Why we still need big-brand creative power in a social-first world

“In the era of Facebook and YouTube, brand building has become a vexing challenge,” wrote Douglas Holt, Oxford and Harvard marketing professor, in 2018.

A vexing challenge maybe, but today, with far more than just YouTube and Facebook at our thumb tips, it’s more a wholesale imperative than it is just a cautionary challenge.

Social media isn’t just another channel brands need to solve; it’s increasingly where the pieces of modern brand-building come together. 

There are some who argue that, in this new world, the strategic thinking and creative power that 'traditional' agencies have used to build famous brands for decades are somehow less relevant. In reality, the opposite is true.

The fundamentals of brand building haven’t changed. Mental availability remains critical to growth. Distinctiveness is still essential for cut-through. Emotional connection still matters. Brands still need phenomenal ideas grounded in meaningful insight to give consumers a reason to choose them.

What has changed is the environment in which those ideas now have to survive and succeed, and the way that work needs to be developed. So, the challenge today is how to apply effective big-brand creative thinking in a genuinely social-first way.

What brands get wrong about social-first

Many brands still misunderstand what social-first brand-building actually requires. They fall into the trap of trend-chasing, producing disconnected content that doesn’t support a larger brand idea or translate effectively across channels. In the process, they sacrifice consistency and long-term memory building in favour of short-term visibility.

That isn’t social-first thinking. Social-first doesn’t mean abandoning brand-building principles in pursuit of the algorithm, and it doesn’t mean social-only. It’s a strategy that places social behaviours, cultural conversations and creative considerations at the centre of brand activity across all media, including traditional channels like TV and OOH.

Reacting to trends should only happen in service of building a more distinctive and consistent brand. Without a clear strategic role, that activity risks becoming forgettable and, more importantly, weakening the distinctiveness that brands need for long-term growth.

Shaping social-first, big-brand ideas

However, social-first does require a different creative process from the one agencies have traditionally used. For years, agencies developed campaigns with television at the center before adapting them for social afterwards.

Today, that process increasingly needs to reverse. Agencies now need to think about how an idea lives on social first, because social is by far the most competitive and unforgiving media space for brands to succeed in. Then we think about how those ideas can extend into more traditional channels.

CeraVe’s ‘Michael CeraVe’ campaign is a strong example. That work was truly social-first,  embracing creator culture, internet humour and entertainment-led storytelling in a way that felt genuinely native to social platforms. But it was still rooted in a broader brand idea, remaining unmistakably CeraVe through its visual identity, tone and dermatologist-backed positioning.

Or there’s Nothing, the tech brand that behaves more like a streetwear label than a traditional electronics company. From lo-fi visuals to launch campaigns designed like fashion drops, the entire brand experience is shaped around communities, subcultures and social participation. That carries through into offline channels too, including its latest outdoor campaign for the new Phone (4a).

Neither brand succeeded by abandoning the principles of long-term brand building. They succeeded by adapting those principles to modern social behaviour.

The future of brand-building

Big brand ideas need to work harder now. Social content may be seen with no narrative, no context and no second chance. It has to land among dancing frogs, breaking news and creator tutorials, often in a single second. That means building brand codes that behave less like long-form storytelling and more like instantly recognisable ‘vibes’. No beginning, middle or end. Just a feeling. The three-second world needs as much craft as the 30-second one. Arguably, more-so.

Social-first thinking is no longer optional. Without it, brand work across all channels will miss out on the behaviours driving society, the cultural conversations driving relevance and some of the most influential spaces for modern creativity.

But the role for big-brand creative power hasn’t disappeared. If anything, it’s become more important. Brands now need stronger organising ideas to remain coherent across fragmented platforms and constant content cycles. The difference is how those ideas are developed and deployed.

So the brands most likely to earn long-term fame and drive effectiveness in this social-first era will be those that combine cultural fluency with enduring, brand-led creativity. Those that understand how to build distinctive memory structures within modern cultural ecosystems, rather than simply reacting to them.

Jai Kotecha is CEO of Grey and president of social for Ogilvy UK