Here's where I've landed on the work. It has to work.

The work has to work. I think sometimes as advertising workers, we get so caught up in the cleverness that we forget to interrogate ourselves with a very important question: will this stuff work? If you’re a small client investing big money (any money is big money for small clients) then you are only sure of one thing. The work has to work. As conscientious advertising workers we are duty bound to think through whether our work will produce measurable results. If you want to define advertising as art in the interest of commerce, that’s perfectly fine. Be an artist. Just don’t forget about the commerce part. The people who trust you with their ad budget are depending on you to care about whether the work will work. Not whether it’s good enough for your portfolio.