You can’t blame Droga5 founder and adland luminary David Droga for falling in love with advertising. The very first brief he was handed, circa late 1980s, was at the Sydney radio station Triple M. The brief was “here's a million bucks, make something that people will go 'holy fuck' ”.

“So I'm 18 and it was my first job as a creative, and Triple M with Doug Mulray said we've got a million bucks, which was more money than I could get my head around, and just create something that makes people go, 'holy fucking shit'." 

“I didn't know [back then] that it was unusual. I thought that was how every ad campaign was, and I thought ‘wow, I’m really going to like this job'.”

Droga's radio spot was voted Australian Commercial of the Year and won him the first (of many) Cannes Lions. It turns out, that Droga not only really liked advertising, but was very good at it. 

The 55-year-old, who grew up in the Snowy Mountains region of NSW, kicked off his career at FCB and spent some of his formative years at Saatchi & Saatchi before being elevated to Publicis Groupe’s global Chief Creative Officer in the mid-noughties.

He left in 2006 to set up Droga5; the name apparently comes from the number-coded laundry tag his mum used to differentiate his clothes from his brothers at one of Sydney’s most prestigious private school’s, The King’s School. 

He sold Droga5 to Accenture Interactive (now Accenture Song) in 2019 for an eye-watering price tag estimated at more than $600m. In 2021, Droga was the most awarded creative from the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, and there are few industry leaders better placed to assess what the convergence of tech into creative means.

His first point is that Gen AI will weed out mediocre creative, and that is a blessing rather than a curse. In June, Accenture announced it would invest US$3 billion in its Data & AI practice to help clients use AI to achieve "greater growth, efficiency and resilience".

“I don't think all creativity needs to survive. I think that the blanket statement of what you can replace isn't necessarily a bad thing. There's stuff that we throw into the bucket of creativity that is not creative. It’s quite formulaic and generic,” Droga said, adding that Gen AI could write the next Fast and Furious movie, and nobody would be able to tell the difference. 

“So I don't mind the fact that some of the mediocre creativity that is under the veil of creativity is going to disappear.” 

Creativity 2.0

There have been many periods throughout history where technology has scuttled jobs that can be done by machines; for example the industrial revolution in the 17th and 18th century revolutionised the textiles and agriculture industries. For Droga, the next wave of AI tech in marketing is an opportunity and the creative process will need to adapt.

“Creativity thrives under duress and change, and I think that this is a necessary thing for us to find the next version of what creativity can add,” he said. “Gen AI is basically a problem solver – I just worry about when it decides that we're the problem.”

Earlier this week, futurist Amy Webb painted a dystopian picture of how Gen AI  can lead to a frictionless existence of convenience and homogeneity.

Droga’s concern touches upon that and he also isn’t of the mindset that machines will turn on humans and kill them in their sleep. He also challenged the industry to “fit into whatever shape you have” and ditch being “nostalgic about creativity”, particularly when it comes to TV ads. They have a place, but advertising now exists on more canvasses than before, and the industry needs to accept it and move on.

“Success is not nostalgic, neither is creativity or originality. When we let go of that [we need to focus on] how the fuck do we shapeshift and use creativity to amplify what we're already doing. We'll find a way, and if not, the next group of people will,” he said.

“Most of the damage that's happened to marketing and advertising is self-inflicted. You turn on the TV, most of it is garbage, formulaic and looks like it was written by a computer 20 years ago. Let's be honest, most of the stuff that makes it to air now was written by research groups, and familiarity and comfort zones and all these things.

“But the Sydney Opera house could never be designed by an algorithm. Creativity needs technology to be real, and technology needs creativity to become more relatable and human."

Be 'straight or great, not in between'

Instead of “crying that there will be fewer TV ads”, Droga wants creatives to show up as business problem solvers and thinkers, irrespective of channel, and embrace “irrepressible technology” or be left behind.

“There are only two types of advertising: straight and great. Straight to the point or greater than it has been. All the shit in the middle is a waste of money,” he said.

“What AI is going to do is make everything about best practices. But when everybody is doing best practices, then that just becomes the norm. So then nothing is distinctive. There has to be another layer: who's going to add the layer above best practices?

“We are the generation that needs to look at this without fear. We can look at it with cynicism, a little bit, but also think ‘what are we going to do next’? [In my career], I’ve never seen a time when creative people have been as valued. If you are a creative person trying to cling to this iceberg that is shrinking, go and find a different industry.”

Droga said he has no plans to quit adland, but if he did he has lofty ambitions of what comes next.

“I don’t hide the fact that I want to be Prime Minister of Australia because this fucken country needs to live up to its potential,” he said.

As the owner of the ad agency behind the iconic 2018 Tourism Australia film Dundee, which stole the show at that year's Super Bowl, he clearly knows how to sell Australia. Few would put it past him one day running it.