Andromeda, Insomnia, and Why Creative Is Having Its Main Character Moment.

Creative insomnia: when your brain decides 1am is the perfect time to rewrite Meta’s advertising strategy.

It’s 1am, I’m still awake, and my laptop is convinced it’s daytime. My head’s been scrambled all week - is it ever not when you work for yourself? But this week’s been different. The kind of week where sleep feels optional and ideas don’t respect office hours. One of those weeks when your friend is telling you about… to be honest, I couldn’t tell you what they were telling me about because my mind was somewhere else. I usually am a good friend, but when my brain is in a ticking phase like this, there’s no off switch.

But what I’m thinking about isn’t something I need to resist; these aren’t anxious thoughts. They’re exciting ones. Creative ones. And they’ve all been fuelled by one thing: Meta’s Andromeda update, Meta’s biggest AI advertising shift yet. 

The rollout started quietly back in July, but October marked its official global launch - meaning Andromeda is now fully live across all accounts.

If you’re reading this blog, chances are you work in marketing and already know what I’m talking about. But for the sake of anyone else (hi mum), here’s the nutshell version.

Instead of us telling Meta who to target, Meta’s new Andromeda update now uses AI advertising to do the matchmaking. With targeting and placements handled by automation, creative performance in Meta ads has officially become the biggest success driver. In short: the brands that experiment, diversify, and tell better stories will be the ones that win. 

For anyone in travel marketing, this means a big shift in how we think about paid social. It’s no longer about chasing hyper-specific audiences like ‘luxury Europe holiday seekers aged 35-45’, but about telling a range of stories such as ‘escaping city stress’, ‘family-together time, ‘digital detox on an island’ that the algorithm can serve to the right person at the right time. Less time defining who to reach, more time creating the kind of content worth reaching them with. 

And, by the way, we’re not talking headline tweaks or swapping an image: Meta will read them as duplications. We’re talking full distinctive narratives and a mix of formats - video, static, motion graphics, carousel, Instant Experiences - the lot.

Building one full creative suite for a Meta ad campaign is hard enough, but three or four? That’s when things get a little chaotic. Just the thought of the endless back and forth between content and design fuels my nightmares more than my late-night idea sessions ever could. 

The reality is, most teams are already spinning plates. The obvious answer is to hire more people, but this takes time, risk and commitment - three things new tech doesn’t allow for. You need to move fast here or you’ll be left behind.

So what’s really been keeping me awake? The fact that I fit perfectly into this gap and I’ve been thinking about how to make this easier for brands to bridge it. Crafting social ad creatives that tell stories is my bread and butter.

I know the travel industry inside out. I’ve got over eight years experience working in social media and design, I have a first class degree in advertising, and a creative process built for agility. You can bring me in for one campaign or ten. No long contracts, no fuss, just creative that works. 

I’ve put together a few packages to show how this could look in practice. Think of them as more of a guide book than a rulebook though, because every brand, campaign and story needs its own approach.

So if Meta’s latest AI advertising update has kept you awake at night wondering how you’re going to keep up with it, let’s join forces so we can both sleep better. Think of me as your on-call creative arm - ready to concept, craft and deliver social ad creative that feel like stories and plug straight into Ads Manager. 

Andromeda isn’t something to panic about - I like to think of it as a creative playground.

I’m ready to play, are you?