The message from this session was clear: If marketers want to stay relevant, they need to stop protecting the old process and start reimagining the creative one.

Featuring leaders from Smartly, TikTok, Wpromote, Nutrafol, and eMarketer, the panel unpacked how consumer behavior, team structures, and AI-powered tooling are pushing the industry toward faster, more collaborative, and more culturally attuned creative strategies.

A core theme was the elimination of silos between media and creative teams. Darren D’Altorio of Wpromote and Stephen Vallera of Smartly both emphasized that today’s media systems like Meta’s ASC rely almost entirely on creative to drive performance. And yet, many organizations still operate with media and creative teams running in parallel, disconnected by process, language, and tooling.

The solution isn’t just collaboration. It’s shared fluency. Smartly and Wpromote both use AI-driven tools that analyze creative performance across platforms and build a shared vocabulary for what’s working. That allows both media buyers and creatives to operate from the same data and design with performance in mind from day one.

TikTok’s Lorry Destainville reminded the audience that TikTok is no longer just a social network, it’s where culture starts. And to tap into that culture, brands must understand creators as collaborators, not just content producers.

Creator + AI is the new unlock. With the right tools and partnerships, platforms like TikTok are helping brands drive down CPA while building relevance and reach. The magic, Destainville said, is in letting creators lead and being fast enough with approvals, assets, and insights to ride cultural waves as they happen.

Shruti Khatod from Nutrafol spoke candidly about creative risk and how her team had to overcome internal bias to test humor, emotion, and new visual formats on TikTok. What worked? Humor for male audiences, emotion for female. But they wouldn’t have known that without testing.

Risk tolerance, she said, must be built into the culture. The only way to learn what works is to try. And that means setting up a system of rapid testing, real-time listening, and incremental approvals that allows creative to evolve without getting stuck in bureaucratic loops.

The panel pushed back on the divide between brand and performance calling it outdated and unhelpful. As Vallera and D’Altorio both emphasized, creative built for performance can still build love. And brand assets built with personalization in mind can still drive measurable outcomes.

The solution isn’t to separate teams, it’s to merge workflows, share data, and co-own outcomes. When teams work from the same tools and timelines, creative becomes a performance asset, and performance becomes a brand-building engine.

Khatod detailed how Nutrafol now treats creative as a living system not a one-and-done deliverable. Organic and paid teams now meet regularly to share what’s working, adapt creative for new channels, and repurpose content across funnel stages.

TikTok's team added that responsiveness matters even more than polish. Brands that win are those that act on comment feedback, remix what’s working, and move from insight to iteration without delay. One case even showed a brand going from trend identification to campaign live in just three days.

To close, panelists were asked what rising talent needs to succeed in this new creative environment. Their answers centered on four core traits:

In short, creative success in 2025 isn’t just about tools. It’s about getting out of your own way building the team, mindset, and muscle memory to move at the speed of culture.

Independently Created. Not affiliated with POSSIBLE.

ClickZ is a ClickZ Media publication in the Events division