Media will get more expensive. Creativity will be how to afford it.
DeepSeek has launched AI models like those of OpenAI (the maker of Chat-GPT) and Anthropic (the maker of Claude).
The BIG difference is that it is MUCH cheaper.
10x cheaper.
That means we will watch AI getting adopted at 2x speed.
AI images are going to get excellent – fast.
AI video will get decent – fast.
AI copy will get good – including getting cultural nuances.
AI technologies which were limited to brands with the biggest wallets will be cheap enough for small brands to use.
Cheaper AI will make production cheaper – allowing more brands to advertise in more markets and formats.
Outside advertising, AI will speed up R&D – meaning that existing brands and new entrants will release new products.
Cheaper production and more products to sell will increase demand for advertising space – across countries and platforms.
But the amount of media out there is limited. We each only have so many hours a day to look at billboards and screens.
So there is more advertising demand chasing the same amount of ad space.
This means that advertising media will get more expensive.
For brands to win that media space, they will need to outbid their competition.
Creativity enables that.
Say you can pay $1 for a boring ad that gets ignored 9 times out of 10.
A competitor with a better ad that is only ignored 5 out of 10 times can afford to pay $5 for that same media placement.
When media is cheap, this is less important.
As media gets more expensive, creative becomes worth more dollars – fast.
CMOs – plan for a world with higher media costs.
Run the numbers to work out where creativity will be valuable in capturing attention and making sales.