Why Feedback on Ideas in Agencies Is So Damn Emotional

About ego, creative identity, and the art of making ideas better instead of defending them.

Why do people perceive criticism of their creative ideas as a personal attack? I’ve been encountering this phenomenon for years, and honestly, it’s getting pretty damn annoying, even for myself.

One thing is clear, there’s still a lot of interpersonal work to do in advertising agencies until we can all finally relax a little, and learn how to give, and receive, feedback on ideas properly.

But where does that actually come from? “Don’t touch my idea” isn’t anything new, which is why I’ve had the idea for this Substack sitting in my notes app for quite a while.

Let’s dive in. Why does criticism from outsiders, people outside the project or the workflow, hit us so hard?

I’ve experienced so much feedback that made absolutely no sense to me, and I’ve witnessed countless verbal fights between managers and creatives arguing over an idea and its right to exist. Creative jealousy also plays a huge role quite often, there’ll be a separate Substack on that soon, keep on following :)

Interestingly enough, it’s almost always between men, rarely women. So there seems to be some kind of unspoken, never ending cockfight going on in agencies, somewhere between half-empty energy drink cans, overheated MacBooks, and people who’ve been discussing for hours which adjective makes a headline sound more “bold”.

It’s all about ego and elbows. “My idea is way better than yours.” “Team XY’s ideas are complete trash.” Or, “No, I’m not implementing that feedback, it’ll ruin MY idea.”

I’ve heard all of this countless times, and I genuinely wish this “my-idea-is-sacred” mentality would be eradicated and then cremated afterwards. Let’s be more humble. And in general, keep your feet on the ground.

Of course, these ideas do exist. Those rare, extraordinary ideas where you instantly feel, there’s something in there. Ideas worth pushing through resistance, worth convincing people of, worth going the extra mile for if necessary. Many great campaigns would never have existed if nobody had stubbornly believed in them.

But that’s exactly the difference, not every idea is a golden idea. Not every headline, every caption, or every daily asset is a creative hill worth dying on. If every tiny thing turns into an ego battle, creative collaboration becomes unnecessarily exhausting. Fight for ideas that have the potential to become something extraordinary, not for your own need to be right. Alright, enough preaching for today!

Success in advertising is often loud, visible, and rewarded with awards or big campaigns. Whoever stands in the spotlight and gets celebrated for success is more likely to feed their own ego. Why the fuck so much ego???

Creative ideas get evaluated every single day, it’s one of the most ordinary tasks in agency life. Yet somehow it seems to bring an incredible amount of emotion to the surface every single time ideas are judged. Crazy, right? No surprise. The very first thing I had to learn as a junior creative, and what genuinely made me better, was: “Kill your darlings.”

A (Idea) Baby Is Born

The perception of an idea is based on previous experiences. Then, when a flash of inspiration strikes, and the idea is considered good, it’s a bit like the creative has literally just given birth to it. It is now their baby, their flesh-and-blood property. (Maybe this comparison popped into my head because a little baby has been screaming next to me on this train.) So the idea baby is a part of us, and we want to protect it with all our strength. It’s still a little rubbery and not fully developed yet, but it’s already a complete idea baby, at least that’s what every creative initially believes.

From a rational point of view, it’s probably because people who do intellectual work simply feel much more connected to what they create than people doing physical work.

The more decisions are based on personal judgement instead of fixed rules, the more the work merges with the creator’s self-image. A creative doesn’t sell an idea the way a bricklayer lays another brick. They sell a part of their thinking. That’s why feedback often feels like an evaluation of their personality. So questioning someone else’s ideas is walking on very thin ice.

Meaning, the creative person is inside what they create. Maybe that’s not always so obvious for people outside advertising, but fitting comparisons would be:

A chef:
for them, criticism feels like criticism of their taste, their experience, and their skills. “You have no taste.”

A musician:
they put their style and personality into their music, so criticism feels like, “You aren’t personally interesting.”

That probably makes it easier to understand why creative minds can’t simply detach themselves from their ideas, or aren’t capable of separating themselves from them. We’re back to the idea baby comparison again, who would voluntarily give away their own baby? It has become their own flesh and blood. That’s why criticism of what they’ve created is usually taken very personally, almost like a judgement of their self-worth.

