For years, the industry has repeated a now-familiar mantra: “creative is the new targeting.”
It’s been echoed across conferences, platform keynotes, agency decks, and pitch meetings. Everyone nods in agreement. Everyone says they believe it. Everyone acknowledges that the days of hyper-targeting are behind us.
And yet, very little has actually changed.
Despite overwhelming evidence that creative is now the primary performance lever in paid social, most brands are still operating with the same organisational structures, the same workflows, and the same media–creative disconnect that defined the last decade.
And as platform algorithms evolve (Meta’s Andromeda being the latest example), the cost of that gap is growing – fast.
We Don’t Have a Creative Problem. We Have a Creative System Problem.
Brands aren’t struggling because they don’t have creative. If anything, they have more creative than ever. They’re struggling because their creative systems were never designed for today’s algorithmic reality.
Historically, paid social activation has been owned by media teams. That made perfect sense in an era where the biggest performance gains came from:
- Clever audience segmentation
- Campaign structuring
- Bid strategies
- Lookalike refinement
In that world, creative was simply the packaging. Media was the engine.
But today, platforms do the segmentation, the bidding, the optimisation, and the delivery logic. The algorithm decides who sees what, and it decides by reading the signals inside the creative itself.
Suddenly, the creative is the engine.
But the people historically responsible for driving performance (media buyers) were never trained, structured, or resourced to influence the thing that now matters most: what you say, how you say it, and how many different ways you say it.
This is why the industry has been stuck.
- We’ve updated the tools.
- We’ve updated the targeting philosophy.
- But we haven’t updated the operating model.
Why Creative Diversity Is Now a Platform Requirement, Not a Creative Trend
As learning models mature across platforms, algorithms rely on creative variance as fuel. They need breadth to find the right customer; depth to sustain performance; and consistency to continue learning.
This means:
- Not one format, but many
- Not one angle, but several
- Not one hook or narrative, but constant iteration
- Not one production style, but both lo-fi and high-fi
- Not one length, but a wide distribution
- Not one test per quarter, but a continuous loop of structured experimentation
The platforms want diversity, not for artistic reasons, but for algorithmic ones.
Your creative is the segmentation.
This marks the biggest shift in paid social since the introduction of the pixel.
If Creative Is the New Targeting, Then Creative Strategy Is the New Media Planning
This is where the industry must catch up.
Media buyers know how to plan, structure, forecast, and optimise. Creative strategists know how to shape narratives, build tension, capture attention, and express value. But most organisations keep these skills siloed, and the result is that creative becomes disconnected from the mechanics of performance, while media becomes disconnected from the mechanisms of persuasion.
The future requires something different: a creative strategist and a media buyer working as one operating system.
The Media Buyer’s Evolving Role
Media buyers are becoming:
- Signal interpreters
- Creative performance analysts
- Experiment architects
- Platform specialists guiding creative constraints
They bring the quantitative clarity:
- What the platform is learning.
- Where the gaps are.
- Where the fatigue is coming from.
- Which assets are adding value and which are noise.
The Creative Strategist’s Evolving Role
Creative strategists become:
- Narrative engineers
- Hypothesis builders
- Concept architects
- Insight translators
They bring the qualitative insight:
- How to shape stories that generate the signals the algorithm needs.
- How to build variety without diluting brand consistency.
- How to craft hooks, angles, and executions aligned to intent and funnel purpose.
What This Collaboration Looks Like in Practice
Quarterly Creative Strategy > Monthly Output Cycles
The strategist and buyer align on commercial priorities and market conditions. They set the hypotheses — the big questions creative needs to answer. They identify the themes, formats, and angles that matter for the quarter.
Monthly Creative Iteration & Hypothesis Testing
Instead of asset churn, the media buyer and strategist use real performance signals to refine creative direction:
What’s actually working?
What narrative structures convert?
What lengths, hooks, or styles correlate with stronger efficiency?
This is where creative diversity becomes structured, not chaotic.
Continuous Measurement & Learnings Consolidation
The strategist builds a creative effectiveness model; the buyer validates with platform insights. Together, they build a “creative source of truth” that compounds learning month after month.
Stronger Brand Equity Through Performance
The strategist ensures brand consistency; the buyer ensures platform fit.
This is how brands scale without becoming generic.
The brands that win in the next era of paid social won’t be the ones producing the most content.
They’ll be the ones with a creative system where strategists and media buyers operate as one, where AI accelerates efficiency not output, and where creative diversity isn’t just a buzzword, but a strategic differentiator.
Creative is the new targeting - that part we already know. Now it’s time for the industry to actually build for it.
