Survival of the fittest: What happens when creativity stops being enough?

If you have watched Mad Men, you will remember when Don Draper said, "Success comes from standing out, not fitting in." It was a statement that defined a generation of agencies, DDB, FCB, MullenLowe, JWT, Burnett, Chaitra, institutions built not just on billboards, but on the audacity of the creative ‘mad’ people who believed they could change the world of advertising. And in their own way, they did. Becoming legends and reaching heights of success rarely touched by the rest of us.

But Draper also said, “Change is neither good nor bad. It simply is.” Today, that inevitability has arrived. We stand at a point in history where creativity is being pushed to the margins by numbers and graphs, metrics that have always been far more comfortable for those watching stock prices rise. Legacy is dissolving like salt in water, leaving the industry to wonder what remains.

The funeral for this era wasn’t held in a church, but in a boardroom. Following the completion of the 13 billion dollar Omnicom-IPG merger this December, the announcement that legacy agencies DDB, FCB, and MullenLowe are being retired, sent seismic shockwaves through the global advertising industry. These were not mere corporate acronyms or items on a balance sheet; for decades, they served as the ‘universities’ of advertising, the crucibles where careers were forged, and the birthplaces of culture-defining work.

As these storied names are absorbed into the surviving ‘super-networks’ of BBDO, TBWA\Lintas, and McCann, the industry is left grappling with a profound existential question: Is this simply the necessary evolution of a business model, or does it signal the death of creativity as the industry’s primary currency?

KV Sridhar, popularly known as Pops, an industry veteran whose career was shaped by these very institutions, offers a philosophical perspective on the shift.

“Creativity will never end. Nothing ends; it evolves. Creativity is like water; it changes shape,” Sridhar observes.

The eroding passion for art

To understand the magnitude of this loss, one must look beyond the logos to the immense cultural footprints these agencies left behind. In the golden age, agencies like DDB, FCB, and MullenLowe (Lintas) were not just service providers; they were the architects of modern consumption, guided by intuition rather than algorithms.

DDB didn’t A/B test their way to Volkswagen’s 'Think Small;' they used wit to challenge America’s obsession with excess. In India, DDB Mudra relied on emotional intelligence, not heatmaps, to turn a cooking oil (Dhara) into a warm family memory with the iconic 'Jalebi boy.' Lintas understood the pulse of a nation, crafting 'Hamara Bajaj' not as a scooter ad but as an anthem for a rising India. These ideas, celebrating dirt, positioning a scooter as national pride, were irrational leaps of faith that data could never have predicted.

But the industry has shifted from asking ‘How does this make you feel?’ to 'What is the click-through rate?' The reliance on gut instinct has been replaced by an insistence on data validation, a shift Pops argues has altered the very DNA of the business.

“Earlier, agencies were built by passionate storytellers and craftspeople. Today, WPP, Publicis and Omnicom are run largely by ‘bean counters’,” Sridhar notes. “To them it doesn’t matter whether they’re selling cars, insurance or advertising. That passion and creativity-driven culture has eroded.”

This erosion is evident in the acquisition strategies of the surviving super-networks, which are absorbing these legacy names not for their ability to write the next cultural manifesto, but for their data stacks and efficiency models.

Financial necessity trumps creative strategy

Why retire agencies with such powerful equity? The consensus is that the merger was driven by financial necessity rather than creative strategy. The “middle” has collapsed; agencies that were not massive data engines or nimble creative boutiques found themselves bleeding.

Azazul Haque, Group Chief Creative Officer  Group Chief Creative Officer  Creativeland Asia is clear that the romanticism of the past cannot hide the financial failures of the present. “The merger of DDB, FCB and MullenLowe wasn’t about creating a stronger combined force,” he explains. “It was driven by necessity—primarily cost-cutting. ROI had decreased, and agencies needed to rethink their structures.”

The numbers paint a stark picture of this shift. Sridhar points out that while agencies once derived all their income from advertising, today that figure has plummeted. “Earlier, agencies made all their revenue from advertising. Today, only 30-40%. The rest comes from digital, technology and media,” he notes. 

And revenue mix shapes culture: when earnings come from tech pipelines, the creative Mad Men are inevitably replaced by the Math Men.

Ambi Parameswaran, Founder of Brand Building and former CEO of FCB Ulka, acknowledges the financial reality behind the scenes. “These companies which once boasted of excellent balance sheets may have to be rolled up into a mother balance sheet,” he observes. “These things keep happening.”