The Attack

The problem that comes with this, however, is that this strong identification can also lead to resistance towards criticism. Even well-intentioned suggestions or ideas for improvement are immediately interpreted as a personal attack. And suddenly all these emotions start boiling up, defeat, humiliation, embarrassment, anger, hopelessness.

**Hot Take (probably thousands of years old)**

The emotional attachment to your own intellectual, creative work simply cannot be separated. Advice, suggestions for improvement, or criticism of ideas will always be taken personally by creative idea developers. Period. Separating emotions from creative output is therefore impossible. But there are ways to make it a little more bearable for both sides, meaning the person giving the feedback and the creative who came up with the idea.

The creative process is an exercise in vulnerability.

Let’s assume an idea emerges over the course of weeks, or within a few seconds, it doesn’t matter. It’s now there, and is now examined by different stakeholders or disciplines, put to the test, checked for brand fit, and whether it actually meets the requirements of the brief.

When criticism enters the picture, frustration, disagreements, and even anger over the feedback quickly arise.

Andy Lutzky*, a marketing professor and influencer marketing manager from Santa Barbara, California, describes this beautifully in his everyday work:

“Imagine someone else comes in and suggests changes. That person has probably spent less time on this project than you have. Who is this intruder entering my territory, you might think? Who do they think they are, suggesting changes to something they know less about than I do?”*

I have to admit, guilty as charged. I’ve often thought exactly the same whenever someone who wasn’t actively involved in a project suddenly wanted to evaluate my idea. Who dare youuuu?

Andy also takes a short detour into neuroscience and says that this very threat to our creative idea triggers an ancient instinct, the threat irritates the limbic system in the brain and it says: Stress! Alarm! Fear! What thing?

“The limbic system is the origin of the body’s fight-or-flight response. This survival mechanism allows your limbic system to press the panic button whenever it perceives danger or a threat.”*

So maybe agencies need some kind of all-clear button that starts playing Lo-Fi music, releases calming ylang-ylang scents into the room, and gently whispers through the speakers: “No reason to run away, calm down, creative cavemen!”

Overall, feedback on ideas is never about life and death. We’re just advertisers, not heart surgeons.

A Short Excursion into a Better Feedback Culture

The probably more professional perspective would be to establish a healthy feedback culture. All of us should learn, regardless of career level, how to give proper feedback. Whether internally between creative teams, account management and leadership, or externally from clients to agencies. Good feedback speeds up processes, saves everyone’s nerves, and improves the final product. Bad feedback leads to frustration, endless revision loops, and watered-down ideas.

Back to the topic.

Why do creatives so often lose sight of the actual goal and insist on pushing through their own idea at all costs instead of representing the goal of the project or the task?

The Ego Trap of Creativity

It’s a cultural problem within the advertising industry. In many agencies, creativity is staged like a competition. Pitches, awards, credits, presentations, it’s constantly about whose idea “wins”. As a result, the focus shifts from “What solves the problem best?” to “Which idea gets approved?”

That automatically turns feedback into a threat to your own status. At its core, the real cause isn’t even arrogance. It’s ego as self-protection. In creative professions, there is no objective measurement. A bricklayer knows whether the wall is straight. A surgeon knows whether the operation was successful.

An Art Director or Copywriter? Not really.

That’s why your own idea quickly becomes proof of your own competence. If it’s criticised, it feels like this: Your idea is bad. So maybe you’re not that good after all. The brain reacts to this very similarly to a personal attack.

One Possible Solution

How do we find the best solution together? A few cool principles for creative people, with either a big or a small ego:

Detach from ownership. Ideas are hypotheses, not babies.

Kill your darlings. Whoever can throw away their favourite idea themselves usually becomes more creative.

Celebrate improvements, not authorship. Don’t ask: Who had the idea? Ask: When did the idea become better?

Reward changing your mind. In many agencies, that’s still considered a weakness. In reality, it’s a sign of intelligence.

Fight for the outcome, not the concept. Let the brief win, not your ego.

The best creatives don’t have fewer egos. They simply know when to put them aside.

Great creativity doesn’t come from protecting ideas. It comes from improving them.

The moment your goal changes from being right to finding what’s right, feedback stops feeling like an attack, and starts becoming your biggest creative advantage.

Thanks for reading.
I’d genuinely love to hear your thoughts, whether you agree, disagree, or just want to tell me I’m completely wrong. Feedback is kind of the whole point of this article, after all.

Now go forth, kill your darlings, not your coworkers.
Cheers,
**Lara**