Madfest is an epic adventure in learning, debating and meeting people from the wonderful world of marketing and advertising. The themes from the talks I attended and the chats I had ranged from the changing nature of creativity, AI – the good, the bad and the ugly, the age of left brain, and why we need to know more about the history of advertising.
AI – the good, the bad and the ugly
You can’t go anywhere without a discussion about AI, but for this event the focus wasn’t on losing our jobs, or being more efficient, but on the potential effects of AI on creativity and on the environment.
If the google effect is that we forget more because we know we can always look it up, then is the AI effect that we lose the craft of creativity, because as long as you’re happy with beige, then AI can always do it for you? AI is loaded with average, and we all know that what you put in is what you get out. This came from a panel event ‘The humans strike back’ with Richard McHardy from the McHardy collective, Laura McNally from Autotrader and Andrew Nicholson from Kulea.ma.
The panel also suggested that no company using AI can call themselves sustainable given the environmental impact of the processing power needed for AI.
The changing nature of creativity
“None of the essays you wrote as a student are any good, because the important bit was how you got there, the books you read and the thinking you did” said advertising legend Rory Sutherland, Vice Chairman Ogilvy UK. “AI generated essays might well be better but that’s not the point,” he argued.
Echoing the need to maintain our brain’s ability to create and craft, Sir Martin Sorrell suggested “We need to learn things that are hard, to exercise our brains mental acuity – try Chinese, or coding”.
So, what does creativity look like at big brands like Cadbury and Bang and Olufsen? “Creativity should be part of your media plan. If you do a tv ad not everyone will see it but if it starts a conversation then others will look for it online” said Guilherme Ferreira, Global Brand Vice President, Cadbury.
“Great ideas are polarising – if everyone in the room is nodding then you’ve failed” said Paul Collins, Global Creative Director, Bang and Olufsen.
The age of the left brain
We’re in a left brained world where we want logic and we want to measure everything. At a board room level CMOs are often the only right brained people in the room, everyone else is about measurement. As we see a shift from CMO’s to Chief Revenue Officers and Chief Growth Officers we risk losing the creative aspect from management teams too. As it stands “right brained people always have to get sign off from left brained people but it rarely happens the other way round” said Rory Sutherland, Vice Chairman, Ogilvy UK.
Learning from the past
“One of the great tragedies of this generation is not knowing enough of our history” said Sir John Hegarty talking about the lack of historical knowledge in our industry.
“We need to think about how the past can help us navigate the future, if you studied architecture you’d know the past greats” but how many advertising legends can you name, how many past campaigns, or industry firsts. “A good place to start is Mary West” suggested Sir John Hegarty. Epsilon really embodied this throughout the event with a Back to the Future theme and, of course, a Delorean!
So, if you can’t rely on AI to be truly creative, and you’ve put in the training to keep your creative brain working, but you’ve got to get your idea signed off by a left brained manager, maybe we can look back in history to the Persians for a testing method. The Persians had a practice of making decisions while drunk and then reconsidering them when sober. If they still found the idea sound, they would proceed with it; if not, they would discard it. This dual-state evaluation was a way to ensure that an idea was thoroughly vetted from both an uninhibited and a rational perspective. Thanks for that, Rory!
Intrigued by the potential of AI in your marketing strategy? Reach out so we can help you navigate the complexities and leverage AI to enhance your creativity and efficiency.
See you next year Madfest!