Why AI Needs More Than A Big Idea

As marketers invest more heavily in their tech stacks, they risk overlooking a fundamental question: where do the ideas that drive growth come from?

Pats McDonald, global chief strategy officer at Dentsu Creative, believes marketers need to think beyond the technology itself and focus on ideas that spark conversations and create momentum.

It's a theme running through Dentsu Creative's latest CMO Report, Making It Real, which surveyed 1,950 senior marketers across 14 markets to explore how AI is reshaping creativity, operations, and the talent needed to drive growth.

“Be more than a big idea. You can have a big idea that's quite self-contained, but a catalysing idea starts a conversation; it doesn't try to finish one,” she begins.

The report also reflects the increasingly all-encompassing role of the CMO, whose responsibilities now extend well beyond traditional marketing.

“20 years ago, the CMO wasn't thinking about the technology stack that the brand needed to exist on,” McDonald continues. “Or about AI-enabled production or content production at scale. They've now got a much bigger remit, and I think it comes back to almost a golden age of brand, which is that as the CMO has now got more influence over the technology stack, the ways of working, the organisation design that the technology stack starts to drive; the role of brand becomes really important in the organisation.

“I genuinely feel optimistic. We're going to see a point where brand thinkers and marketing becomes really central to organisations.”

AI is making marketing faster, but not cheaper

The rush to adopt AI is delivering greater speed, but the promised savings have yet to materialise for many marketers.

According to the report, 71 per cent of CMOs believe AI is accelerating speed to market, yet the same proportion say they have not seen major cost efficiencies.

It raises questions about the true return on investment from AI adoption, particularly as businesses move beyond experimentation towards embedding the technology across their operations.

“CMOs are feeling that the promise is still incredible, but the adoption curve is a real challenge,” explains McDonald. “Buying the technology is not enough, or the platform. You've got to redesign your organisation, your culture, your ways of working, how you incentivise people, how you architect your brand.”

She adds that businesses need to think more carefully about where they invest, noting that some CMOs have purchased software only to discover that they need something better aligned with their brands.

Nevertheless, AI's ability to accelerate production is creating opportunities to redirect budgets towards creativity, physical experiences, and more personalised consumer engagement.

Marketers fear the ‘sea of sameness’

As AI becomes more embedded in marketing, differentiation is emerging as another major concern.

The report finds that 78 per cent of CMOs believe optimising for algorithms risks creating a 'sea of sameness', as brands increasingly rely on similar tools and approaches to content production.

McDonald points to agencies that built their reputations on challenging convention, from BBH's 'When the world zigs, zag' philosophy to TBWA's disruption approach. AI, she argues, should strengthen that pursuit of difference rather than undermine it.

“The difference with AI is to go beyond difference being something that happens in a campaign, but to really embed difference in your tools, in your processes, in your technology,” she says. “If we do it right, AI could actually mean that we are ensuring difference and we're scaling difference much more consistently.

“It would be ironic and brilliant if all of that type of AI investment only realised its potential when it’s got really brilliant craft and creativity at the heart.”

Yet achieving that requires more than simply adopting the technology. Some 62 per cent of CMOs believe AI-assisted creativity cannot yet fully capture their brand's tone, look, and feel.

For McDonald, the opportunity lies in ensuring that a brand's distinctive qualities are embedded in the tools and processes themselves, rather than treating creativity as something added at the end.

The growing appeal of physical experiences

The more digital the world becomes, the greater the appetite for something tangible.

According to the report, 82 per cent of CMOs plan to increase investment in real-world experiences, from live events and experiential pop-ups to out-of-home advertising.

It's a striking finding at a time when marketers are under pressure to demonstrate returns from their technology investments. But McDonald believes physical experiences offer something increasingly valuable in an algorithm-driven world: the ability to bring people together around a brand.

“With CMOs I think there is that real sense of ‘I want to be in places where I can control the message’, which allows for building moments of shared meaning for your brand through things that are very tangible in that fast swirling algorithmic world."

She also observes that consumers are "very drawn" to analogue craft, particularly handwritten and handcrafted experiences, which "almost feels like a luxury".

That sentiment is reflected in Dentsu's 2026 Trends Report, which finds that 64 per cent of respondents agree with the statement: 'I value handmade products and handwritten messages more than ever'.

Brands are already tapping into this appetite for analogue experiences. Recent examples include HP's printer billboard, Columbia Sportswear's revival of the fax machine, and Monzo's pop-up bookshop.

Creators can outperform celebrities

The creator economy is becoming an increasingly important part of the marketing mix, with 81 per cent of CMOs believing relatable creators, including nano-influencers, can outperform celebrities.

Brands are already embracing that shift, from Charley Marlowe's work with IKEA to What Willy Cook's collaboration with Waitrose.

McDonald expects creators to command an increasingly significant share of marketing budgets. But as brands work with more voices across more platforms, maintaining a coherent identity becomes critical.

“The more we engage creators, the more important those big, strong central ideas are going to be to make sure that the message can be told by lots of different people in their own voice, but still hold true to what the brand is all about.”

She continues: “Brands are working with people who've got 500 followers, but they're enabling them to sell product, use clips, really engage those audiences in a really hands-on way, and then you've got the likes of Mr Beast and the Sidemen, who are essentially broadcast platforms now.”

The report argues that brands must become more intentional about how they collaborate with creators and develop intellectual property, particularly when seeking to build relationships that go beyond transactional partnerships.

“What are you actually giving those creators that makes it work their time?” McDonald outlines.

Live sport and entertainment will dominate

This year's World Cup demonstrated how live sport and entertainment are being reshaped by creators and digital platforms. The Sidemen partnered with BBC Sport for an official World Cup livestream on their YouTube channel, while TikTok selected 30 Creator Correspondents, offering access to training sessions, warm-ups, and team arrivals.

The appetite among marketers is clear. Some 77 per cent of CMOs plan to invest in sports partnerships, while the same proportion agree they are investing in entertainment more broadly, including the creators and content ecosystems surrounding major properties.

Meanwhile, 80 per cent believe streaming platforms and modern fandoms have transformed branded entertainment opportunities.

“CMOs are so interested in sports and entertainment at the moment,” notes McDonald. “An overwhelming majority say they're planning to invest more in those kind of properties because, like with the rise of physical experiences, those are experiences where you can bring people together in a way that almost nothing else lets you do anymore.

“They shouldn’t just invest in the event – the World Cup or the Olympics,” she adds. “They need to invest in the kind of creators and the ecosystem and a new generation of fans who are engaging with that content in a really different way.”

The fragmentation of sports and entertainment media is both “fascinating” and "incredible", she says, as the boundaries between traditional broadcasters, streaming platforms, and creators continue to blur.

That shift is evident in Netflix's acquisition of exclusive streaming rights for the 2030 men's World Cup in Spain and Andorra, marking another significant development in how audiences access major sporting events.

For marketers, the challenge is no longer simply securing a presence around the biggest cultural moments. It's understanding the communities, creators, and conversations that give those moments their reach.

And that brings McDonald's argument back to where it began: technology can help brands move faster and reach further, but it's the ideas behind it that will determine whether they have something worth saying.