The migration of the future talent

Beyond the balance sheets and brand names, a more human crisis is brewing: the displacement of talent. The ‘Universities of Advertising’ are closing their doors, and with them, the traditional career path for creative leaders is shifting. The talent that once shifted cities to knock on Lintas' doors, is now training to join Meta, YouTube, Accenture and the likes. 

Sridhar notes that the allure of the big network, once the ultimate dream for a copywriter or art director, is fading. “Younger talent doesn’t dream of joining them anymore,” he says. The rigid structures of consolidated networks struggle to compete with the agility and autonomy of the creator economy. “The individual creative person might survive, like a Tanmay Bhat, commanding value independently,” Sridhar predicts.

Talent’s retention in today’s industry is often driven by contracts and client stability rather than the pursuit of excellence. “The good thing is some key people have been retained, but that’s more to retain existing clients than because of creative passion,” He adds.

Advertising is only as good as its talent. With this growing uncertainty, the future of creativity hangs by a thread. As young creatives flock to independent agencies, tech giants, or their own personal brands, the super-networks risk becoming hollowed-out giants — rich in data but increasingly poor in the talent needed to interpret it and find the way to consumers’ hearts. 

Big tech > big idea

This talent drain exacerbates the industry’s struggle to reconcile the ‘Big Idea’ with the ‘Big Feed.’ The modern landscape demands always-on content ecosystems, a game that legacy structures, and their traditional creative hierarchies, struggled to play.

Haque emphasises that the structure of these giants prevented them from adapting to a world of speed and fragmentation. “Most global advertising giants need to understand that the era of ‘one big idea’ delivered through film, print and outdoor is long gone,” he says. “Their structures, built around this old model, are outdated.”

The new mandate, he argues, is radically different, requiring agencies to think less like filmmakers and more like platform architects. “Now the question is: Who will be the next AI influencer an agency creates?” he asks. “Agencies need to see what the world is consuming and then build an ecosystem around it — making brands relevant in the spaces consumers already occupy.”

But there is fundamental friction in this transition. Sridhar identifies a deep-seated skills gap the mergers are desperately trying to solve. “People who understand algorithms don’t understand creativity. People who understand creativity don’t understand the internet,” he notes. “That’s the conflict globally, not just in India.”

This shift has redefined what creative excellence even looks like. It is no longer about landing a singular cultural moment but about orchestrating a continuous presence across surfaces, formats, and algorithms. Agencies are being pushed to think less in terms of campaigns and more in terms of ecosystems, where content, community, influence, and technology converge. The hypothetical “AI influencer” Haque mentions isn’t just a gimmick; it signals where creativity is heading: toward assets that aren’t just consumed but updated, optimised, and deployed across an ever-expanding digital terrain.

But the path there is jagged. As Sridhar highlights, the industry sits on a fault line where two essential skill sets don’t speak the same language. Those fluent in data and distribution often struggle to crack ideas with emotional weight. Those steeped in craft and storytelling often find the internet’s logic alien. This skills gap creates internal friction that mergers alone can’t smooth out. Until agencies develop talent that can straddle both worlds or restructure in ways that allow both disciplines to coexist without hierarchy, the future of creativity will remain uncertain.

Evolution or extinction?

Does the death of these agencies mean the death of creativity? Parameswaran remains optimistic, noting that the industry has survived similar purges before. “Remember there was a time when names like Chaitra, Everest and Trikaya were highly respected agency names. They disappeared in the 2000s,” he recalls. “But tomorrow is another day. A new star will rise in the place of Ulka — which, by the way, means ‘shooting star’ in Sanskrit!”

However, the warning for the surviving entities is stark. The old ‘University’ model is dead; the ‘Ecosystem’ model has arrived. As Sridhar cautions, “In this industry, nobody retires — the industry retires you when you become irrelevant.”

The power dynamics have unmistakably shifted. Creative firepower alone no longer determines who leads the advertising ecosystem. The industry’s centre of gravity has moved from craft to scale. Agencies that once competed on the strength of ideas are increasingly overshadowed by those that command vast datasets, advanced tech stacks, and integrated global operations.

It’s no longer about who makes the most memorable campaign, but who can decode audiences fastest, optimise content in real time, and operate across the full consumer journey. In this new order, creativity still matters — but it sits within a larger system where data, infrastructure, and platform intelligence ultimately determine who leads.

The names DDB, FCB, and MullenLowe may soon be scraped off the doors, but the challenge they leave behind is clearer than ever. As the industry pivots to data and AI, the new super-networks must ensure they don’t lose the one element no algorithm can replicate: the human touch that creatively defined the agencies they just buried.