- Matthew Lieberman, CMO at PwC, shares his tips for marketing leaders on how to amplify creativity.
- Use technology like generative AI as an asset to expand the impact of marketing projects.
At a time when marketing technology enhancements, generative AI, and data availability are emerging faster than ever, it can be easy to lose focus on how important human creativity is for marketing.
If we offer marketers what they need for creativity to bloom, and upskill them on how to use technology and massive data sets, the perfect balance of art and science may be achieved.
Here are three ideas to help marketing leaders help creativity thrive.
1. Make them allies, not alternatives
Tech and creativity shouldn't be either / or. They should be best friends. Generative AI can help free your marketers from paperwork, number crunching, and non-creative writing. It can help them quickly see their ideas on paper, the screen, or in extended reality.
You can then use marketing technology to design, monitor, and report on a data-driven campaign that will help amplify creativity's impact. Generative AI can then help create derivative, personalized versions of the initial idea. The result can be more and better ideas, with a broader impact.
At our firm, we call this approach "human-led, tech-powered." Tech helps with almost everything we do, but the goal is to help make our marketer's lives easier and their work more impactful.
2. Show the money
As the saying goes, follow the money, and a lot of money is going to marketing technology. That's often true for hiring budgets for specialists too. These investments are worth it — but marketing leaders should strike a balance.
You've likely already got a marketing tech stack up and running, but now may be the time to spend more on creativity. Put top creative minds and emerging talent on your hiring list — and this doesn't necessarily have to mean more headcount, but reallocating the current org structure.
Try to make sure that, as you are hiring marketing tech specialists and data analysts, they can understand and work closely with creatives and traditional marketers.
3. Give time — and credit
Every marketer is busy. They may need time and incentives to step away from the technology focus.
That can mean slotting in time every week. It can mean financial incentives. Or, it can mean contests and awards to encourage friendly competition.
In my team, we have a "creativity quest" where everyone is encouraged to take a look at our recurring campaigns and foster competition to exchange new ways to bring life to old tactics— and we encourage teaming in responses.
Beyond the prize, we vocalize credit to the marketers who came up with the idea, and measure the ongoing impact.
Marketing is fundamentally about people sharing ideas with other people, to convince and move them. That requires creativity, which in turn requires empathy and imagination.
That's why emerging technologies should not replace people marketers, but empower them. It's why marketing leaders will always need to find, encourage, and amplify creativity in the people on their teams.