In this episode, Matt sits down with creative production pioneer Jon to explore one of the biggest questions facing the creative industries today.

How do we embrace AI without sacrificing creativity?

With more than four decades spent helping some of the world's biggest agencies and brands bring ambitious ideas to life, Jon has witnessed every major technological shift the industry has faced.

From hand-rendered illustration and retouching dyes to digital, CGI and now AI, he's spent his career sitting between creative ambition and production reality.

What quickly becomes clear is that this isn't really a conversation about technology.

It's a conversation about time.

Jon argues the industry isn't losing its creative edge because of AI.

It's losing it because creativity is no longer being given the time it deserves.

Instead of using technology to improve thinking, we've used it to demand more output.

Faster.

Cheaper.

More.

And somewhere along the way, the thinking became secondary.

That leads to one of the central ideas in the episode.

Technology should never lead the idea.

The idea should always lead the technology.

Jon explains why the best production partners don't simply execute concepts. They help creatives discover what's possible before the work is ever sold. Not by limiting ideas, but by expanding them.

He calls it discovering "the new possible."

From there, the conversation turns to AI.

Not as a replacement for creative people.

But as another person in the room.

A collaborator that can accelerate research, production and adaptation while giving something infinitely more valuable back.

Time.

Time to think.

Time to experiment.

Time to make ideas better.

Because creativity isn't something you switch on at 9am on a Monday morning.

It needs space.

It needs wandering.

It needs permission to fail before it succeeds.

The discussion then shifts to something surprisingly human.

Imperfection.

Jon explains why audiences instinctively reject work that's too perfect. Whether it's illustration, CGI or AI-generated imagery, perfection rarely feels real.

Grain.

Texture.

Flaws.

They're what give work its soul.

From there, the conversation widens into the future of the industry itself.

As large agency networks continue to struggle, Jon believes a different model is emerging.

Smaller.

More agile.

Creative teams supported by specialist partners instead of massive infrastructures.

He argues today's independent creatives have opportunities previous generations never had. With the right collaborators around them, they can compete for global work without needing thousands of employees or a marble reception.

The infrastructure can be shared.

The creativity can't.

And that's where the episode lands.

The future doesn't belong to whoever creates the most content.

It belongs to whoever protects the quality of the thinking.

Because AI isn't the enemy.

Speed isn't even the enemy.

The real danger is allowing efficiency to become more valuable than imagination.

If creativity is going to thrive over the next decade, it won't happen because we worked faster.

It will happen because we used technology to give ourselves permission to think again.

If you've ever wondered where creativity is heading, how AI fits into that future, or whether the industry has forgotten what made great work great in the first place...

This one's for you.

Like, subscribe and share if you want more conversations with the people who built the industry, are reshaping it, and refuse to let creativity become an afterthought.

Contact Jon here >>> jon.wiltshire@addictivepixel.co

In this episode, Matt sits down with Mark Denton, legendary creative, co-founder of Simons Palmer, and the mind behind some of the most iconic campaigns in British advertising, to unpack what 50 years in the industry really looks like and what’s quietly gone wrong along the way.

Mark starts by tracing an unlikely path into advertising. From leaving school without the qualifications for art college, to stumbling into the industry via a chance conversation on his dad’s driveway, his story isn’t polished. It’s instinct, graft, and figuring it out as he went.

What emerges early is a tension that never leaves him. Low confidence alongside relentless ambition.

He talks about feeling completely out of place at Leo Burnett, surrounded by Oxbridge graduates while staying silent in meetings for three years, convinced he’d be found out.

But underneath that self-doubt was a drive to make things. To be the one with the ideas.

From there, the episode opens into what the industry used to be.

Long hours. Big personalities. Hard drinking.

But also something that feels rare now. Apprenticeship, immersion, and proximity to greatness.

Not just how ads were made, but how they landed.

Because back then, advertising wasn’t just effective. It was culture.

Kids sang jingles. Families watched ads together. Posters felt like art.

And that’s where the conversation turns.

Mark draws a sharp line between that era and now.

Agencies forgot what they were selling.

Not time. Not process.

Magic.

And when that disappeared, so did the trust.

Clients stopped asking for bold ideas and agencies stopped offering them.

What replaced it?

Safe thinking. Endless process. “Vanilla sludge.”

From there, we get the stories that define his career.

Breaking rules. Doing the opposite.

Making work that wasn’t asked for and presenting it anyway.

