Report from Brand Social's event in November 2017 on the Art and Business of Creativity. Produced by Utopia and The Akin in collaboration

1. The Business
of Creativity
By Brand Social,
in partnership with The Akin

2. Introduction /
Welcome to Utopia and The Akin’s report on The Business of Creativity. Back
in September 2017 we held Brand Social, a salon of fifty Brand leaders, and
the conversations we curated on the business of creativity were so relevant and
enlightening we’ve pulled together creativity field notes for those of us going
into battle for creativity every day.
And it really is a battle - our Brand Social Advisory Board, made up of CMOs
and Marketing Directors, told us of the huge contradiction they face everyday.
While Creativity is seen as the most valued leadership trait in CEOs , the
reality is that CMOs are still struggling to get Creativity taken seriously in the
boardroom.
So why is this the case? Is it because CMOs struggle to get a place at the
table? Is it because marketing is still seen as ‘fluffy’; the pretty pictures rather
than the hard numbers? Or is it because the switch to digital marketing has
changed executive teams’ expectations around the speed of ROI – often
misguidedly expecting a quick sale at the expense of long-term brand growth?
The reality is, it is all of the above. There is a perfect storm working against
marketing right now and we would suggest the advertising industry has
exacerbated the issue. Ask a creative director what the definition of creativity
is and they vary hugely: ‘freedom, inspiration and theft’; ‘the application of
imagination’; ‘pulling original ideas out of thin air that connect with people’;
and ‘the time and compulsion to keep digging when others would have gone
to the pub’ are just some of the definition we have got from Creative Directors.
The only thing that ties these definitions together is the complete absence of
the word value. Yet value is fundamentally at the heart of creativity – as per
Wikipedia - Creativity is a phenomenon whereby something new and somehow
valuable is formed.
We all intuitively know that creativity in marketing drives business success,
otherwise we wouldn’t do it. And in truth, marketing isn’t creative if it doesn’t
deliver against the bottom line. Without shifting metrics, it’s an expensive piece
of art hanging in a cupboard.
So what did we learn at Brand Social to help creativity fight back?
The Gucci case study reminded us of the importance of taking risks – but
mitigating those risks by having them spring from a well of absolute clarity
around the brand DNA, its purpose and its customer.

3. About 60% of the CEOs
polled by IBM cited creativity
as the most important
leadership quality, compared
with 52% for integrity and
35% for global thinking.

4. The John Lewis case study showed us that old fashioned
human emotion cannot be under-rated in this new world
order of short term ROI analysis and click through rates. One
pound spent for ten back does rather speak for itself. We
can – armed with the right knowledge, skills and culture –
demonstrate that creativity pays back.
If that weren’t proof enough of the value of creativity to
businesses, Les Binet and Peter Field’s seminal study The
Long and the Short of It for the IPA proved beyond any
doubt that emotional advertising is more effective and more
profitable than rational campaigns. Audiences may forget
what image they’re shown or what words they’re told, but
what they won’t forget is how you made them feel.
What both the Gucci example and the John Lewis example
have in common is that to truly reach into the heart of a
potential customer and provoke an emotional response
which is genuine and long-term, you need to know the
audience you’re talking to. Inside out.
The really successful businesses are those who come out
from behind their graphs and percentages and get to know
the people they’re talking to. Understood their frustrations,
their politics, what motivates them. In short, supremely
human characteristics. Automation can help us get only part
of the way there.
Ethnographer Paula Zuccotti in her book ‘Every Thing we
Touch: a 24 hour Inventory of our Lives’ shows us – starkly
and clearly – what things we as individuals interact with every
day. Marketers talk about ‘touchpoints’, but these are the

