Average Adman

(The Origin Story No One Asked For)

I had the glasses.
The black t-shirt.
The neatly trimmed beard.
I was him, yet another slightly tortured, slightly caffeinated adman living in a major city, saying things like “let’s push the brief” while pushing myself toward the next existential crisis.

New York. London. Paris. Barcelona.
Different skyline. Same pitch room.
Same buzzwords.
Same almond milk flat white.
Same half-dead look behind the eyes that says: “I’m on my fourth campaign about ‘connection’ and I haven’t connected with a real human since 2019.”

I worked at some agencies we all follow(ed).
For some clients we all envy.
Making the kind of work that gets shortlisted and then quietly forgotten by Tuesday.

And for a while, that was enough.
The title. The agency parties. The feeling of being “in.”
I could speak the dialect of case studies fluently.
I had the LinkedIn swagger.
I even had a portfolio that made recruiters say, “Wow, impressive. Very W+K meets early Droga.”

But something felt off.
Like I’d spent so long trying to be different, I’d become just another variation of the same archetype.
Same references. Same case studies. Same “authentic” voiceover guy.

Then one day, no dramatic event, just a quiet Tuesday… I cracked.
Sat in front of yet another deck titled “Disrupting the Everyday” while realizing I was the everyday we kept pretending to disrupt. Within the adworld.

It hit me like a triple-shot oat milk irony bomb:
I wasn’t bolder than anyone in advertising. I wasn’t braver than my peers in other agencies. I was advertising beige.

Not in a bad way.
Not in the endearing “mid-century modern” kind of beige but beige with capital B.

In a statistically average way, for adland.

The kind that comes from swimming too long in the same creative soup as everyone else, until you lose your flavor and just become… broth.

So I kept going.

I didn’t go on a vision quest. I didn’t microdose in the desert (though, tempting).
I just got honest.

I kept trying to be original.
Kept pretending I was the one who “saw things differently.”
I kept trying to be the loudest.
I stopped trying to be real.
It was easy already but now with AI, it’s even easier.
Because in a world of curated chaos and contrived “disruption,” being the Average Adman is practically punk. Or at least that’s what I tell myself while drying my tears in your agency’s toilet.

Because spoiler: That’s what we do.
We all post that.
We all pitch that.

That’s how I leaned deeper into the truth:
I am The Average Adman.

So, now?
Now I use it all against itself (myself?).

I turned my advertising midlife crisis into a brand. A brand no one cares about but still, a brand. And my agency trauma into performance art (yes, I still need to feel I’m creating something worth it: art). And my beige energy turned into satire so sharp no one talks about it.

Because here’s the thing:
Owning my averageness in advertising didn’t make me weak.
It made me dangerous, in a tote bag kind of way.

So here I am.
Still in black.
Still with the glasses.

But now I wear them with full self-awareness and mild contempt.

Welcome to the origin story of The Average Adman.

The Average Adman
Bold. Brave. Undifferent.

From Stock Image to Storyteller
(An unauthorized remake of a book nobody reads anymore)

Confession 1: I Looked the Part Before I Knew the Lines.

Long before I had a voice, I had the uniform. Stock glasses. Stock smirk. Stock “creative” headshot—shot against a brick wall, obviously. I looked like I had ideas. I didn’t. But I could quote Ogilvy. And in this industry, that’s halfway to thought leadership.

Confession 2: I Didn’t Know What I Was Doing. So I Made a Deck About It.

My early ideas were… bad. Like “rebrand peanuts for Gen Z” bad. Then a famous brand did it for real but that didn’t make the idea better. What I learned was that confidence matters more than craft. So I made slides. Lots of slides. Slides with arrows and visuals. Visuals are key. And slides with purpose statements that made people cry (or at least blink slowly).

Every time I felt lost, I’d write “insight-led, culturally resonant, emotionally compelling.” No one ever asked what it really meant. And we all kept dancing along.

Confession 3: I Wasn’t Breaking Molds. I Was Downloading Templates.

Every “brave” campaign I pitched had three references from the same Cannes shortlist. Every “original” strategy had the same three buzzwords. I thought I was shaping culture. Turns out, I was recycling decks from last year with slightly newer fonts. And still, I got promoted.

Because in advertising, you either stand out or stand in the right room long enough to blend in strategically.

Confession 4: The Real Turning Point (Was a Google Drive Folder).

It wasn’t a burn out. It wasn’t a post by David Trott.  It wasn’t a shooting in South Africa. It was opening a folder titled “Final_Final_V37_FORREAL_THISONE.pptx”. Inside: 46 decks. Same case studies. Same fonts. Same “bold” ideas.

And this is how it quietly hit me: That wasn’t storytelling. It was stock-piling. A Pinterest board of recycled cleverness.

Confession 5: I Found My Voice When I Lost My Pitch.

One day, the client didn’t bite. One of many but this one hit a chord. Not because the idea was too risky but because it was exactly like the last three they’d seen.

The silence that followed wasn’t defeat. It was relief.

Confession 6: I Still Look Like a Stock Image. But Now I Write My Own prompts in Chat GTP.

Let’s be honest: I’m still The Average Adman. I still wear black. Still quote Droga (ironically now). Still get excited about ad campaigns that make no sense but look great on Instagram. But something changed: Now I know it’s a costume. I might forget at times but still, it feels good to make fun of myself.

Because the truth is:
Every adman wants to stand out.
But the boldest thing I can do in this industry today?

Embrace I’m just like the rest.
And say it out loud.

And just like this, I’ve written a new post.

And just like this, I share the link to the Average Adman Pride Store.