Mary Wells Lawrence on today's advertising

(CNN) -- Mary Wells Lawrence is confident that smart, creative advertising will come back, that the pendulum will swing away from the safe marketing efforts that dominate the mass media.

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But it won't happen until advertisers are allowed to make their cases, she says.

The frenzy of dot-com campaigns in the late '90s gave creativity a shot in the arm, but "now people are turned off. They became annoying," she says. Still, she adds, "Every technology needs time to develop. I think the Internet will evolve into something more profound."

What does she like today? Campaigns like MasterCard's "Priceless" effort, IBM's work, the dairy board's "Got milk?" ads, and particularly beer companies' marketing.

"They stay very close to their advertisers," she says.