{"id":20136,"date":"2026-09-21T15:41:40","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T19:41:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/advertisingweek.com\/aw360\/?p=20136"},"modified":"2026-09-20T15:46:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-20T19:46:10","slug":"there-are-no-shortcuts-to-greatness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/advertisingweek.com\/aw360\/news\/there-are-no-shortcuts-to-greatness\/20136\/","title":{"rendered":"There Are No Shortcuts to Greatness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>By Kim Mickenberg, Partner, Campaign Design, VSA Partners<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Look, I\u2019m a writer by trade.&nbsp;<\/strong>Throughout my career, I\u2019ve gone from editorial to strategic communications to brand and campaign development, and through it all I\u2019ve been very passionate about the importance of two things: having something sharp and differentiating to say, and saying it clearly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The rise of AI-generated content complicates the picture, but not in a way that\u2019s necessarily bad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But AI isn\u2019t really what I want to talk about, at least not directly. In fact, I\u2019ve been very adamant about the fact that I don\u2019t want to write thought leadership pieces about AI. To start, there are already too many. Second, I\u2019m a writer, not an engineer, and I think many of the most salient applications of AI are in technology, healthcare, and automation, not creative inspiration. And third, no matter how you get your work done\u2014whether you\u2019re an AI power user or someone who just asks it for restaurant recommendations on the weekend\u2014there are no shortcuts on the road to greatness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Zero. Zilch. None. (None!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you want to get to greatness, you have to get there the old-fashioned way, because that\u2019s the only way that exists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Consider the environment we\u2019re all in. Most businesses are managing quarter to quarter, most teams are hyper-attuned to data and analytics, and most marketers are being pressured to produce more with less\u2014and faster than ever. At the same time, your audience\u2019s attention is fragmented, and we (all of us) have much less control over what they\u2019re seeing and how they\u2019re seeing it than we\u2019d like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">AI can seem like an easy way out\u2014a way to get in front of your audience early and often with minimal force and maximum velocity. Anyone can type a prompt and get something that sounds fairly reputable, and anyone can now scale that content to deliver perfectly acceptable-seeming creative to fill a media plan. So that\u2019s what many brands are doing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That\u2019s also why they\u2019re not breaking through. Because if you want to truly connect, you need something you can\u2019t easily outsource or fake: a strong point of view and the conviction to stick by it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And delivering&nbsp;<em>that&nbsp;<\/em>takes a lot of real&nbsp;<em>human<\/em>&nbsp;work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To start, you have to deeply understand your audience, what motivates them, and what they need\u2014not just what they need in a material sense, but in a higher-order, emotional one. Henry Ford is often quoted as saying that if he had asked people what they wanted, they would have said \u201ca faster horse.\u201d Similarly, your audience might have certain conscious wants that they\u2019re happy to share with you. But to be truly visionary as a company, you have to go a step deeper and get a handle on the deeper human need they have\u2014and that only you can address.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For example, I\u2019m a parent with two relatively undomesticated little kids. If you ask me what I need at dinnertime, I might say things like, \u201ckids who actually listen to me\u201d or \u201cfood that doesn\u2019t create crumbs\u201d (I\u2019m looking at you, Whole Foods cornbread). But if you actually observed my life and the fact that I make like three separate dinners each night to appeal to everyone\u2019s different tastes, you might approach me differently. Instead of telling me\u2014bloodlessly\u2014that you have a product to make mealtime \u201cmore efficient,\u201d you might realize that mealtime makes me feel frenetic and overtaxed and say, \u201cStop feeling like a short-order cook!\u201d And you know what? If you said that, you\u2019d get my attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But I digress!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Beyond understanding your audience, you have to deeply understand the business part of the business, including everything about what you offer, how you operate, and where you\u2019re headed. It\u2019s tempting to stay at 36,000 feet, a safe cruising altitude for anyone who isn\u2019t super technical. But if you stay too far out of the weeds (or depend on AI-generated summaries to guide you), you miss the nuance and the nitty-gritty details that help you build a more compelling overarching story. That\u2019s why we&nbsp;<em>always<\/em>&nbsp;ask to speak to engineers and product teams. Not because we think they\u2019ll solve a positioning exercise on their own, but because the information they provide makes it possible for us to build a positioning and messaging framework that has real teeth and genuinely sets their offering apart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Next, you have to come up with an idea that\u2019s powerful enough to speak to your audience\u2019s unmet needs: an idea that\u2019s strong, simple, and bold\u2014one that reflects both who you are and who you aspire to be, and that can be developed and delivered in a compelling way across every channel and throughout the entire funnel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s gotta make for an awesome :30 spot. A heart-stopping billboard. A viral TikTok. A millennial-coded Instagram post. An elevator ad that your execs see and love. And ideally, at least one activation large enough to see your logo from space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Oh, and you have to sell that idea in. To dozens of stakeholders, in every part of the business, all while keeping it intact and interesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That\u2019s a tall order, a ton of work, and (usually) many, many variations of the same deck. And it\u2019s not something a chatbot can do on its own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But doing it pays off!