5. real touchpoints that tell us so much about a person on a
normal day. She used her ethnographical skills to help Skoda
Octavia develop their ‘Loved, not Owned’ campaign, getting
under the skin of the real people and how they interact with
their car.
Human behaviour, and humans generally, can be chaotic
and complex. As we enter an Age of Creativity, driven by AI
and the ideas economy, it is imperative that business and
creativity complement rather than compete in order to get a
fuller picture of the audiences we want to engage. Creativity
should be nurtured by the boardroom, not regarded with
scepticism.
With Utopia’s specialism in culture change and The Akin’s
specialism in insight and foresight we’ve pulled together this
report on the value of creativity. The Akin reports on how
humanity and robots can co-exist to drive creativity. Utopia
reports on what we as marketers should ask ourselves when
it comes to driving, protecting and supporting creativity in
the boardroom.
We’ve also enclosed two short case studies to provide a
useful reminder of the real value of creativity to business
success, and an insightful summary from the wonderful Carey
Wakefield. We hope this evidence for creativity will give you
the armour and argument needed for your own daily fight
for creativity.
Welcome to the Business of Creativity.

6. Case Study / Gucci
Nick Blunden Chief Commercial Officer, The Business of Fashion on how Gucci
re-invigorated its business by putting creativity at its heart.
One of the main criticisms levelled at the Fashion industry in recent times is that
creativity has been driven out of the business. Nick Blunden at The Business of
Fashion expressed his belief that creativity is essential to both the growth of the
industry as a whole, and to the individual success of the brands within it.
BofF in partnership with McKinsey & Company, produced an extensive piece of
research The State of Fashion report, which concluded that investment in creativity
would be a critical success factor.
“To create value, brands need to be different and maintain clear, strong brand values.
At the luxury end, this brand strengthening in 2017 will likely entail a reinvestment in
creativity: creating unique products that encapsulate their USP.” BOF/MCKINSEY
Getting fashion brands to invest in creativity only works if you can show some
evidence that this investment has a meaningful impact on business success. According
to the BofF ‘Lyst Index’, Gucci is the hottest fashion brand on the planet right now,
and credits creativity for its astonishing business success.
“New data analysed by BoF in partnership with search platform Lyst — which tracks
4.5 million data points per hour from over 65 million annual consumers, 4 million
products and 12,000 brands — found that in the second quarter, the jewel in Kering’s
crown remains front of mind — with the largest share of wallet — for consumers
globally.” BOF
This is a story of re-invention - of looking outside for new inspiration, but inside for
the DNA of the brand. So often, making creative leaps is linked directly to the talent
nurtured and trusted to do so.
At the end of the 2014 CEO Patrizio Di Marco and Creative Director Frida Giannini
were both fired, leaving the brand in a perilous situation.
“Eventually, creative stagnation began to impact revenues. Quarterly sales growth
began to slow in the second half of 2013 and, by December 2014, after years of
profitable growth, Gucci had experienced three consecutive quarters of declining
sales.” BOF
The first step in the brand reinvention was the appointment of Marco Bizzari as
President and CEO in early 2015. Bizzari had a track record of driving business growth
at Bodega Venata, where he doubled sales.

