'Let's celebrate creativity in a world of change' - BBH London CEO and IPA President, Karen Martin

The IPA's president and CEO of BBH London, Karen Martin, addressed the Business Growth Conference, offering her outlook on the issues currently being faced by the British advertising sector and some of the things she’s been seeing and hearing around the challenges and trends around AI, effectiveness and brand trust.

She followed an address by British political and economics journalist, Faisal Islam,  who reviewed the first six months of the UK and the impact of the government’s growth strategy so far.

Here is her speech, in full.

Hello everyone!

Thank you for joining us today, and what an insightful morning it has been so far. And thank you to Faisal, brilliant to hear your insights on where we are politically and economically in the UK, on the value of creativity and thank God, that there is hope for growth.

Hope! What a lovely word to hear right now. Because let’s face it, we are facing some tough challenges as an industry. AI, in-housing, mega mergers, budgets being squeezed, and instability in global markets. And beyond our industry, the world is not in great shape. Political instability, a climate crisis, the volatile cost of living, tariff wars, and the absolute inhumanity of real life wars. As a business leader, God, as a parent, these are all things that keep me up at night.

You’d be forgiven for not feeling hopeful and also questioning what our place is… what our future looks like… considering these challenges. So, starting today off, with a message of hope, I’ll say again I think that was very much needed.

And while we might not be able to do anything about Trump being in the White House, from an industry perspective, I believe our future is very much in our hands. Because the one thing that tends to emerge in times of resistance and turbulence is a surge of creativity. From books, to plays, to films, to music, and yes, even to advertising. Creativity pushes through. It makes noise. It gets messages across. And, I know it’s been a couple of weeks since Cannes, but if you looked hard enough beyond the tech takeover on the Croissette, there was some brilliant advertising on display, demonstrating the excellence of UK agencies, and the power of UK creativity.

Something to be proud of.

And as a side point, I think it’d be good to remind ourselves that Cannes [Lions] is a festival of creativity, not a festival of AI. The holding companies can fight it out with each other. The tech bros can out bro each other. But creativity really, is the whole reason for being there.

I don’t know, maybe we can try and claim it back next year. Anyway…. an interesting session during Cannes was from Edelman, and its latest Trust Barometer. It showed how people are placing their faith in brands, as trust declines in public institutions, governments, and media. Brands are filling the void left behind by public systems. And in his session on stage, Richard Edelman said that we’re entering a compelling leadership moment for brands where “silence is not an option”.

But, and this is interesting, instead of just speaking about issues, he said that brands are expected to listen, respond, and embed service to people into the fabric of their business and behaviour.

And from a personal perspective, we experienced that so much with Tesco during COVID, in how they brought ‘Every Little Helps’ to life by actually helping people navigate the pandemic, shop safely, and by supporting the NHS and local businesses.

So that is a huge opportunity for brands, and I’d say an even bigger responsibility. And one, I believe, that we, as creative people, are more than capable of responding to. Because creativity at its best, when targeted at big problems, drives big impacts.

I read a great post the other day that said, "Great creativity always drives effectiveness", but creative awards don’t guarantee it. According to WARC, only 20 per cent of creatively awarded campaigns are also awarded for effectiveness.

Awards are nice. Delivering genuine growth for our clients, brands, and businesses is better.

The best creative does both and this is something that we will be rewarding later this year, with my President’s Prize at the IPA Effectiveness Awards, celebrating the best creative ideas that deliver genuine impact for brands and organisations. Because, creativity is something we have to celebrate, but more importantly, it’s something we have to protect. Because it’s at the core of the value we bring to clients.

We have to know our value. We have to be able to prove our value. Our survival depends on it, because the hard truth is, for a lot of brands, if it’s not in the numbers, it doesn’t count. At the IPA, we know there’s a mountain of research showing that creativity increases effectiveness and boosts business growth.

Nonetheless, to prove our worth to brands, businesses and the wider world, we need to consistently demonstrate the commercial value of what we do. So, what does creativity driving commercial value look like in practice?

