Creativity in an Age of AI.

The Future Does Not Fit in the Containers of the Past.Edition 254.

In an article for The Verge, Nilay Patel its editor in chief, noted that in an interview with Ben Thompson Mark Zuckerberg described a vision where a client comes to Meta and says “I want customers for my product,” and Meta does everything else. It generates photos and videos of those products using AI, writes copy about those products with AI, assembles that into an infinite number of ads with AI, targets those ads to all the people on its platforms with AI, measures which ads perform best and iterates on them with AI, and then has those customers buy the actual products on its platforms using its systems.

At the recently concluded Cannes International Festival of Creativity, the dominant theme according to all reports was AI. And one of the worries apparently was what AI would do to creativity in a tech infused, data driven, highly measured eco-system dominated by Meta, Google, Amazon and others.

So I thought it would make sense to turn to a gentleman who may know a little about the topic.

His name is Sir John Hegarty and for those not familiar with him here is a little bit to establish his credentials to speak to the subject:

• Founder BBH: In 1982, with partners John Bartle and Nigel Bogle, he started Bartle Bogle Hegarty one of the most iconic agencies that helped build brands such as Audi, Levi’s and Johnnie Walker among others.

• Awards and Recognition: Sir John has received numerous accolades throughout his career, including the D&AD President's Award, the Cannes Lions Advertising Festival Lifetime Achievement Award, and a knighthood for services to advertising in 2007.

• Authored Books: He has written two influential books:

  • Hegarty on Advertising: Turning Intelligence into Magic

  • Hegarty on Creativity: There Are No Rules

• The Garage Soho: In 2014, he co-founded The Garage Soho, an incubator for disruptive business ideas where he invested in dozens of young companies.

• The Business of Creativity: Sir John believes creativity is key to business growth and everyone can nurture creativity. A few years ago he co-founded The Business of Creativity working with companies and leaders all over the world.

You can listen to the entire conversation here and the links at the end of the post.

Here are 4 of many many insights and perspectives Sir Hegarty shared including the single best definition of creativity I have ever heard:

1. Sir John loves and has embraced AI.

He believes AI is going to be incredible and profound. It will be a significant democratizing opportunity allowing the unleashing of new forms of creativity.

Sir John suggests we should not view AI as a tool but as collaborator that allows all of us to be creative directors. No longer is there an art director or copy writer but the fusion of the two.

The big challenge of AI are the copyright issues and ownership of IP laws.

2. Creativity is a key to Brands but he is worried that many of today’s brands will fail to endure and are being actively destroyed !

Marketers have become so data driven and so hooked to lower funnel promotion measurable outcomes that significant brand destruction is underway as we have seen with Nike among others.

Brands are not built by promotion but also by persuasion and with the exception of personal brands like influencers very few enduring brands are built online.

Online Brands such as Dollar Shave Club come and go quickly sold to bigger companies who have FOMO. Direct to Consumer brands that depend on metrics and measurement and narrow targeting are mostly eroding because tech companies keep focusing on people who buy the brand or people who look like those who bought the brand which is too narrow and due to competitive bidding for the same people are very expensive to reach.

It is very critical for a brand to be known by those who do not know about it and this is source of growth for most companies. Convincing these folks is not about utility, features and performance but telling a story of what the brand stands for, how it makes one feel, how it resonates with culture, how it fits into a person’s life.

Today brands are being milked and not fed with a focus on the short run.

What is measurable may not be all that matters.

Increasingly smart brands are not only fixating only on online media but are thinking about experience stacks including real world experiences from stores to out of home, immersive media and much more. Out of home grew 8 percent last year !

3. The Definition of Creativity and why there are two types of Creativity.

One day someone told Sir John that the greatest art of all might be music.

Sir John believed it might be the second greatest art for and the greatest of all art is human life.

Human life is an act of creativity.

Sir John defines creativity as follows: Creativity is an expression of self.

Listen to the greatest creative people and you will hear them saying:

“Here is what I wanted to say”

“This is what I wanted to show”

“What I am trying to build”

There are two types of creativity one is pure and the other is applied.

Pure creativity is a spark that leads to the iPhone, creating the Simpsons or designing the Guggenheim in Bilboa. and also drives the greatest iconic works of art, product design and brand building.

Applied creativity is creating the next version of the iPhone, a new episode of The Simpsons or designing the stairs inside the Guggenheim.

Pure creativity is the greatest wealth creator and generator of growth ever.

Creativity drives innovation and the best creativity does not come from A/B testing, mathematics or focus groups.

It feeds on curiosity, instinct, exposure to differing perspectives, feelings and things that do not compute.

This AI versioning is not creativity that builds brands and growth but a smart way to get variations of a theme cost effectively get the lower funnel sale of a Brand that was which was built due to a different form of creativity.

A human creativity of self expression and not a machine variation of optimization and data co-relation.

AI will unleash human creativity but will not replace human creativity.

4. Advice to established leaders and young people

Sir John has suggested that too many leaders fail to lead.

Lots of arrogance and hubris but basically followers, data clutchers, herd like buzz word bingo chanters.

Leadership is about having courage.

The big leaders step ahead, march to different drummers, take risks on intuition, ideas and instinct.

While Sir John did not mention that they should zig vs others zag I could not mentioning this since the symbol of BBH is the black sheep. If you have not seen what this means check out these ads that defined an era and established valuable profitable brands including Audi, Levi’s, Johnnie Walker and many more.

For young people his advice is to find and do something one loves. Do not just follow the data. Play more. Play is stepping forth with the the lack of rules.

A master class on creativity and thriving as a human in an AI age. Take a listen and you will be moved. Here are Apple and Spotify links but all on podcast platforms globally.

More on Creativity.

In the latest The Rethinking Work show an artist and musician turned architect who founded a design firm called FYOOG which is now part of IA one of the world’s largest architectural firm on how to re-imagine space to create meaning, inspire ideas and true interaction. If you want to unleash your team and firms creativity take a look and see spaces that soar and much more. You can watch on YouTube or listen on Spotify or Apple.

And a call for Creative Works!

The art work for this issue comes from Britton Bloch who is an artist, studying for her PhD and is Vice President, Global Talent Acquisition Strategy & Head of Recruiting at Navy Federal Credit Union. Britton also reads this thought letter very much like Karin Onsager-Birch another reader whose work was featured last week and Susan Swinand a few months ago. Do you have art, music, video or photography you would like me to feature in this thought letter? If so please send me a note.

Rishad Tobaccowala is a company of one helping leaders and some of the biggest firms in the world rethink and re-invent themselves to thrive in transformative times.