8. In his assessment Gucci had prioritised profitability over creativity and as a result the
brand had lost the resonance and relevance needed to sustain long-term growth.
“Ultimately profitability doesn’t always help the intangible value of the brand. So you
can continue growing the business over two, three, four years, despite the fact that
the brand might be losing momentum. At a certain point if the brand is no longer
regarded as having value or influence by fashion’s opinion leaders, it is going to go
down - not slightly or incrementally, but really go down.” MARCO BIZZARI
So having identified the problem Marco Bizzari’s first move was to appoint a new
creative director: Alessandro Michele. Alessandro had no public profile, no own label
and no experience as head of another fashion house. However, he was an insider; a
trusted, longstanding member of the Gucci design team with a strong vision for the
brand who, according to Bizzari “….lived and breathed the DNA of the brand.”.
Both Michele’s first womenswear and menswear shows received decidedly mixed
reviews. But creativity is about bravery; feathers were ruffled. The team stood strong:
polarizing opinions on a collection is distinctly better than delighting precisely
nobody.
“The idea for the [first] two shows was: don’t think about being commercially viable.
Make a statement that’s going to the extreme. Then, you can fine-tune it afterwards.
We cannot please everybody: I mean, in fashion today, you’re going to please
someone and they’re going to love you and someone else is going to hate you. That’s
fine.” Marco Bizzari
Such change cannot just be about the product on the runways. The internal culture
must change, with every department feeling completely included in the new story.
Bizzari and Michele used the focus on creativity to reinvent every aspect of the Gucci
business from product development to store design and marketing.
“At Gucci, we have a few, very simple key values that are at the heart of our
organization: the empowerment of innovation and risk taking, a sense of responsibility
and respect, an appreciation for diversity and inclusion, excellence in execution, and,
last but not least, cultivating joy and happiness in the way we work.” MARCO BIZZARI
It’s tempting to see Gucci as an outlier and it certainly has some unique characteristics.
However, its approach that embraces creativity as the key driver of business success is
a template that others can follow. In the first six months of 2017 Gucci grew its sales
by 43% from 1.9 Billion Euros to 2.8 Billion Euros.
We applaud their decisions to go back to the brand DNA, nurture and empower the
best talent from within, and live comfortably with a level of risk – all in the knowledge
that creativity would drive the business to long term stability.

9. Case Study / John Lewis
Karen Boswell, Head of Innovation at adam&eveddb on Les Binet’s
effectiveness in the digital age, and the John Lewis effect
The John Lewis Christmas ads are the most watched, loved and talked about ads
in Britain. Dianne Thompson, Chair of the judges for the 2016 IPA effectiveness
awards, said of the John Lewis Christmas advertising, “it isn’t just ‘nice to watch’; it
halts the nation, it has become part of our culture and, most importantly, it drives
business success.”.
Indeed, the ads – spanning four Christmases – drove sales up by an average of 16%
during the period on air, and produced £8 of profit for every £1 spent. Christmas
now accounts for 20% of the retailer’s annual sales and 40% of its profits.
As we heard previously, Les Binet and Peter Field discovered quantitatively that
whilst audiences might forget exactly what you showed them or what you said, they
will not forget how you made them feel, and that emotional responses drive better
long term sales and brand health.
If there’s one thing the John Lewis Christmas campaigns aren’t short on, it’s emotion.
Karen Boswell of Adam&Eve told us of the value of making stuff that ordinary
people enjoy, with a mix of media and the clever use of music – long a stalwart of
provoking an emotional recall.
Fame builds; by not focusing on the immediate short term sale, it drives those
sales steadily over time, whilst creating an unbreakable bond with the customer.
By reconsidering the customer journey from a linear one from awareness to loyalty,
instead planning an affinity model which constantly comes back to emotional
insights of the audience, John Lewis has consolidated a winning formula which has
enabled them to enjoy creative risk-taking, precisely because they have mitigated
those risks through their learning of customer behaviour.
As Bridget Angear commented as convener of the judges on the same IPA panel,
in their recent ‘Selling Creativity Short’ report, the team found that short-termism
and declining budgets have led to a quadrupling of short-term campaigns at the
expense of longer-term brand-building.
And this has taken place despite the overwhelming evidence that the most potent
marketing cocktail is creativity invested in consistently over the long term. This
is a danger we now have the armoury to push back against in our daily lives as
marketers.

11. There is no such thing as a recipe for success in Marketing, but Karen Boswell handily
created one for us, based on an accumulation of years of research from Les Binet,
Peter Field and the IPA. Next time the CEO questions your focus on creativity –
perhaps give him a laminated copy of this:
Emotions matter more than words
Creativity is essential
Make stuff that ordinary people want
Size matters - spend big
Video is the most powerful format
Online & offline synergies boost effects
TV is becoming more effective
Music makes your asset work harder
All of this multiplies efficiencies by 10
Fame is a gift that keeps on giving

