In a session at Hemingway’s, Jakub Otrząsek, SVP data at Monks APAC, and Jessica Ross, consulting partner at Monks APAC, delivered a pointed wake-up call to the delegates still operating at yesterday’s pace.
The premise was blunt, current marketing operations aren’t built for the speed today’s market demands. That gap is quietly killing growth. The session identified marketing lag, the delay between insight, production, and activation that compounds across every campaign and every missed cultural moment.
“In the scroll, your brand has about a second and a half to make any kind of impact whatsoever. The cultural moments that once resonated for a whole season now disappear or dissolve within hours,” Ross said to a hundred marketers at Hemmingway’s Brewery.
In a world of non-linear customer journeys and always-on culture, Otrząsek and Ross argued that slow is a strategic liability. The biggest threat facing brands today isn’t bad creative. It’s the time it takes to get good creative into market.
The pair walked through how leading brands are redesigning the way work gets done, combining the best of human thinking and AI-powered technology to close the lag. The goal is to respond in real time, treat creative as a targeting tool, and move at the speed of culture rather than the speed of internal process.
“Creative accounts for 47 per cent of a campaign’s success. That’s almost three times more than the inventory it ran on or the targeting criteria used. Yet, most assets are never built with performance in mind,” added Otrzqsek.
“The big idea will live longer, but the shelf life of an asset itself will be shorter.”
For a room full of marketers, it was a timely reminder. In the era of AI, the competitive advantage doesn’t just belong to the most creative brand in the room.
