Good technology won’t make up for a bad creative idea

First impressions are very powerful, if sometimes misleading. As a career marketer, I have learnt that before I meet with other executives they all, without exception, have a view on marketing and marketers. Not a positive view either in most cases.

Walking into any boardroom, or meeting with the C-Suite I have frequently observed that they hold marketers with disdain or disinterest. There are tells that give them away, like the glare that quickly turns into a crocodile smile, the wallet that is hastily put safely into a breast pocket with a pat, or just how they sit back arms crossed, their face a mask of complacency signalling ‘be gone’.

This isn’t imposter syndrome. When the C-Suite hear the marketing director or CMO has something to say they think one of three things, if not all of them: Here they come with their colouring-in pencils (commercial lightweights), they are going to request more money with no proof to demonstrate return (expensive overhead), or the snake oil salesman or woman promising profit progression based on building an emotional connection with customers, rather than developing more product features to be just like our competitors (con artists).

My response is to always be highly commercial, not deep in vanity metrics and jargon. I am deliberately focused on the customer, not opaque on where we need to win. And finally, I always try to be clear-eyed about what the company can afford to deliver, not unrealistic on what we can deliver. That said, it is true, I do occasionally ask for more money. I will test the board’s commitment to the power of brand building to support business growth with measurement that requires something of a Kierkegaardian ‘leap of faith’. And, I have been known to weave an emotional tale anchoring them on the legacy we need to leave and the market share we will gain while holding our price, by investing in growing our brand equity around a new and compelling positioning which may well require significant NPD.

Innovation, tech, data and personalisation are all important tools. But individually, or even in combination, they will never be enough.

But as a marketer I do this in service of the business. Often executive leaders aren’t from a customer or marketing background. Groomed in auditing, accountancy, engineering, law or sales, many – though not all – lack imagination and creativity, the great differentiators in any business.

Together these catalysts fire ambition, harness dreams of a better future, and enable innovative solutions. Both are personal attributes I am proud to have nurtured in my career, and protect from the empiricism of the spreadsheet fanatics that surround us, celebrating the status quo by playing safe. Imagination, and more precisely creativity, are at the beating heart of marketing and brand building.

Make your brand memorable

If brand building is about creating and refreshing memory structures in our audiences’s minds so they choose our brand over others with minimal thought, then the imperative for the marketer is to make their brand memorable.

This is more than the merger of innovation with a deep understanding of technology. It is more than being about delivering data-driven insights to craft personalised consumer experiences. We’ll come to the bear traps these represent if followed blindly, later on. Don’t get me wrong. I’m no Luddite. Innovation, tech, data and personalisation are all important tools. But individually, or even in combination, they will never be enough.

No, what we need to be memorable is an idea, a creative idea. A germ that latches onto a universal human truth or experience and brings it to life in a new way. Oh! Another old trick from the snake oil salesmen, you might say. Yet another justification for more advertising, or content marketing spend. But I disagree. Creativity and imagination are a mindset that open us up to the world, forcing us to bring the mundane to life with sensitivity, humour, and empathy. Maybe even a little schadenfreude.

You see, for me, creativity is about opening up new perspectives and looking at our customer, brand or product differently. It is only out of this new view of the world, this ‘discrepancy’ as Maurice Levy once wrote, that a freshness appears, breathing life into a new story that can transform our brands’ performance.

If creative leadership in business is anything, it is about championing the idea.

After that the variations are endless. This is where we play in the technology, the platforms and channels. Innovating in how we tell our new tale to engage, amuse and ultimately imprint our brand in our customers’ minds. Too often today we hear the siren cry of technology and data. And it’s true, creative leaders today do need to employ these tools and nurture teams that can master their application. In many respects, those who can foster cross-functional collaboration and fuse together creativity with technology, will win big. But too often the technological cart is put before the creative horse. All these tools remain just that, tools, there to serve the idea and the brand.

In creative leadership, the idea is the alpha and the omega. It is the reason why our brand will succeed and be remembered or, in its absence, join the other marketing failures in the scrap yard of the cliched.

Even more today, with our multitude of channels and touchpoints, AI and digitisation, creativity, and creative leadership from strategy to execution – be that in our storytelling, media selections or experiences – is why we as marketers will succeed.

So, the real question to answer is do you have the courage to be a creative leader in your organisation?

Do you insist on strategic clarity, and challenge creative mediocrity? Do you try to create the space for your teams to execute with excellence, embracing boldness and sensitivity, in the race for brand growth? Or, do you put up with unclear business strategy, lazy brief writing and mediocre work, knowing that the ‘tech’ will push out the ‘content’ and deliver some impressions?

If creative leadership in business is anything, it is about championing the idea. I know what type of marketing executive I’d rather be in this era of agility and technological supremacy. But it takes courage, tenacity and skill to confound the preconceptions of our peers and seniors, as well as guarding against the misconception of what makes great marketing by many in our industry.