Speaking at the Sydney Opera House on July 29, 2026, former Telstra CMO Brent Smart told marketers that the middle ground of brand advertising is dying, forcing CMOs to choose between what he called "AI slop people scroll past" and creative work that is "irreplaceably human." His appearance at the Cresta CONNECT26 conference highlighted a commercial case for craft: during his Telstra tenure, investing in handcrafted marketing doubled the company's return on investment while cutting back on performance advertising.
The death of 'pretty good' advertising
Brent Smart did not soft-pedal the stakes. "There's no 'pretty good' anymore," he said. "Pick a side." He argued that brands have become obsessed with efficiency, speed, and frictionless customer journeys, but that chasing those metrics strips out the very qualities that make people stop and care. "Combine that with this obsession with making customer journeys frictionless … then what we ultimately do is take out the things that make that journey interesting or worth stopping for. Frictionless isn't that interesting."
He drew a distinction between friction that frustrates customers and friction that rewards attention. The kind of friction he champions is creative friction: the deliberate effort, craft, and distinctiveness that gives a piece of work texture and memorability. "We tend to play it safe," he said, because familiar, easily testable ideas feel less risky, even though they produce forgettable output.
Craft as a commercial decision
Smart linked his philosophy directly to results at Telstra, where he led a creative turnaround over four years. The brand measured marketing ROI through new connection revenue. "The more creative we got and the more handcrafted we got, the more effective we got," he said. "The less performance marketing that we did, the more we grew, and the stronger the brand became." He acknowledged that deep investment in craft is often dismissed as indulgent, but said customers notice the difference-and the feedback Telstra received confirmed it.
For CMOs weighing the role of AI in their organizations, resources like the AI Learning Path for CMOs can help clarify practical applications without losing sight of the human craft that Smart says drives commercial performance. In a world where making things has never been easier or cheaper, Smart argued, "the stuff that really stands out … is the stuff that's made the hard way. The stuff that's made with human craft. In an AI world, human craft is incredibly powerful."
Why AI companies are choosing human craft
Smart pointed to OpenAI's brand campaign as a case study in that paradox. The company that builds some of the most advanced generative AI tools hired an agency full of professional humans, tapped a creative director, and shot the campaign on 35 millimetre film. "They didn't use their own tools to make their brand campaign," he said. "Because they wanted to change how you feel about OpenAI. They wanted it to feel more human." The move was not about rejecting AI but about signaling emotional depth-an approach he said is especially powerful for big technology brands.
He also cited Bad Bunny's album release for 'DTMF', which hid song clues in Puerto Rico map coordinates and generated 30 million Google Maps interactions during the pre-launch. "That's a lot of friction if I'm into music and I want to find out about the new album," Smart said. "It went on to be Bad Bunny's biggest-selling album. So a little bit of friction was good."
The gap between promises and experience
Smart closed with a blunt observation about the distance between brand aspirations and customer reality. "69% of companies think that they deliver on their brand promise. 31% of their customers agree," he said, quoting broader industry data. He urged brands to examine whether they are truly solving specific customer problems or simply selling. "Number one, am I really delivering on my brand promise? … And number two, do I really know the problems that need solving for customers? Or am I just selling myself?"
Why this matters for marketing professionals
Smart's argument forces a hard strategic choice. As AI tools make it trivially easy to produce content, the glut of low-effort output will only grow. The brands that stand out will be the ones that invest in the friction of craft-human judgment, distinct creative choices, and the kind of work that feels special enough to earn a customer's pause. The Telstra numbers he cited show that betting on craft is not a romantic indulgence; it can be a revenue driver. For CMOs, the immediate takeaway is to audit their own marketing mix: identify where efficiency is silently eroding memorability, and decide whether the trade-off is worth it.
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