5 ways agencies should rethink creative teams

The divides between various forms of creative thinkers have been around for decades. And in 2025, we’re still discussing the need to break down long-standing walls between them: When Bill Bernbach invited an art director and copywriter into the same room in the ’60s, it changed the way creative advertising was thought about and made by unlocking intersectional thinking. In the spirit of embracing intersectionality and killing boring, here are 5 ways we can disrupt the traditional creative department format. Welcome different It’s easy to hire people who look and speak like you and have similar skillsets and ways of thinking. It’s the path of least resistance. We must challenge that when hiring, replacing talent and building teams. Open your mind—and your agencies—to create the conditions for different types of thinkers and makers to feel welcome, nurtured and thrive. Master the art of assemblage Welcoming a broader set of creatives into the mix is just the start. These additional skill sets offer countless more intersections and combinations of thinking to apply and experiment with. It provides greater flexibility and power as a creative agency. Use this power wisely. Tailor bespoke combinations of talent for the brief presented to you. Stop the relay races Assembling new types of teams requires you to look at how they work throughout the creative process. Bringing different thinkers in too late cannot meaningfully affect anything. We need to get out of the traditional relay race style hand-offs where one discipline owns the work, then hands off to the next discipline. We need to embrace a working model that brings thinkers and makers into the briefing stage and maintain close contact with the work throughout the entire project to redirect creatives based on what is needed at any given moment. It’s the team’s idea, and everyone has a role to play from ideation to execution. Big ideas are a universal language One commonality across the various types of creatives today is that a big idea is a big idea. A big idea can not only come from an art/copy duo; it can be found in design thinking, in thinking about a brand as an experience or inspired and unlocked through a new technology. A big idea is the universal language of art directors, writers, creative technologists and designers alike. Listen to the team. Understand that creatives may not all present a big idea the same way. Get comfortable being uncomfortable This is not always easy, and there is often misunderstanding. There’s a mix of disciplines, personalities, communication styles, ways of working and what even being creative looks like. This is the beauty and messiness of a modern creative team. It takes work to build, nurture and deploy effectively. This is the work we need to be doing. There will be friction but there will be magic. The more the team sees the power of intersectional thinking, the more they will embrace it and seek it out themselves. Creativity is a team sport and requires more than one person. To be relevant in the world today it certainly requires more than art and copy. It’s time we thought about the creative department less as a department but rather as a creative team. A team of different disciplines, different thinkers, different crafts—each as creative as the other. A team that can be assembled and reassembled time and again for the varied briefs and challenges that creativity is being asked to solve. With headwinds of uncertainty swirling around creativity, this is a call to change the way we’ve always done it to build something for the future. What if it doesn’t work? You’ll learn a lot about people and creativity in the process. What if we don’t do it? As retired Army General Eric Shinseki put it, “If you dislike change, you’re going to dislike irrelevance even more.” Also read: How an agency’s new task force aims to help clients navigate tariffs and the economy

5 ways agencies should rethink creative teams

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