12. What is the future of creativity? /
The Akin are a global collection of consultants specialising in insight and strategy.
With an increasingly digitized world we see endless possibilities. It’s a future where
we will be curating intelligence both human and artificial. In this future, how is the
application of creativity changing?
The future is ours to design. How do we start now as marketers to meld our very
human skills with the freedom of information given us by employing the data and AI
skills the robots can provide? And in doing so, how do we protect the human in the
teams we nurture in the workplace?
Congregation // Humans crave togetherness. Congregation, connection and
communication is key - tech can augment human relationships not replace them.
We still want to come together but in new and interesting ways. Thinking of AI as
a companion rather than a substitute for human interaction is a much more helpful
vision of the future.
These new connections are global and local, analogue and digital, and we should
increasingly layer them. In the future we will all be project managers - overseeing
“teams” of bots that add to the myriad of diverse relationships in our lives.
We will explore new types of networks - joining forces with others to develop
alternative approaches often in shared virtual environments that will help take these
interactions to another level. Oculus Rooms is a virtual reality living room in which
you can hang out with friends, watch videos and play games; its possibilities as a
“meeting space” have not been fully explored. Through these new networks we must
create permeable teams - clustered around projects and ideas.
Inclusion and diversity of talent is key to successful teams: finding ways to amplify
women’s voices, stories and narratives in the tech world is no mean feat. The World
Economic Forum predicts that a robot will take one job for every five given to men
but one job for every three given to women.
This coming together is also about opening our doors. We need to make the creative
As part of our focus on innovation and insight we have identified
three rules of creativity to live by in the future:
/ Congregation
/ Focus
/ Instinct

13. Learning for living in a post internet Creative World
/ The future of creativity can still be shaped by us.
/ Congregation is key - tech can augment relationships not replace them
/ Presence - We need to stop and ask the question: How can we do
better? How could this be designed better?
/ Innovation occurs from diverse, inclusive networks
/ We must revel in uniquely human traits of self-efficacy, curiosity,
storytelling, resilience and instinct
/ We must embrace AI into our teams and re-allocate human resource
on activities that will not be replaced by robots
/ The confluence of AI, VR and “us” may create some of the most
creative and “real” experiences yet
industries accessible to new talent and fresher ideas wherever they come from.
Focus // Fresh ideas are key but to feel inspired we must also create the right
conditions to really focus and just be truly present. Constant distraction in
contemporary life, and the cult of busyness has stopped us allowing ourselves
to feel bored.
“Boredom is both a warning that we are not doing what we want to be doing, and a
‘push’ that motivates us to switch goals and projects.”
Andreas Elpidorou, The Bright Side of Boredom.
There is inspiration to be found in moments of boredom. The mind needs time to
rest and self-soothing is essential. Recent studies point out that boredom sparks
creative thinking. Encouraging the brain to switch off through calming tasks or naps is
becoming a popular wellness activity.
We need time for reflection and rework. We need to stop and ask the question: How
can we do better? How could this be designed better?
Instinct // In a world where we can almost see the algorithms controlling our every
move, we have handed over memory and research skills to tech helpers.
This will, of course, continue, but we will also see a return to trusting in our own
human abilities to navigate and discover the new. Algorithms don’t go deep enough
- our online behaviour and interaction with machines is not a true representation of
ourselves. We don’t behave rationally, even though we think we do. Paula Zuccotti’s
‘Every Thing We Touch’ book shows us starkly how we really navigate our daily
lives, much of it no doubt unconsciously. Context is key: we are affected by mood,
company and environment.
Humanity pairs the facts of one category with a leap of thinking to another, to drive
innovation. Let’s keep the human, whilst asking the right questions of the robots. The
confluence of AI, VR and “us” may create some of the most creative, human and
“real” experiences yet

