Painting by Numbers: Creatives Who Embrace Data and AI

Creativity often seems to run free into the wind, coming in waves and bursts, and resulting in content that can wow, excite and create an engaged audience for a brand. But make no mistake, the days of creativity existing on its own are behind us, and the combination of both data-driven insights and AI technology has elevated the creative ideation process.

Don’t just take it from us though, there is a plethora of creatives who have first-hand experience of the transformative nature of these innovations. For instance, if a brand wants to target a certain demographic, will that idea fit that specific audience? It’s no longer a question, the data can back it up. What this means is that there’s a little more safety in ideas presented to clients, rather than leaps of faith.

As AI has been all the talk of 2023, as well as the use of cookies and data, LBB’s Nisna Mahtani reached out to creatives who have embraced the changing landscape to craft campaigns which utilise the technology at hand. With that in mind, here’s what they had to say about the data-backed approach. 

Coming from what he describes as a “traditional agency background,” this is how Vince first learnt about the synergy between creativity, data and AI. “Having spent most of my career in an integrated office environment, I’ve learnt quite a bit through osmosis, eavesdropping and asking stupid questions,” He says. 

Looking to gain a better understanding of the audience he was targeting, Vince realised that there were not only insights that come from the process, but tangible ways to make the process more seamless. “My CEO set ‘What’s next?’ as my dragon to slay. So, I read lots, listened to podcasts, and attached myself to a very clever operations director - Ollie Dew - who knows much more than I do about slaying dragons,” he explains.

From there, Vince’s approach changed as he asked, “Who’s really seeing this? Exactly where are they? What are they feeling at this moment? And with AI, well, at this point it’s just a speed boost,” he reflects. But of course, using the right type of tools to get the desired data becomes vital. “You need to appreciate what [each tool is] designed to do to ensure the best results. Hand drills aren’t great at painting walls. Although that’s got me thinking…”

Gaining insight, Vince has used this to inform the work the team creates. He says, “Our Electoral Commission campaign was heavily influenced by data, as you’d imagine,” while explaining that AI has already become ingrained in the planning and execution process of most creative work. “Whether that’s as part of the media process, the strategy and ideation stage, providing proof of concept and mood boards, or even just taking away some of the boring process things within agency life so we can focus more on the work.”

“We’re still the same kind of creatives, the idea comes first, and the insights must be powerful, but what changed was where those ideas can come from,” explain Aldo and Ricardo. “Data has become, from our POV, one of the main resources a creative has to create ideas.”

Similar to Vince, the duo from Dentsu Mexico began hearing about using data and AI in meetings. They say, “We nodded heads without fully understanding it, and as soon as we could, started Googling everything about it. We had more doubts than before, but data became a must on almost every brief, so as time kept going, we kept learning.” They refer to this process as “an ongoing practical education.”

Aldo and Ricardo also explain how using data hasn’t changed the creative work, but rather given them a way to understand how ideas may be received by the audience. “In the process, data gives us a much larger and beneficial glimpse into understanding better the different factors around a brief, like the audience, the trends, your brand and how it is perceived, etc.” 

As well as gaining an understanding of how to utilise this data as a resource rather than replacing the creative process, the duo have been able to harness it within campaigns. “One of the last projects that we made in DC Mexico, is called V-Land is the first menstrual education game ever and it exists on Roblox; the solution in this project came mainly out of data,” they say. “In Mexico, children don’t get the right menstrual education whatsoever, so how could we speak about the topic to tweens and children?”

As it turns out, the data told the creatives that 8 million children under the age of 16 spend more than three uninterrupted hours a day on Roblox. “So, we created a land where you can explore the menstrual process and menstrual hygiene products in a normal, relaxed way. Today it has over a million played sessions, and it will keep growing in terms of the experience inside it, making it the perfect tool to connect the brand with a complete generation.”

“My creative path started with traditional graphic design,” explains Marley. “ I learned my craft by literally cutting and carefully taping together packaging mockups, shooting my own photography for magazine spreads, and challenging myself to hand-illustrate a variety of objects for logo studies. I figured I would be that sort of designer.”

Using her print-based portfolio, Marley applied to a design agency and that’s when things changed. “I stepped into a bigger world—from a flat medium to a dynamic one. I could morph flat design into something unexpectedly spectacular through interaction, motion, and sound.” In the ever-changing world of digital - from Photoshop to Sketch and Figma - there were evermore possibilities to create, and understand the boundaries that could be pushed. 

“But, whenever something new comes along, I always want to know – is this a new tool, or a new world where something unexpectedly spectacular is possible?” And in came generative AI. “I tried it with equal doses of scepticism and excitement. I jumped in from multiple directions to understand what different platforms could do, what to expect, and how to craft prompts,” Marley explains. 

“Early on, I had a strange experience. I tried to generate a charming candlelit scene and got a creepy shadow puppet instead. Like, really creepy. That’s when it dawned on me: I spent years working in a creative world that always involved an element of precision and pixel-perfection. And, then, all of a sudden, it was possible to be that far off. Is that a ‘new world?’ If it is, it’s a challenging one—much more than the digital world I fell into years ago.” 

Since then, Marley’s AI use has evolved into helping her conceptualise ideas in their early stages, “for example, carefully crafting a prompt to combine an artistic medium with an  object while directing the colour story.” Using this, she can see if an idea has legs, show it to her team and justify resources. 

She concludes, “So—is generative AI a new tool, or the dawning of a new world? Well, it sure is useful. But I’ll let you know when I’ve got something unexpectedly spectacular to show for it…”

A creative who spent time thinking about translation, Dominique’s journey into data came from his interest in making the audience understand his creative vision. “How I could take these ideas and concepts that I had in my head, and that I could see so clearly in my mind's eye, and translate them into a language that my audience could understand and feel,” he questioned as his experimentation began. 

“I think before using data more, that always felt like something that you acquired through trial and error; but culture is moving so fast now, and what things mean is changing so much every day,” Dominique explains. “I think having that insight allows you to have empathy on a deeper level for someone else's worldview.” 

Joining a creative think tank exploring creativity in advertising, it was there that Dominique gained his knowledge around data. He says, “It was three years of getting down and dirty, and understanding what good vs. bad datasets were, and what qualified as an ‘insight’ versus an ‘opinion’ or directional view.” With the fundamentals down, he now uses this intel to translate his vision into a format the audience will understand and engage with.

“The limitations are always in the application,” he says, “Many people use data to try to eliminate risk and I think that's the wrong way to approach it. Creativity in and of itself is a risk, and human beings need novelty. Even if it's the best ice cream in the world, people don't want to eat the same flavour of it every day. That's human nature, and at the end of the day, we're still building and storytelling for human beings.”

Dominique’s work for SheaMoisture Men was where data elevated the creative. He expands on the project, “While we didn't have first-party data, I infused data-backed insights into the treatment and first cuts in terms of how they were built to hold and maintain attention and created small puzzles (one literally) that drew the eye and kept the moment-to-moment curiosity going.”