Creative people are a lot like smoke - we simultaneously shift with and illustrate the environment around us. We retain our shape and form, but can never do it in the same exact way twice. The slightest movement of air, breath, or change in temperature can point to where we will go next, but we will always be there in some way or another as long as the fire burns.
That is the true test of being an artist. Keeping that creative fire burning.
This is also one of the difficulties of earning a living as a creative. I have dedicated over half of my life at this point to being a graphic designer, and I spend 8 hours a day having my creations scrutinized, criticized, and most of the time, deleted or changed entirely into a grotesque hybrid of several peoples' ideas. The only relief I have in all this, is that though I get paid to use my skills, my skills aren't me. My unchecked, unadulterated, unhinged, unabridged expressions and creations and works in the wee hours of the night are me.
It isn't a strange or uncommon feeling to have in a creative field. I had a discussion once with a watercolor painter one day at lunch, and we started discussing how it stops being relaxing and therapeutic when you cross the line from being an artist to being an interior decorator. You draw or paint what you want when you want. If you're lucky, someone will appreciate or share your vision. If not, they will more than likely feed you pedestrian compliments and end the interaction with you by telling you it doesn't match their couch.
My advice to younger artists is always to steer away from careers that put a price on your creativity - at least while you’re young. Art is a very personal experience for the creator, and because of the inherent emotional insight that many artists have, putting yourself up for constant criticism can be disheartening. It opens a door for the world to kick sand into your fire. To be honest, it took years for me to not take the daily criticism personally, and on bad days I still do.
If you are an artist you have an emotional attachment to your work and how you present it. The superficial and shallow nature of an increasingly uncaring, non personal and disassociated world makes it extremely difficult for you to even want to put yourself out there. If you are in the marketing/advertising business a lot of money is riding on someone else's opinion of what will be successful, and because you are dealing with non artistic types, its that money and opinion that talks. That can take a mighty hammer to a large portion of your self worth if you aren't careful.
That isn't to say its all a bad thing of course - sometimes it will take that to force you to walk through your own fire and step out of the ashes as a re-imagined self confident creative beast. In my case, that which didn't kill me made me stranger - and for a creative person that is the greatest gift you can ask for. I still have moments in the cold, and you will too.
Use what you can from the outside criticism as fuel. As for the complaints of the shallow and superficial ones?
Throw them in the fire.