14. How to drive, protect & support
creativity in your organisations /
The power to drive creativity in organisations is in your hands. The case
studies and examples contained within this report hopefully give you
the evidence needed in the boardroom. Alongside this you may want
to consider making changes within your organisation – here are four
suggestions to get you started:
1. We all have the power of Creativity
Since when did Creativity become confined to the arts – drawing, writing,
directing? Creativity is, as Steve Jobs put it so powerfully, “the ability to
connect the previously unconnected”. It’s the ability to solve the unsolvable,
to make the impossible happen. Akon’uche’ (craft and thought) is the Igbo
word for ‘creativity’, but directly translated it means ‘human ability’. It reflects
the fact we are all creative. By waking up your own personal creativity you will
create opportunities in your business that will drive positive change.
2. Creativity starts with your people
A desire to be agile, entrepreneurial and a hive of creativity is high up on
the bucket list of pretty much every organisation we speak to. Yet when we
examine their training budget set aside to develop these skills it is near enough
zero. Creativity has to start with your people and we would encourage you
to invest in training your teams on how to come up with ideas. This can be as
broad as training teams on idea generation techniques, or on how to facilitate
an ideas workshop or how to use diverse combinations of people to generate
new insights. Invest in your people and you will no longer need to out-source
creativity and can keep your most valuable asset close to home.

15. 3. Creativity needs space
Busy. That over-used horror of a four letter word is the number one killer of
creativity. Little known fact - many of the individuals who contributed the most
to modern thought worked at most 4 hours a day, if by work we mean sitting at
their desks writing. As The Akin point out we need to feel bored to be pushed
to find ways to be inspired. And it is only by giving our subconscious the
time to make lateral connections we are able to generate creative solutions.
Have your best ideas when in the shower or out taking a walk? That’s your
subconscious working hard in the background on your behalf. So investigate
methodologies like Street Wisdom, which teach you to find inspiration from
everywhere, or go on a Culture Safari and physically experiencing new things.
Allow your mind the space it deserves to be creative.
4. Creativity starts with you
If the leadership of any business is not creative the bu
siness cannot be creative. A pre-requisite of your job is undoubtedly the
commercials and because of this focus creativity is often neglected. Or
perhaps you might think creativity is long behind you, or the remit of another
department – but ignoring creativity is foolhardy. As demonstrated by
Gucci, the partnership of business and creativity can change the fortunes of
a business. So experiment with the following: reawaken your creativity and
leverage it to drive the business forward; seek out the creative pockets in
your organization and help them flourish; take time to explore, be curious and
relentlessly ask, ‘why?’.
“Creativity is putting your imagination to work,
and it’s produced the most extraordinary results in
human culture.” Ken Robinson

16. Final Words /
By Cary Wakefield, Ex Director of Marketing at BBC and Brand
Social Advisory Board Member
It is not really a surprise that in a world of increasing availability of data and analytics
that Marketing Directors and their Boards scrutinise the numbers with increasing
regularity to understand effectiveness and ROI. This of course makes perfect sense
given the cost of marketing and its potential for adding commercial value and I’m
certainly not advocating forgetting about the data and how it can help us refine and
improve marketing effectiveness.
In contrast there isn’t as a generalisation the same focus on creativity in the
Boardroom for reasons we probably all understand. This Business of Creativity
report however makes a very strong argument as to the tangible business value of a
creative culture when you get it right and there are plenty of clues in the report from
very successful brands re how to strike the balance of business versus creativity.
For example creating the perfect partnership as evidenced in the recent revival of
Gucci led by Marco Bizzari and Alessandro Michele. Obviously you need talented
individuals, but adding in shared vision, mutual respect and trust between a CEO
and his Creative Director has delivered innovation, customer delight and incredible
commercial success. Similarly the report paints a rosy picture of new possibilities and
creative breakthrough for those that can work out how to allow our very humanness
to work in partnership with a world of automation.
As Marketeers we all want to emulate the creative and business success of brands
like John Lewis and Gucci, but how is the question? Two things shone through
clearly for me. Firstly your CEO and probably Finance Director need to be part of
any creative breakthrough process for it to really work. Secondly if you find creative
individuals internally or in your agencies who truly understand and are passionate
about your business and your customers hang onto them. And if you don’t
have them, get awakening and training. Creativity is in us all, it’s a universal and
increasingly vital trait.

