively, ask: What feature or benefit is missing in your client’s product or service that their customers would love?
This sounds obvious, but it’s not always easy—especially when working within the constraints of a client’s brief. Marketers are often expected to sell the product as-is, without questioning whether it could be improved.
But this is exactly where we can add value.
Instead of just executing the brief, challenge it.
Reframe the opportunity by looking at cultural tensions, unmet needs, and shifting behaviors.
Every entrepreneur succeeds because they see what others don’t.
Marketers can do the same—by thinking more like entrepreneurs and spotting what’s missing before the market does.
Second, if it’s important, make it interesting.
And if it’s interesting, make it important.
For example:
Few non-creatives want to read a book or attend a conference on advertising, but many are happy to watch a film about it—because films feel like entertainment. The sweet spot lies in combining importance and interest.
Another example:
We all know climate change is real. We see it in the news, but it often feels abstract or overwhelming. Even though it’s important, it lacks urgency for most people or we don’t feel like there’s much we can do about it.
If we want people to know more and take action, we need to make it interesting and easy for people to do something about it. And if it’s something interesting and cool, flip the question around the other way. How do we make it important for people to care?
Step 3: Build Scarcity Into Your Product
We live in a time of abundance. Almost everything we want is easily accessible.
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Hundreds of movies and TV shows for $15 a month.
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Unlimited music for $10 a month.
- You can learn almost anything for free on YouTube—just trade 15 seconds for an ad.
True scarcity is rare. Outside of vaccines and a healthy planet, most things are available on demand.
And what’s scarce is valuable.
If you want to create something that people love, value, and demand, build scarcity into your product.
This doesn’t mean faking exclusivity. If you print 10,000 copies of a book, don’t claim there are only 10 to manufacture hype. Instead, design scarcity with intention:
Create different tiers: Print 100 beautifully crafted copies at $100, while offering unlimited digital editions at a lower price.
Start small, grow strategically: Begin with a limited run, and as demand grows, increase supply—but always keep it slightly below demand.
This way, you create real value, avoid unnecessary risk, and ensure that what you make remains desirable, sought after, and meaningful.
Closing:
Hope this was useful—and not too much of a rant.
This presentation is the TL;DR version of a series of blog posts I wrote under Field Notes on our website. If you're interested, you can dive deeper there.
Thanks again!
P.S. Preparing for this talk reminded me how much I enjoy writing short observations, so I’ve started tweeting again. We used to be more active on Instagram, but let’s be honest—it’s basically a shopping network now.
—
Felix Ng
Co-founder, Anonymous
@felix.anonymous