In this contributed article, Dentsu Creative Philippines Associate Creative Director Malik Bernardo reflects on his experience participating in the LIA Creative LIAisons training program in Las Vegas.
“You guys got a good batch this year. There’s around 130 of you, and none of the people we invited take themselves too seriously.”
That’s what Chris Smith, CCO of Plot Twist Creativity, roughly told me in between panels after I mentioned how approachable and willing to geek out about the work most of the speakers and panelists were.
Chris was the main host of most of the Liaisons program days and a speaker in some segments. Remembering my short conversation with him and other things I have written down set the tone for this recap.
I realized being a LIAison isn’t just about being around “experts,” but about listening to creative people who are excited and impassioned to talk about a job they love. As I write about my Liaisons experience, my disorganized note-taking forced me to not take myself too seriously, either.
What saved me is that the week was filled with moments I could tell stories about. So let’s roll the dice and emulate the true Vegas experience.
“Nobody knows what’s gonna happen and anyone who says otherwise is BS,” John Mescall, Global Chief Creative Partner of Dentsu Creative, said about the AI industry’s trajectory. I wrote it down because it shattered my expectations of what this program is all about. I expected most of the global creative leaders to shill for the massive trend. What I didn’t expect was that all of them, even the ones who taught us how it was shaping our industry, still believe that human craft and creativity define great work.
“Humanize this.”
“AI only shifts what great looks like.”
“If AI can do something, it’s no longer creative.”
“AI is reminding us to be more human.”
“People will pay to skip an ad. People will also pay to watch a two-hour ad.”
These thoughts echoed through the panels and chats on and off-stage.
The Entertainment and Content panel redefined what kind of creative work I want to do. I was essentially challenged not just to make great ads, but to compete with entertainment itself. True enough, being in the jury room for the same category proved that creating something entertaining beats out any three-second brand mention or recall trick I’ve ever been taught.
I immediately thought of different ways to make my day-to-day work more entertaining and enjoyable for actual audiences.
“If you work from knowledge, you will not make anything new,” is one other lesson I learned.
Souvenirs from Malik’s Creative Liaisons experience: an entry pass and a photo
One last thing I want to transcribe from notebook to article is from Alexandra Taylor, who is now an independent creative director whose body of work and accolades far exceeded any allocated space I had on a single page. She gave this advice in between horror stories that still produced legendary work.
While she emphasized producing things that have never been done before, her resilience to fight for work she believes in, and her willingness to try new things to make the impossible happen—even when those new things were completely beyond her expertise at the time—struck. More significantly, it taught me to open my mind to the unfamiliar.
So, as I close my notebook full of notes and scribbled-down quotes, I feel like I won some sort of learning jackpot. Every time I’m asked to tell a story about something I learned or remember from the trip, I get to roll the dice or spin the wheel, because every single memory I hit is a winner.
Once again, I’d like to thank the amazing people at LIA and Dentsu Creative’s Global team for taking a chance on me this year.
