What’s it like being a copywriter with all this AI going on?

Writers ask challenging questions and obsess about particular word choices because they understand that meaning goes both deep and wide. Wide, in the sense that their work has to cater for dozens or millions of different brains that will each see it from a slightly different angle. Deep, in the sense that once you’ve got someone’s precious attention you need to follow up with substance if you want to catalyze that attention into action. AI tools are fantastic for messing about with language but they’re basically a hack on your human weakness for first impressions. Particularly in a work environment, you’ll save yourself time, effort and future pain by chatting about what you want to write with a human rather than a machine. And if that human is also a professional writer, that you’re paying, then they’ll probably do all the writing for you.

What kind of businesses do you work for?

I have transformed the creative output of global brands in the tech, music, gaming and fashion space. I’ve also worked with local independent businesses here in Amsterdam. And I support various NGOs. The kind of business matters less than having being able to collaborate with people who share the belief that they can make money in a fun and entertaining way.

How do you like to work?

I bring together an unusual combination of creative, strategic, and process-driven skills. I can slot in at any point during a campaign’s development - from before the brief is written to after the ads have been shot - or oversee the whole shebang. Thank you for giving me the chance to use the word shebang.

How do creatives charge for their work?

At an agency, freelancers usually charge a day rate. A day is a block of 8 hours. I’ll usually just charge the blocks I’ve worked. The day rate depends on the market I’m working in. New York is around 1600 dollars per day. London is around 500 GBP. Amsterdam is around 700 euros.

If you are charging a project rate - which is more likely to happen if you’re working directly for a brand - then do what agencies do. Take the number of hours required for you to do the work and multiply by it four, to allow for the extra meetings, feedback sessions, intake. This becomes important as the project progresses and you need to balance your time with other projects coming on-stream

There’s a lot of comedy on your site. Can you write for a serious brand?

Yes. Why humour? Because advertising is almost worthless unless it (a) gets noticed and (b) generates an emotional response in an audience. Humour’s an effective way to do that. More substantial emotions are available. And the more confident you are with building dramatic tension into your storytelling.

You’re a creative director but not a designer. How do you direct the creative?

Aha, a language question. Yay! Some older corporate cultures call the visual part of the work ‘the creative’ and the verbal bit ‘the copy’. This comes from the time when different departments would develop these things separately, over scotch and casual misogyny. Interestingly, the terms also persist in social teams where the creative and the post about the creative are handled at different moments. Whether or not whiskey and the manoverse are still involved depends on the team.

The truth is that the visual and the verbal parts of a communication piece are the two sides of the same coin. The value of this metaphorical coin lies in the idea it puts into the head of the person who receives. A creative director works with the team (and all its stakeholders) to refine, identity and transmit this idea in as effective a manner as possible.

How can brands’ in-house agencies attract, rather than repel, senior creatives?

Treat everything as a creative brief. Discard generic HR templates. A job ad is the first piece of creative a candidate sees from you. Frame the role as a compelling creative challenge, clearly outlining the strategic problem, the desired business outcomes, and the team culture you are building.

Respect time and talent: Design a fast, transparent, and human-centric process. Limit interview rounds to the essential decision-makers. Crucially, replace speculative "free pitching" with paid, well-defined test projects. This demonstrates respect for the candidate's expertise and provides a far more realistic evaluation of their capabilities.

Hire for attitude and potential. Don’t ask me, ask the Harvard Business Review. Prioritize soft skills, collaborative spirit, and cultural contribution over a narrow focus on technical prowess. Data shows 89% of hiring failures are due to attitude and a lack of coachability, not a deficit of skills.

Partner with HR to innovate. The HR function is critical. Collaborate with them to break recruitment conventions. Shift the focus from simply seeing "creatives" in terms of their outputs - videos or social posts or the CEO’s speech or the annual report - to assessing core competencies of creative leadership, such as innovative problem-solving and the capacity for constructive criticism.

What are the foundational elements of a thriving internal creative culture?

Psychological safety: a creative culture is not about "feeling good" or having fun, it is about feeling safe. Build an environment where team members can take creative risks, engage in rigorous debate, and learn from failure without fear of punishment. This is the bedrock of innovation and can lead to extremely fast-paced, high performance teams.

Leadership, not management. Creativity requires autonomy. Creative teams need leaders who can protect them from corporate bureaucracy, provide clear strategic direction, and champion their work at the executive level. The leader's primary role is to create the conditions for creativity to flourish.

Clarity creates mastery. A clear mission gives teams the foundation from which to grow. In-house teams in particular must have an unambiguous purpose. Is it a high-value strategic partner focused on brand-building campaigns, or a 24/7 production unit designed for speed and volume? This clarity is essential to prevent a "culture gap" where highly skilled creatives feel their talents are being underutilized on strategically important projects.

Connection, not isolation. The more you integrate creative thinkers with other business the stronger they all become. The challenges facing every business today have no respect for silos or departments. ‘Cross functional’ shouldn’t be reserved for special projects - it should simply be the way you work.

What is the optimal structure for our team, and when should we use external agencies?

Use a hybrid model, it’s the most effective and sustainable structure. Maintain relationships with external partners - like creative directors or copywriters - so that you don’t end up working in a vacuum or echo chamber.

Don’t limit yourself. Just because it’s not a core strength doesn’t mean it’s a weakness. Build your permanent internal team around what provides the most value to the business - their knowledge, their speed, their turnaround times, their long-term brand storytelling - but don’t limit their responsibilities to that. Hire people who are good at hiring other people, so that when you have a project that requires more exotic skills they can step up.

Use agencies strategically. Agencies deliver enormous value when used correctly. But they are not vendors - they are specialist partners. Use them for specific, well-defined needs: managing overflow capacity during peak periods, accessing deep specialisms your team lacks (e.g., complex VFX or emerging tech), or gaining a fresh, outside perspective on a major brand campaign. Think about how to build a commercial relationship that allows them to keep their edge sharp on your behalf.

How can we effectively measure the business impact of creativity?

Move beyond output metrics. The organisations that track these things (the WFA for example) often report the same critical flaw in how brands measure their return on creative investment. Creativity is about outcomes not outputs. It’s not how quickly the work happened or how much of it there was. It’s what changed afterwards. Indeed, this is also a good way to start a creative relationship: what do you want to be different in one year, three years or five years time?

Speak the language of the CFO. Good in-house creative leaders don’t expect everyone else to accept their value. (Or values.) They can connect their work to terms the C-suite understands - metrics like brand lift studies, contribution to sales pipelines, customer acquisition costs, and lifetime value.

How do we boost our strategic and creative leadership?

A creative’s ability to bring others along with the vision is the greatest source of competitive advantage. When hiring a creative leader, look for both experience working in large teams and a track record of independence. Ultimately, the best creatives are those who can connect creative initiatives to overarching corporate goals - and articulate that connection to other executives.

Why is it still so hard to find good creatives?

The struggle to hire senior creative talent is a clear and urgent signal that the old models of procuring creativity are broken. Large brands can no longer afford to view creative thinking as an external commodity to be bought and sold. The most forward-thinking and successful organizations are building this capability into their core, recognizing it as a vital strategic function for growth. Simply moving desks and changing reporting lines is insufficient. The ultimate solution requires a profound mindset shift across the entire organization: from viewing the internal creative team as a cost-saving service provider to empowering it as a value-creating strategic partner. The leaders who successfully navigate this transformation will not only solve their immediate hiring challenges but will also build a sustainable, resilient, and powerful creative engine for future growth and competitive advantage.