From Nike to Wrangler, some of his biggest successes came from giving clients something better than they thought possible.

Not to prove a point, but because he wanted to give them a gift.

Don’t just deliver what’s asked.
Overdeliver what’s possible.

But it’s not all nostalgia.

Mark opens up about the hardest period of his life during COVID, when personal crisis collided with the loss of work, identity, and relevance.

For the first time, he couldn’t escape into work.

And what followed was a long recalibration.

Instead of waiting to be picked again, he reinvented himself.

Put himself out there as a “65-year-old intern.”

Walked back in with curiosity instead of ego and started again.

That becomes the turning point.

Because despite everything, the politics, the fear, the drop in standards, he’s still obsessed with the craft.

Still coming up with ideas every day.

Still chasing the same thing.

Work that people actually care about.

And that’s where the episode lands.

Not on tactics. Not on trends.

But on a simple truth.

The industry isn’t lacking talent.
It’s lacking courage.

A lack of persuasion.
A lack of entertainment.

A lack of belief in what great advertising can do.

The conversation closes with a perspective that cuts through everything.

If no one remembers it,
If no one talks about it,
If it doesn’t move anything,

It doesn’t matter how many awards it wins.

Because at its best, advertising isn’t wallpaper.

It’s culture.

And if you’re willing to push further and give people something they didn’t ask for but actually need,

You might just bring the magic back.

If you’ve ever felt the industry’s lost its edge, your work’s getting diluted, or the game has quietly changed,

This one will hit.

Like, subscribe, and share if you want more conversations with the people who built it, broke it, and are still trying to fix it.

In this episode, Matt sits down with Angus Macadam, former ECD, award-winning creative, and now founder of THOSE Creatives, a business built on a simple but powerful idea: creatives should be found by people who actually understand what it takes to be one.

Angus starts by tracing his journey through the industry, from winning the Cannes Young Lions Competition in 1999, to rising through through the ranks at agencies like Wieden+Kennedy and Dentsu McGarry Bowen, where he eventually led and rebuilt an entire creative department.

But what emerges quickly is that this isn’t just a story about success.

It’s a story about pressure.

Angus opens up about the culture of relentless output that defined his early career, the addiction to long hours, and the belief that working harder than everyone else was the only way to win.

From driving around the M25 at 3am chasing ideas, to missing half his life outside the agency, he reflects on the habits that built his career… and the cost that came with them.

From there, the conversation shifts into something deeper.

He talks candidly about the slow erosion of autonomy as agencies grow, the moment you realise you’re no longer in control of your time, your decisions, or even the work you’re being asked to produce.

What starts as creative freedom gradually turns into something else entirely… until you find yourself meditating in a disabled toilet just to bring your nervous system back down.

And then comes the turning point.

Being "let go of" during lockdown (which was sandwiched between the death of his mother and her funeral) becomes the moment everything changes. Not just professionally, but personally.

What follows isn’t a collapse, but a recalibration. A move away from status, toward autonomy. Away from the identity of “important person in the agency”… toward building something that actually gives him control over his life again.

What he’s built now gives him something the industry rarely does: certainty, autonomy, and space to think. And in that space, a clearer perspective emerges on what’s really happening to creatives right now.

Because this is where the conversation hits hard.

Angus talks about the quiet fear running through the industry: job insecurity, AI anxiety, shrinking margins, and the increasing pressure being piled onto the very people agencies rely on most.

He describes a system where creatives are pushed toward safer thinking to protect themselves… which ironically makes them more expendable. Where originality is squeezed out by fear. And where fewer and fewer people feel like the agency actually has their back.

Along the way, he shares what he’s learned from sitting on both sides of the table: why different beats better, why most careers are driven by a rush that doesn’t serve anyone, and why some of the best creatives are the ones who stop chasing titles and start mastering where they are.

There’s also a sharp, uncomfortable truth running underneath it all:

You don’t work for the agency.

You work for yourself.

And the sooner you start acting like it, the better your career and your sanity will be.

The episode closes with a perspective shift that reframes everything: the best way to reduce stress isn’t to wait for the system to change… it’s to take action, build something of your own, and create the autonomy the industry was never designed to give you.

If you’ve ever felt the pressure creeping in, the loss of control, or the quiet sense that the game has changed without anyone saying it out loud… this one’s going to land.

Like, subscribe, and share if you want more conversations with the people who’ve lived it, survived it, and figured out what actually matters on the other side.