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Want proof? Look at FactSet. A few years after launching&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.vsapartners.com\/work\/factset\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">our first brand campaign with them<\/a>\u2014which increased brand awareness by 280%, leading to a 438% increase in marketing qualified leads and a 76% increase in consideration\u2014they needed to shift their positioning to reflect the org\u2019s focus on AI and speak to the needs of enterprise buyers. After digging into the actual tensions of the AI era for financial professionals, we found that while everyone wanted to integrate AI and work faster, they were very concerned about accuracy. (And rightfully so! One hallucination or misinterpretation of sentiment could be a disaster for people whose job it is to be right.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So for our follow-up campaign, we decided to focus on a new POV that FactSet could uniquely own: AI is only as good as the expertise behind it\u2014and FactSet has some of the best in the industry. That became the basis for&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.vsapartners.com\/news-ideas\/factset-launches-fluent-in-finance-campaign-challenging-category-to-build-better-ai\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">our \u201cFluent in Finance\u201d campaign<\/a>, which takes a humorous, absurdist look at what happens when AI doesn\u2019t quite \u201cget it.\u201d In outright defiance of category norms, the campaign creative did not mention any products or services at all; it just shared a POV on what financial professionals need to succeed, with the goal of speaking to an emotional need that no one else was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It has been a resounding success: The campaign drove very high engagement on every channel right out of the gate, increasing favorability +19 points (vs. a +1.8-point benchmark), familiarity +16 points (vs. a +1.1-point benchmark), and consideration +12 points (vs. a +1.4-point benchmark). But more importantly, it drove actual business results and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.investing.com\/news\/transcripts\/earnings-call-transcript-factset-beats-q2-2026-expectations-stock-rises-93CH-4590980\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">was cited in a Q2 earnings call as \u201cgenerating strong top-of-funnel growth.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To develop Fluent in Finance, we interviewed the CTO, talked to the product team, did a landscape audit, wrestled with the right singular thing to own, and pressure-tested ideas a million ways to Sunday. If it sounds like it took a lot of human work, it\u2019s because it did\u2014and that\u2019s&nbsp;<em>before<\/em>&nbsp;we even got to production and the challenge of making the creative really sing.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But all that hard work\u2014and the friction it entails\u2014is what makes it possible to find the right big idea and POV. And landing&nbsp;<em>that&nbsp;<\/em>plane actually makes everything&nbsp;<em>else<\/em>&nbsp;that much easier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When you know who you are and you\u2019re committed to what you\u2019re saying, reproducing content at scale is much simpler.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When you get brand and business alignment, product and marketing naturally row in the same direction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When your audience sees your conviction, you give them a reason to believe in your company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And all that goodness helps you build trust and credibility at the top of the funnel, which makes it easier to convince and convert audiences throughout it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In other words, your life gets easier! And that\u2019s a very, very good thing, because you\u2019ve got enough to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That\u2019s why, even though the world is inundated in AI slop, and even though every seven minutes I see a new LinkedIn post about how \u201cwriting is dead\u201d\u2014you know the type: one with 27 hard returns, with a suspicious amount of conviction about em dashes\u2014I\u2019ve never felt more excited about the potential for big, smart, creative ideas and the ways we can use technology to amplify them. There are just no shortcuts to get there. But that\u2019s OK! Shortcuts are overrated. Nothing worth having comes easy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Don\u2019t believe the hype; believe the work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Author bio:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Kim Mickenberg, Partner, Campaign Design at VSA Partners, blends creative vision with strategic precision to build campaigns that resonate deeply and defy category conventions. With nearly two decades of experience leading brand and campaign work, Kim is known for her philosophy of \u201cbold simplicity\u201d &#8211; developing clear, emotionally compelling ideas that cut through complexity and drive lasting impact.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m not trying to convince you that the journey is the destination. But the destination is 100% shaped by the journey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":20137,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3],"topics":[2],"class_list":["post-20136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-brands-marketers","topics-editorial"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v28.0 (Yoast SEO v28.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>There Are No Shortcuts to Greatness | AW360<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/advertisingweek.com\/aw360\/news\/there-are-no-shortcuts-to-greatness\/20136\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"There Are No Shortcuts to Greatness\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I\u2019m not trying to convince you that the journey is the destination. 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