The Creative Industry Today Series: Part 7 — Mike Butler

2024 Applied Arts Advertising Awards winning campaign by VML Canada, "The Prideless Flag"

We spoke with Mike Butler, Head of Branding and Design at VML Canada, about his perspective on today’s creative landscape. With a practice spanning branding, packaging, layout, and editorial illustration, he shares how he sees the industry evolving in real time.

Are you optimistic about the future of agencies? What gives you hope—or pause?

Obituaries for the agency model have been drafted since I started my career—agencies mutate and adapt and die and are reborn with snazzy new logos since the days of letraset and the two martini lunch.

AI will reshape how we work in both predictable and dramatic ways, but this is an industry that is always in flux. What's currently causing me the most concern is not what's happening within the agency, but the media environment in which marketers are competing for eyeballs.

The attention economy is a zero-sum game, and widespread access to AI tools allows the average user to generate low effort/high volume content at mind-boggling speeds. Naturally, this scenario attracts grifters and bad-faith actors, who are able to drown out other voices with a nonstop firehose of derivative slop. You can already see social feeds jammed with AI deepfakes, between ads peddling misleading or outright fake products.

This tidal wave of shady content has already begun to curdle into a general sense of cynicism and distrust. This is where I see a silver lining— this environment creates an opportunity for savvy marketers to fill this vacuum with consistent, resonant messaging that can help rebuild brand trust. When it becomes incredibly difficult to separate the signal from the noise—and the public's BS detectors are set to high alert—trustworthy brands will serve as a beacon.

This isn't to undersell the difficulty of this challenge—when everyone has a bullhorn, not all agencies will be able to build a better bullhorn. However, smart agencies will be able to adapt and embrace the challenge; in that way, the more things change, the more they stay the same. (This was written without the aid of AI).

From branding to editorial illustration, Mike Butler offers a grounded perspective on an industry in motion—where versatility and clear thinking remain essential.