PM360 asks agency leaders about the most crucial components of running their companies.
PM360: What does the ideal creative development process look like?
Tara Powers: Feeling prepared is essential to starting the process. Before creative development can even begin, there must be discussions to align with key stakeholders to make sure we’re approaching the ask from the right perspective. Our foundation starts with a brief, which is informed by research insights, strategy alignment, and medical support. With these prepared materials, we can get the client’s buy-in and move forward to where the magic happens—creative ideation.
Countless ideas are born in the minds of our creatives, then they’re improved, reworked, and ultimately finessed internally before we present to the client. After the presentation of our ideas, the client will provide their top selections and we can move into market research. Here we learn what’s working and what’s not and continue to refine based on these learnings, usually with a few surprise insights along the way.
AI is not the catalyst to end all creativity, because it’s not doing the work; it’s not coming up with the big idea
What are the best ways to brainstorm new ideas or get inspired for a new campaign?
Creativity can emerge from the most surprising places, and every creative is inspired differently. Inspiration can appear online, on social media, on a TV show, during a walk, as a song playing on the radio, or even from a dream. While the initial spark usually starts alone, it is crucial to strengthen our ideas with diverse perspectives, usually in the form of a brainstorming session. All creatives, from the most junior to the most senior, have something meaningful to say, and every hat is available, whether it be a copywriter who has a strong image or an art director with an earth-shattering headline. In the healthcare industry, however, creativity demands medical consideration, and our Medical Director is a touchstone throughout the process to keep our vision focused on transforming mindsets truthfully.
How is the creative development process changing as AI becomes more widely available?
AI is absolutely changing the creative landscape. But AI is not the catalyst to end all creativity, because it’s not doing the work; it’s not coming up with the big idea. It can, however, help bring that idea to life when creatives are trained to find the right opportunities to use it. Where before creative development of art may have been limited to stock, 3D art creators, and Photoshop retouchers, you can now use tools such as Midjourney to bring that idea to life for first drafts and team discussions—but you’ll still need your art partners to finalize that winning piece of creative. ChatGPT can be a good starting point for some draft copy, but similar to art, it really only begins the conversation. In the end, AI is an excellent tool to help you begin drafting content, but it still takes the human experiences of a creative team to produce a final, polished product.