Well, let me tell you a story. A couple of stories, if you’ll indulge me. In 1982, BBH’s creative founder Sir John Hegarty walked into the Audi factory in Ingolstadt, and he saw a faded poster on the wall. On it were the words, ‘Vorsprung durch Technik’. Those three words, which translate to ‘progress through technology’ - transformed a mid-market brand with sales of just 18 thousand and 1.2 per cent market share, to the most desirable mass prestige car brand, selling nearly 10 times that amount each year, increasing market share by a factor of five, and supercharging its pricing power.

It was a creative idea that fuelled Audi's exceptional growth, by helping to turn an ordinary brand into an extraordinary one. It kept us energised as an agency, and helped steer a brand over four decades of change, kept us thinking long in an increasingly short-term world, and created some brilliant ads along the way.

More importantly, a creative idea that has, to date, delivered over £31.8bn pounds worth of incremental revenue.

This Girl Can.

Three simple words, created to address the disparity where two million fewer women participated in sports compared to men, despite three out of four women expressing a desire to exercise more. An idea that revolutionised how women’s sport was perceived and sparked a movement around the need for more support and crucially, more investment.

And 10 years on, an idea that has influenced more than three million women to become more active.

Every Little Helps. Why is it always three words? I don’t know but there you have it - the power of 3. Tesco has been at the heart of British retail for 100 years, growing from one stall in London in 1919 to a shop in almost every town. But by 2015, Tesco experienced the double-punch of a steep decline in both brand health and share price. Scandal after scandal meant shoppers were leaving the supermarket, and the infamous ‘Every Little Helps’ was devoid of all meaning.

Rebuilding the brand became top priority and Tesco understood the power of marketing, of creativity, in doing this, and helping to rebuild trust, restore value perceptions and repair quality perception with a focus on great food. And the comeback was off the scale.

In just five years, Tesco recorded 20 quarters of consecutive growth. It was one of the greatest corporate turnarounds in history. Driven by investing in creativity. By investing in brand and in marketing.

Similarly, the creative idea behind ‘Real Beauty’ turned Dove from a soap bar into a global megabrand - and changed the culture of beauty advertising forever.

It boosted Dove’s brand value from one billion dollars when the campaign first launched two decades ago, to over seven billion dollars today.

When you look at it like that, the commercial value of creativity is undeniable. Creativity is at the heart of these stories. And it’s at the heart of the impact they had.

It is the fuel that drives the most successful businesses. Creativity and effectiveness have to be symbiotic.

Of course you’re all looking at me and thinking - is she going to mention the elephant in the room?

AI.

Well, it’s not an elephant anymore - it is in the room, we’re all using it. And you have a whole panel on it later, so I won’t spend too long on it.

What I will say is that I think we are spending too much time obsessing over it. It’s not going anywhere so it’s on us to be the conductors of it. It serves us, not the other way around. Because the reality is, when everyone is doing the same thing, when everyone has access to the same tools - and they will - difference still brings the edge.

And it’s important to remember that the people closest to AI are still investing in people. Even they understand that humans are still a business’s best asset. I mean, {Open AI founder] Sam Altman literally just paid six billion dollars for Jony Ive’s designer brain. Creativity, taste, craft and the ability to connect the dots between culture, brand, business, and technology - will still be the differentiators.

Even with the most radical change. They will still bring the edge. And at our best, that is what we do.

So - let’s celebrate creativity in a world of change. It is our thing to protect. It is our most valuable asset. The Government seems to think so too, having committed  £380 million to its Creative Industry Sector Plans, designed to ensure long term growth across film, TV, music, performing arts, games and marketing.

Another reason to be hopeful.

And we need that right now, if I’m honest. Like I said at the start, creativity pushes through. It makes noise. It gets messages across. And we need that right now. Our clients need that right now.

More than ever.

So let's celebrate it, nurture it, protect it, put it at the heart of everything we do, and maybe next year in Cannes, there will be as many sessions celebrating the impact of the work, as there were this year on AI.