Make the advertising of the future, today.

Dear Creative,

One of my favorite people in advertising, someone that I can’t get enough of, is Per Pedersen — chief creative director of Grey. He has a clear message that’s been repeating throughout all of his latest conferences: Stop doing ads that look like ads.

It’s that simple. It’s that hard.

I’m not naive, I understand that we creatives need to fuel our inspiration tank with the winners of last Cannes, Clio, AD&D, etc. But we don’t need to go to AdAge, Adweek, and creativity every day to see what’s new. We don’t need to focus on what was successful yesterday, or even today, we need to focus on what will be successful tomorrow.

What’s going to win Cannes next year? That’s the question you need to ask yourself now.

The answer is on the streets, on the thermometer of real people, not just the ones in advertising; in the newspapers not in your Instagram Feed. Get out there, stop talking every day with the same people to strengthen your opinions, go and talk with people that think differently than you, even in your office. Find out what people really care about. Nike’s Colin Kaepernick, the Fearless Girl, and even the Bud Light chained freezers are not just great ads, are tension-breakers, game-changers, or whatever you want to call them. People don’t give a sh*t if they win in Cannes, they don’t even know what the hell is Cannes. But those people are the ones that are going to make an idea successful. They’re going to like it. They’re going to love it. They’re going to share it. And they’re the same people that are going to ignore it, scroll it out of the screen and their minds in a millisecond.

I believe that the creators of today shape the behavior of tomorrow.

So maybe, I am naive.

Grab the newspapers, check Twitter Trends, Google Analytics, or whatever but find out what people are talking about, not just your circle of friends and family or your city but the entire world and then, do something amazing about it.

We live in a f*cked up world so there is plenty of briefs out there. Go find yours.