Get Down From Your Pedestal

This one might ruffle a few feathers, specifically with some of my friends in the design, branding, marketing, and creative communities. That’s okay… this is worth saying out loud.

Somewhere along the way, a segment of the creative community climbed onto a pedestal, and from that perch the message has become increasingly clear: AI is the devil. It will ruin your brand, make your marketing generic, and destroy creativity. If you really care about quality, hire professionals.

That’s reasonable, in theory. Thoughtful strategy, great design, strong messaging, and experienced copywriting have always made businesses more successful. No one can argue that, but this conversation ignores one very important reality.

Most small businesses were never going to hire us in the first place.

There’s a family-owned restaurant downstairs from our office. They open early, close late, worry about payroll, food costs, staffing, equipment repairs, customer reviews, and a hundred other things that come with owning a business. They’re trying to build something meaningful while keeping the lights on, and I see them working long hours to make this happen.

I’d love to design their next promotion, work on their messaging, create their social campaigns, update their website, and help them get more out of their marketing. When I look out the windows of our office, I can see five more businesses just like them that I’d also like to help.

The reality is that they can’t afford to hire us.

That isn’t a criticism of them, and it isn’t a criticism of us as agencies. Professional creative work costs money because it takes experience, time, and talent to do well. There will always be organizations that value that investment and gladly make it… and there will also always be businesses that simply can’t.

Those owners can’t afford us, and at the same time, they wake up every morning needing social media, email marketing, websites that communicate clearly, and blogs that help people discover them online. As a marketing community, we’re asking them to create more marketing than ever before. “Publish consistently, show up on AI search platforms, stay active on social media, and send regular emails. That’s how you win.”

We’re encouraging every small business to become content creators, and at the same time, telling them they should never use AI. For the ones who can’t afford to hire professionals, what option have we left them? Do nothing or wait until they have a bigger budget? Hope their competitors don’t figure it out first? Those don’t feel like fair or realistic answers.

AI is creating something that has never really existed before. For the first time, millions of small businesses have access to tools that can help them communicate more clearly, market consistently, and compete with organizations that have much larger budgets. AI is leveling the playing field.

I know what you’re thinking… What about all the AI slop? I get it, but let me ask this. Is every piece of AI-generated content exceptional? Of course not. Neither is every brochure, website, billboard, or social campaign created by a human. We’ve all seen designs or read marketing copy that made us shake our heads. The definition of quality exists on a spectrum, and not everyone is hitting it, AI or human.

What AI changes is access, and that’s the part of this conversation I don’t hear enough people talking about. For years, agencies have encouraged businesses to invest more in marketing. We’ve explained the importance of consistent messaging, regular content creation, email campaigns, blogs, and social media… and we weren’t wrong. What many small businesses heard instead was a long list of things they should be doing but couldn’t afford.

Now, they finally have another option. Instead of celebrating that opportunity, some of us on the creative side have chosen to shame the people using it. I don’t think that’s fair. If you’re an exceptional creative, people will continue hiring you because exceptional design creates value. They’ll come to you for your perspective because thoughtful messaging is far more than arranging words on a page. They’ll reward your ability to see opportunities, ask better questions, and solve business problems won’t disappear because AI exists.

The market has always rewarded people who create meaningful value. That hasn’t changed. What has changed is that businesses who were previously priced out of professional marketing finally have another option. Our focus shouldn’t be protecting our industry by limiting access to creative. The goal should be helping more businesses communicate more effectively. If AI helps a family-owned restaurant design a better poster or write a better social post, then I’m glad they finally have a tool.

To my creative friends, it might be time to get down off the pedestal.