4 Marketing Experts on Creativity & Tech
ANA events bring together some of the smartest and most-talented marketers in the industry to share insights and best practices that help ANA members get the most out of their own marketing efforts.
Naturally, when ANA members and other top marketers get together, the potential for a great soundbite or two is very high. For this reason, we'll be collecting and sharing the top quotes from ANA events during each month throughout 2024.
Below, you can find the top quotes from ANA speakers from February:
"You're going to have to use humans to be creative. And you're going to have to have a budget for lunacy to make the space for the time and freedom and care in the brief, because if we don't, the trajectory we're on will lead to a sea of sameness."
— Mark Curtis, head of innovation and thought leadership at Accenture Interactive
Maybe it's just us, but the creative promise of artificial intelligence (AI) seems a little premature. For that reason, we couldn't agree more with Mark Curtis's quote above. While AI does offer some compelling potential for both supercharging and simplifying creative processes, it doesn't yet seem capable of fully replacing the creative side of humanity. Even in our own modest experimentation with AI and creativity at the ANA, we've already run into a laundry list of limitations that could easily draw the company into an unremarkable sea of sameness were these limitations to go unchecked by our human editors. Falling into that dreaded sea of sameness could cost any brand dearly, because...
"If you've got high performing creative, it will overpower almost anything that can be done in the pipes to drive better results."
— Matt Collins, director of product marketing at MNTN
High-performing creative is still one of the most valuable tools in a marketer's tool belt. And the fact is, AI creative simply does not produce the results that humans can. It can help shoulder the load on some of the grunt work, but businesses that want long-term success still need to rely on investing dollars into human creativity. And besides...
"Cost cutting can provide short-term solutions. But it can also have negative long-term impacts. Companies with an investor mindset culture are more likely to take a long view by making calculated decisions to drive future growth. As marketers, we are tasked with finding an optimal balance."
— Nicole Kane, VP of media and marketing transformation at Bimbo Bakeries USA
The data is clear. Short-term cost cutting on things like creative and branding can offer a temporary boon to your bottom line. But the fact is, eventually a lack of investment in these soft skills is going to be detrimental to your business. It's incumbent on marketers to ensure they're balancing the budget without sacrificing creative and branding efforts to the degree that now the business has a negative long-term outlook. If you're thinking you can simply automate all these processes and rely on AI to get these jobs done, we have some advice for you...
"Put humanity at the center of your AI transformation. Make sure that agency, autonomy, authority, and accountability remains with the people that do marketing on behalf of your brand — and ultimately remains with the people that do business with your brand."
— Greg Verdino, founder and principal consultant at CognitivePath
Humans are still very necessary. You should have a discerning eye for anyone trying to sell you on the notion that all your human creatives can be replaced with fully automated generative AI outputs. Again, these are useful tools. But we promise they are not yet capable of developing the kind of next-level creative your brand needs to stand out from the pack and earn new business.
The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the contributor and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the ANA or imply endorsement from the ANA.
Ryan Dinger is a director of editorial and content development at ANA.