Competing at the Wrong Altitude: Four Problems Better Creative Can't Fix

​Global advertising spend has crossed $700 billion, and much of it is still being directed at a communications problem. But what if the real constraint is a problem of power?

​Join us for drinks and light refreshments as John argues that durable competitive advantage does not live in better creative, sharper targeting, or a smarter media mix. It lives one level up: in the power to define the category, name the problem, shape desire, and make a worldview feel inevitable.

​Drawing on his background researching and teaching about power, John's talk reframes marketing as a contest over categories, identities, desires, and cultural infrastructure. The most powerful brands do not simply send better messages. They win because they own the rules by which every message is judged.

​You already know how to compete. This is about choosing the right game.

​Speaker: John Hoare, Cultural Theorist and Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of Toronto

​John Hoare is a Toronto-based cultural theorist, educator, and writer. His work focuses on power, culture, media, and aesthetics, drawing on experience in curriculum development and education across North America and Asia. He writes on critical theory and contemporary culture, with a particular interest in how influence and meaning are produced in public life.