17. A final Creativity crib sheet
to take away /
/ The future of creativity can still be shaped by us.
/ Creativity is essential
/ Creativity is about bravery
/ Creativity doesn’t work if you don’t understand
emotions
/ Creativity is about collaboration
/ Creativity can be measured
/ Everyone is creative
/ Creativity is not chasing the money but
sometimes spending it
/ Creativity is human: humans are messy and
interesting
/ Embracing a culture of change is hard
/ Change is inevitable don’t hide from it

18. We are a global collection of consultants.
Coming together as a reaction to the outdated
and opaque agency model, we bring a fresh and
personal approach to consultancy, with a focus
on long-term relationships. Our process allows us
to provide work that is honest, challenging, agile,
original and inspiring.
Think innovation, research, creative and strategy
projects. But done differently.We decided to
rethink how a team of individual consultants can
better work together in order to deliver tangible
outputs which brands can action to elevate their
practices.
For our larger projects we activate our wide
network of talented and trusted consultants,
known as our Next of Kin (NOK) to create the
best team. The NOK includes gifted up-and-
comers through to vastly experienced heavy-
hitters that have all worked with us personally.
Their day rate is based on their level of
experience and we take no cut.
Our work is honest, transparent and we work
directly with our clients forming long-term
relationships. When we work on a project it is
because we care.
www.theakin.com
hello@theakin.com
@theakincollective
Utopia’s mission is to Rewire Business for the Age
of Creativity and we believe that putting Purpose,
Creativity, Innovation and Inclusion at the heart
of business is the formula for success. We are
a culture change business and inspire business
to think differently, awaken staff to behave
differently and fundamentally provide consultancy
services to rewire the organisation from the inside
out.
Utopia is led by Daniele Fiandaca and Nadya
Powell both of whom have run businesses that
defined the past decade. Alongside them are
their Utopians, experts in the field of Creativity,
Innovation, Inclusion and Leadership. Together
they combine to create a powerful force to
embed creativity, agility and entrepreneurialism in
your organisation.
Utopia’s services include:
/ Inspire: events and programmes of
inspirational speakers, as demonstrated so
powerfully by Brand Social.
/ Awaken: training programmes and
organizational hacks that unlock creativity and
innovation, for example partaking in Street
Wisdom or going on a culture safari.
/ Rewire: fast-paced change programmes built
collaboratively to enable your business to
leverage the success creativity brings.
If you would like to talk to Utopia please
don’t hesitate to contact Daniele on daniele@
weareutopia.co or visit www.weareutopia.co.
The Akin / Utopia /
Authors /

19. Our Speakers /
Our Partners /
Thank you to our speakers who combined to make
Brand Social packed full of informative, inspirational
and brilliant discussion.
Paula Zuccotti /
Designer, ethnographer, trend forecaster, creative strategist, author.
Paula shared her journey as an ethnographer and the creation of her
beautiful and insightful book Everything We Touch.
Nick Blunden /
Chief Commercial officer for the Business of Fashion
Nick told the story of Gucci and its continued rise thanks to the
beautiful combination of business and creativity between Marco
Bizzari and Alessandro Michele.
Karen Boswell /
Head of Innovations at Adam&EveDDB
Karen delved into the research of Les Binet and the IPA as well as her
experiences of working on John Lewis to share the formula for using
creativity to drive business results.
Mr Bingo /
Originally a commercial illustrator, Mr Bingo likes drawing things
and rapping and hopes to never work for a client again. Mr Bingo
revealed 27 things he has learnt along the way.
Mark Earls /
Writer, strategist and consultant in marketing and communications
Mark talked to us about the power of copying and how he views it as
one of the key creative superpowers for developing ideas.
A huge thank you to Havas and Facebook as without
their support Brand Social would not have been possible.

20. Thank you!