Brand Strategy Market: Val Carlson: Short-term Performance Will Kill Brands

Val Carlson, Global Chief Creative Officer at Critical Mass and juror on The Drum B2B Awards' Creative Aces jury, warns that short-term, activation-only performance planning is endangering long-term brand health. She frames AI as a creative accelerant that helps teams prototype, prune, and explore ideas faster rather than a pure job-killer, and says agencies should invest in people with overlapping 'Venn skills' to deliver distinctive work. Carlson cites Columbia’s Expedition Impossible (hosted by CEO Tim Boyle) as an example of B2B marketing that succeeded by behaving like B2C, and urges brands to plan for presence across communities and real-world activations rather than ceding control to dominant traffic platforms.