I Refuse to Let Go of the Delusion That Advertising Will Save the World

When I started in advertising, I thought the job was about making TV commercials and brochures. I was wrong. It’s actually about making PowerPoint decks that promise to fix society in under three minutes.

Then I discovered Cannes case films, and like many young creatives before me, I was immediately indoctrinated.

The structure was always familiar. a grave problem in a developing country you may or may not be able to find on a map, followed by a devastatingly simple idea, and concluded with results so optimistic they border on spiritual.

Millions helped. Policies changed. Awards won.

I bought into it completely. I believed that with enough sincerity and a strong enough insight, advertising could save the world. I was naive, stubborn, and deeply convinced that the right idea, expressed in Helvetica, could undo decades of systemic failure.

As a junior creative, I chased causes the way some people chase trends. I was persistent, idealistic, and delusionally positive. I believed complexity was a coward’s excuse and that simplicity was a moral position.

Experience, unfortunately, has a way of interrupting this fantasy.

Naivety Is Necessary

Over time, I learned that ideas don’t fail because they’re bad. They fail because of budgets, timelines, risk aversion, procurement, legal, and the phrase “can we make it more logo-led.” Sometimes you compromise. Sometimes you shrink an idea so much it technically still exists, like a fun-sized chocolate bar that promises joy and delivers disappointment. Sometimes you choose your battles because you are tired and rent is due.

I also had to acknowledge an uncomfortable truth: I work in an industry that actively contributes to the problems it occasionally claims to solve. We manufacture desire, reinforce impossible standards, and push consumption while congratulating ourselves for planting a tree in the footer of a case film. This is what people politely call “cognitive dissonance.”

Still, despite all evidence to the contrary, I believe naivety is not just inevitable in this industry. It is necessary.

Advertising is a business of rejection. Your ideas are ignored, diluted, or killed far more often than they are made. Without a stubborn belief that ideas can matter, you don’t become wise. You become boring. And the industry has enough of that already.

This is why it matters who you surround yourself with. You need people who are just as naive as you are, if not more. People who still ask, “Why can’t we do this?” instead of explaining in great detail why it’s impossible. Cynicism sounds intelligent in meetings. It produces nothing.

At Happiness Saigon, I believe our work carries this particular strain of productive delusion. From reimagining how we dispose of trash through UNICEF ‘Moto Thung’, to enabling a community of EV bikers to lend their batteries to SMEs during rotational blackouts with Dat Bike ‘Re:Charge’. None of these ideas were efficient. None of them were easy. All of them required an unreasonable amount of belief that they were worth pursuing.

They happened because enough people refused to accept that “this is just how things are.”

So should we be putting our best creative minds toward solving real-world problems?

If the alternative is using them exclusively to sell slightly different versions of the same thing to people who don’t need it, then yes. Absolutely. Even if we fail. Even if we’re naive. Especially if we’re naive.

Because the moment we stop believing that ideas can change something beyond brand metrics is the moment advertising truly becomes useless.