Reclaim Value With Artisanal Advertising, Not Industrial Output.
As AI Drives Mass-produced Uniformity, Artisanal Craft in Advertising becomes Rarer, and therefore More Powerful.
Why Handmade Matters in an Age of Average
In 1978, when financiers abandoned Monty Python’s Life of Brian over fears of controversy, George Harrison famously mortgaged his house to fund the project. He named his company Handmade Films, a joke on handmade paper, but the label captured something profound. Handmade work stood apart from industrial output. Harrison’s backing birthed some of the finest British films of the 1980s, a golden era of craft in a time of crisis.
Today, advertising faces its own crisis of craft. The rise of AI, performance media, and cost-driven procurement is accelerating industrialization, producing vast volumes of content at low cost. But just as handmade films became cultural landmarks amid Hollywood industrialization, artisanal advertising , bespoke, craft-driven, and human, is poised to become rarer, more distinctive, and more valuable than ever.
The Economics of Craft: From Handmade Films to Big-Budget Spots
Like films, advertising has always been expensive, complex, and collaborative. Big-budget commercials, such as Super Bowl ads, cost millions of dollars to produce, making them pricier per second than most movies. The craft of directing, editing, and designing under tight deadlines and budgets has always carried tension, but also cultural potency.
Yet most advertising is not Super Bowl spectacle. In the U.S., 68% of advertising agencies employ fewer than five people (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2024). In the UK, only 27% of advertising workers are employed at agencies with more than 250 staff. The reality is fragmented: local spots, influencer content, and performance ads dominate, while artisanal craft is concentrated in a shrinking tier of marquee agencies.
Brand Case
Cadbury (Glass and a Half Full Productions, 2007): The Gorilla ad, directed with cinematic care, stood out against formulaic FMCG spots. It became one of the most awarded and effective UK campaigns of the decade, demonstrating that artisanal craft multiplies attention.
Procurement, Performance, and Declining Growth: Why Big Brands are Stagnating
For budget-constrained clients, agency fees are often derided as “non-working media”, a procurement term that depresses creative value. This logic mistakes efficiency for effectiveness. As Faris Yakob notes, good creative delivers leverage far beyond marginal media spend.
But procurement pressures and digital short-termism have reshaped priorities. FMCG giants like P&G, Unilever, Nestlé, and Colgate grew 8% annually between 1960 and 2010, but since the digital/social era began, collective growth has slowed to less than 1% per year, lagging even U.S. GDP growth (2.1%). At least 20 of the 50 largest U.S. advertisers have grown below 2% annually for 15 years. Meanwhile, Costco’s private-label brand Kirkland is now bigger than P&G and Kraft Heinz.
Brand Case
P&G (Always #LikeAGirl, 2014): One of the rare exceptions where artisanal craft broke through procurement logic, creating long-term brand equity. It proved that when creativity is treated as leverage, not cost, growth follows.
Alienation and The Age of Average: Industrialization’s Hidden Costs
Karl Marx described industrialization as producing alienation: workers disconnected from the product, their own labor, and humanity itself. Advertising risks the same fate. As agencies flood markets with generic digital assets, work feels removed from real life — both for consumers and for the strategists and creatives producing itArtisanal advertising | WARC.
The result is an “age of average”: bland, derivative outputs shaped by algorithms trained on averages. Faris Yakob warns that AI’s very design, calculating means and replicating patterns, tends toward sameness. Without human taste and craft to push outputs beyond the average, brands drown in clutter.
Brand Case
Apple (Think Different, 1997): A campaign born from bold craft and human taste, not algorithmic averages. It redefined Apple as a cultural brand, driving decades of loyalty. Had it been produced by AI optimizing for norms, it would never have emerged.
The Luxury of Artisanal Advertising: Why Scarcity Increases Effectiveness
As performance-driven industrialization accelerates, artisanal advertising will become rarer, and therefore more effective. Just as organic food, barista coffee, and handmade goods became status symbols in response to industrial homogeneity, bespoke advertising will emerge as a luxury good for brands targeting high-value consumers.
Consider the K-shaped economy: in the U.S., the wealthiest 10% of households now account for nearly 50% of consumer spending (Moody’s, 2025). These consumers are the least likely to see interruptive broadcast ads, often paying to opt out of them. To reach them, brands will need artisanal communication: crafted, culturally resonant, and integrated across touchpoints.
Brand Case
Louis Vuitton (LV x Yayoi Kusama, 2023): A hand-crafted global campaign blending art, fashion, and immersive retail. By embracing artisanal execution, it cut through digital clutter and reinforced LV’s luxury positioning.
From Clutter to Cultural Resonance
Advertising has always been divergent, but industrialization threatens to flatten it into uniformity. As AI exponentially increases content supply, standing out will depend on artisanal differentiation. Independent agencies already lead marquee campaigns by focusing on craft and integration, while networks scale efficiency.
This shift echoes consumer behavior. Just as middle-class shoppers sought artisanal coffee and organic produce as identity markers, brands will seek artisanal advertising to differentiate in markets crowded by AI-generated mediocrity. Scarcity will make handcrafted campaigns both more desirable and more effective.
Imperatives
Revalue Craft as Capital: Stop treating agency fees as “non-working.” Craft multiplies ROI more than incremental media.
Break from Procurement Logic: CEOs must challenge procurement practices that depress creative investment.
Target the Top 10% with Craft: Invest artisanal advertising where affluent consumers avoid generic clutter.
Resist The Age of Average: Mandate that AI outputs be elevated by human taste, not shipped as-is.
Build A Two-Speed Model: Use AI for volume, but preserve artisanal craft for flagship campaigns and cultural moments.
Bottom Line: Artisanal Craft Cuts Through Industrial Clutter
Advertising is entering a new industrial revolution. AI and procurement pressures will flood markets with average work, but artisanal creativity, handmade, scarce, and crafted with human taste, will become more effective precisely because it is rare.
