Back to Unreason: Why Our Industry Must Learn to Play Again

We all know the pattern: budgets are shrinking, decisions drag on, and pitch processes have become increasingly exhausting. The typical response? More efficiency, more control, more seriousness. It sounds reasonable—yet that’s exactly the problem. Because creativity doesn’t thrive on control. It thrives on courage. On friction, play, and exaggeration. On ideas no one saw coming. Instead, we treat it like a project plan: neatly scheduled, measurable, optimized. But in doing so, we slowly kill the very thing that makes us who we are.

In the past, agencies weren’t polished service providers – they were ecosystems for mavericks. Loud, unruly, unapologetic – places where energy crackled in the air. Today, much of that feels processed out of existence: creativity reduced to Gantt charts, PowerPoints, feedback loops, Teams folders. Highly organized, but often hollow. Great ideas, however, don’t emerge on a schedule. They happen in the gaps: in argument, in doubt, in play. What makes them powerful is often exactly what feels “wrong” at first – the tone that jars, the thought that doesn’t fit neatly in line.

In an industry increasingly optimized for “fit”—with clients, with tone, with culture—there’s little room left for the odd and the offbeat. Side hustles are disappearing, personal signatures are fading into the system. Yet it has always been the misfits who brought in new perspectives. Not out of vanity, but because they simply couldn’t do it any other way. Against this backdrop, a recent Adweek study is telling: nearly half of employees at network agencies have mentally checked out. Among independents, the figure is lower—around 30%—but even that is far too high. As my colleague Nina Rieke recently pointed out on LinkedIn, many of the best people are leaving the agency world altogether, unable to identify with a business so relentlessly tuned for efficiency.

Many leaders today operate somewhere between margin pressure and resource planning—and in the process, they lose sight of what really matters: Is the agency culture strong enough to generate ideas that truly move people? Good leadership doesn’t just create structure, it protects the unfinished. It allows for chaos—not out of disorganization, but out of the knowledge that ideas need space. And trust. That’s how you defend a culture where great talent thrives—and, more importantly, chooses to stay. Of course, KPIs, planning, and structure are necessary. But creative impact isn’t measured in efficiency—it’s measured in goosebumps. In moments that stick. If we judge ideas only by how smoothly they pass through the process, they lose their power. And brands lose their meaning.

In the old days, royal courts had jesters—a built-in critical voice. What most teams lack today is exactly that figure: the person who exaggerates, contradicts, provokes. The one who brings to light what would otherwise remain unseen. Inside the team—and toward clients as well. A sharp, uncomfortable voice that isn’t there to please, but to strike a nerve. Too often we adapt instead of disrupt. But if you don’t unsettle, you don’t surprise.

Let’s play again. Exaggerate. Fail. Think out loud. Let’s create spaces where ideas don’t make it through because they’re safe – but because they spark something, because they move people. We have the best job in the world. But we’ll only do it justice if we stop treating it like any other.