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Great ideas are fragile. They can be bold, daring, and full of creative potential—until they run the gauntlet of approvals, revisions, and countless stakeholder opinions.
At the Branded Content Days 2025 in New York, Kaylee King, Managing Director at Special Operations, will be hosting a panel discussion on how to keep a great idea alive throughout the branded content creation process.
Ahead of the event, she shared her thoughts on the evolving industry, the dangers of dilution, and why bold decision-making is more important than ever.
The constant struggle for creativity
Kaylee King has seen both sides of the storytelling spectrum—editorial and branded. With a background in journalism and a career that spans The Weather Channel and The New York Times, while also being one of the founding members of T Brand Studio, she knows what it takes to craft a compelling narrative.
But she also knows how quickly a strong creative concept can be watered down by competing interests.
“What happens is, a really strong idea can come out of the gate, and then it starts to get watered down as committee-led creative takes hold and more and more people weigh in,” King explains. “That super strong bold idea at the beginning can become a lighter, safer version of itself. I’ve worked on campaigns where, by the end, we looked at it and thought, ‘That’s not the idea we started with.’”
Too many cooks in the kitchen
The dilution of creative ideas is an industry-wide challenge that brands, strategists, and content creators all recognize. King attributes the problem to multiple factors: stakeholder agendas, corporate fear, and the natural instinct to avoid risk.
“Everyone has an agenda, and they want to speak on behalf of what they believe. A bold idea can feel scary because it’s different—it feels like it could be controversial, even if it’s not,” she says.
One key factor that can help a great idea survive the approval process is having a strong decision-maker at the helm—someone willing to take a risk and stick with it.
King recalls a conversation with a panellist about this very issue: “She said that when there’s a clear hierarchy and a strong decision maker, it helps keep the idea alive because someone is steering the ship, making sure it doesn’t get lost in the noise.”
Bringing clients into the creative process
So, what can creative studios do to prevent dilution? According to King, the key is early collaboration—not just within the agency, but with clients as well.
“More than anything, it’s about getting the right people in the room as early as possible,” she explains. “If you involve creatives, strategists, and production teams in the sales process, you can set realistic expectations from the start. That way, you’re not just selling an idea—you’re also making sure it’s actually feasible within the budget and timeline.”
At Special Operations, King has seen firsthand how important client trust is to the process.
“When I was at T Brand Studio, we had The New Times as a publishing partner, so brands inherently trusted us. At a creative agency, you have to build that trust differently. It comes down to open conversations, transparency, and making the client feel like a partner, not just a funder.”
With AI rapidly transforming content creation, does the big idea still matter? King thinks so.
“I hope great ideas stay important,” she says. “If we get to a world where advertising is just purely transactional, that’s a problem. Branded content is everywhere now, so if we’re going to do it, we might as well make it great.”
With thought leaders like Kaylee King driving the conversation, Branded Content Days 2025 promises to be a must-attend event for anyone serious about creativity and the future of branded content.
Want to hear more? Join Kaylee King at Branded Content Days 2025 in New York City.
