No, creativity isn’t the holy ******* grail of marketing comms. Never WAS. Never will be.
Yes, creativity can be brilliant. Yes, it can be powerful.
But no, it’s not sacred. And it’s definitely not the only way to win hearts, minds, or market share.
Even Ogilvy wasn’t all-in on creativity
Founding father of modern advertising, David Ogilvy - creative legend, pipe enthusiast, and one-time door-to-door stove salesman - once said, “It’s only creative if it sells.”
Which sounds great. A little cheeky. A little true.
But here’s the uncomfortable bit:
Communication can sell without being creative at all.
And as someone who’s spent an entire career in the creative department, that stings.
Because like most of us in the industry, I adore creativity.
I want it to be the answer the answer to all problems.
But sometimes… it just isn’t.
The banner that broke me
My epiphany came in the early noughties, courtesy of a web banner campaign.
Most of the banners in the campaign were crafted by a creative demigod with more Cannes Lions and D&AD Pencils than shelf space. And to be fair, the work was dazzling.
But the top-performing banner?
A no-frills “money-off” message. No wit. No concept. Just value.
It crushed everything else by orders of magnitude.
Almost everyone in marketing has a story or three like this.
Moments where pure, pragmatic interest outperformed pure, conceptual creativity.
So if creativity isn’t the central pillar of great communication… what is?
Let’s spell it out.
The real grail: just be interesting
In a nutshell: great communication is always interesting.
Relevant, compelling, impossible-to-ignore.
And yes - creativity is one way to get there.
But, again, it’s not the only way.
And not always the strongest.
Interesting communication is about timing, relevance, insight, emotion, beauty, simplicity, surprise, and trust.
Creativity can amplify those things - but it’s not required to deliver them.
Let’s break it down.
What makes communication interesting?
Broadly what makes things interesting can be dived into: Context & Strategy, Emotional Triggers, Cognitive Hooks, Aesthetic & Sensory Appeal and Relational Trust.
🎯 Context & strategy
Elements that make your message timely, relevant, and worth your audience’s time.
Data
The persuasive power of a hard fact or compelling statistic is well known to 100% of communication and brand strategists.
Simple value
A fast, friction-free win. When you solve a tiny pain in one swipe, you earn attention by saving attention.Tangible value
Beloved by retailers, money-off offers, or bundling extra value into packages or bulk purchases. As simple to understand as one, two, free.
Relevance
Talk about their now, not your yesterday. Timely context makes your message feel less like marketing, more like a conversation.Purpose
Show the bigger “why” and people won’t just buy; they’ll belong. A mission turns transactions into movements.
🧠 Cognitive hooks
Ways to spark curiosity, reframe thinking, and engage the intellect.
Insight
A crisp aha! that reframes the familiar. People stick around for the marketer who makes them mutter, “Never thought of it like that.”Psychology
Tap the quirks of the human mind - social proof, scarcity, reciprocity - and persuasion becomes play, not push.Mystery
Leave one door ajar. Curiosity is a powerful unpaid intern that drags people deeper into your funnel.Surprise
A gentle plot twist or an unexpected stat jolts the brain’s reward circuit – and buys you an extra 20 seconds of focus.Storytelling
Characters, conflict, resolution - our oldest operating system. Plug your message into this narrative code and watch memory retention spike.
❤️ Emotional Triggers
Tools to make people feel something deep, fast, and memorable.
Emotion
Make them feel first, think second. Feelings are the sticky notes that keep facts from fluttering away.Empathy
When your words finish the sentence already forming in their head, trust blooms instantly.Joy
Tiny confetti-bombs of delight. A smile is the shortest path to the share button.Hope
Paint a tomorrow worth clicking toward. Optimism is magnetic; it pulls eyes – and wallets – forward.Humor
Laughter drops the guard. When people grin, sales walls thin.
👁️ Aesthetic & Sensory Appeal
Delighting the senses to slow the scroll and win attention.
Beauty
Design and imagery that feels like a deep, refreshing breath. Aesthetics slow the scroll long enough for the story to land.Creativity
The spark that shows audiences something they haven’t seen – and lets them feel it’s been waiting for them all along. Human truth revealed and shared.
🤝 Relational Trust
Ways to build credibility, resonance, and human connection.
Authenticity
Truth, told without varnish, travels faster than hyperbole. Audiences sniff sincerity the way truffle pigs sniff treasure.Community
Invite the crowd to co-create, comment, remix. Shared authorship turns spectators into stakeholders.
The punchline: don’t let creativity limit you
Sometimes creativity is the best tool in the box.
Sometimes it’s the sparkle on top.
And sometimes, frankly, it just gets in the way.
So don’t fetishize it.
Focus on what actually makes your message interesting, engaging, relevant, and hard to ignore.
Especially when working with AI
These principles become even more important when you’re training AI models to co-create content with you.
LLMs don’t know what’s interesting to your audiences until you tell them.
If your AI doesn’t understand what worries and enthuses your audiences, your brand voice, your style, your strategic intent – it can’t be persuasive in ways that will resonate.
So train your models not just to write, but to capture attention, build trust, and earn relevance - by being interesting one or any combination of ways that works.
Because that’s what communication is really for.
Not to be clever.
Not to win awards.
But to connect.
Want help building all this into your AI workflows?
That’s what we do.
Let’s make your brand more interesting – on purpose, and at scale.
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This post was created by a properly trained AI with just a little help from a human.