Alex Cooper on AI's Impact on Creative Strategy and Agency Business Models

Evolving Ad Formats & Principles

• 💡 Wall of text videos with B-roll are effective for quickly testing messaging, even for e-commerce brands.
• 🎯 VO hooks using intentionally unrealistic visuals (e.g., image gen) are performing well, making ad hooks more dynamic.
• 📈 Longer ads that focus on problem awareness and education are increasingly successful, especially for reaching unaware audiences.
• 🚫 Formulaic UGC and traditional street interviews are declining in effectiveness, while low-fi statics and authentic content thrive.

The Crucial Role of Research

• 🔍 95% of creative problems are attributed to insufficient research, highlighting its critical importance in ad development.
• 🧠 Obsessive market analysis, gap analysis, and deep dives into customer reviews, Reddit threads, and ad comments uncover new angles and audiences.
• 🔑 Identifying new pockets of audience and unique angles is more impactful than focusing solely on ad formats or trends.

AI in Creative Production

• 🚀 Video generation tools like VO are still early but represent the future of ad creation; learning to prompt effectively is a defensible skill.
• 🛠️ AI assists in content creation but human direction, quality control, and strong copywriting skills remain essential for good outputs.
• 🤖 Custom GPTs can automate various personal and business tasks, from styling advice and relationship therapy to summarizing voice notes and acting as business advisors.

Training Creative Strategists

• 🌱 Relentless collection of top-performing ads from diverse industries helps strategists develop an intuitive understanding of effective creative.
• 📚 Curiosity and continuous learning from organic feeds (especially TikTok Shop creators) are vital for staying ahead of trends.
• ✅ Incentivizing strategists and editors based on ad performance significantly drives motivation and output, particularly for offshore teams.

Future of Agencies & Strategy

• 🔮 Creative strategists will evolve into "creative directors" managing an "army of AI agents" for tasks like research, scripting, and editing.
• 💼 Agencies will transform into AI consultancies and growth engine operators, focusing on holistic growth strategies rather than just ad production.
• ⚠️ Context engineering—understanding what relevant information to feed AI—will be a highly valuable and defensible skill in the evolving landscape.