Before the Internet (with a capital ‘I’) changed everything about everything, advertising agencies were glamorous places to work, with big budgets and bigger egos swirling around in an egregious mix that pushed consumers to buy more and buy bigger. And consumers, for the most part, loved being manipulated. But that was then; this is now. While advertising agencies have mined data banks for enough personal information on every living being on the planet to know what brand of toilet paper they use, they are also struggling with advertisers who no longer feel the need, or have the ability, to purchase their services with unlimited funds. And companies who do hire advertising agencies are demanding more bang for their buck. Add to this doleful mixture the fact that younger consumers, who advertisers lust after the most, are wise to ways of advertising and, in fact, despise it so much that ad-blocking algorithms are their favorite apps.

The most successful ad agencies today are turning away from ideas created by brainstorming  teams of people, and instead creating algorithms and A.I. to target and bombard consumers with pinpoint accuracy. That means that the so-called creative genius is becoming a thing of the past in the advertising game. Techies rule in the advertising game.

Today, if you want to reach consumers, you’d better be Robby the Robot.