Digitas UK's Creative Leaders on The Agency's Digital Empire

Publicis-owned Digitas is an agency network that prides itself in championing digital innovation and truths; not only does it’s name quite literally represent the notion (a make up of ‘digital’ and ‘veritas’ - the Latin for ‘truth’), its creative outlook is cemented with forward-thinking ways to make a cultural impact. 

The creative leadership behind bringing innovative, imaginative creativity to the table for its business in the UK is Carren O’Keefe, chief creative officer (CCO), and one of the agency’s executive creative directors (ECD), Björn Conradi, who leads the EE account. Between them, Digitas has produced some highly regarded work for clients such as EE, the F1 Academy, and Crocs. And it won’t be slowing down anytime soon.

O’Keefe and Conradi caught up with Creative Salon at the agency's London offices to discuss all things creativity -  from how cultural impacts are made, the current creative landscape, and the influence of AI.

Creative Salon: What does creativity look like at Digitas?

Carren O'Keefe: I love this question. Our chief growth officer [Emily Samways] and I were once discussing creativity, and she suddenly asked, ‘How do you define it?’ It really made me pause. We often assume we have a shared understanding of creativity, but that’s not always the case.

I've only been in the UK market for two years - before this I was in Amsterdam for four years, and in the US before that. One of my biggest frustrations here, which I speak about quite openly, is the way we refer to ad agencies as ‘creative agencies’. Honestly, I think that's limiting. It puts creativity in a box and assumes it only lives in certain departments or types of work.

At Digitas, and particularly in the UK, I’ve been advocating for what I call ‘modern creativity’ - or creativity with a capital C. It’s really about approaching problems in new ways. Creativity is original thinking; it’s about finding unexpected solutions. That’s not confined to a creative department. It lives everywhere.

When I first joined, we refreshed our agency values, and one of them became ‘creativity is everyone’s business’. I deeply believe that. Our data analysts are creative. Our technologists are creative. So are our account teams. For a future-facing agency like Digitas, that kind of broad, inclusive creativity is essential. We champion it, but we don’t own it.

Björn Conradi: One of the mantras that’s really stuck at Digitas - something Carren introduced - is ‘imagination plus innovation’. That’s one of our core values now.

A lot of agencies lean heavily into imagination, but what sets Digitas apart is the combination of imagination and innovation. It’s not just about applying fresh thinking to old channels - it’s also about exploring entirely new ones, and using them in different ways.

CO: The ‘imagination plus innovation’ concept actually started as a theme within the creative department, but quickly resonated across the whole agency and has become a guiding principle.

Imagination is the magic - it’s the ‘what if?’ It’s visualising a different kind of world. And when we talk about creating cultural or commercial impact, that’s where it starts. That could mean something every day, like fixing broken aspects of banking, or something bigger, like tackling hate in football, as we did in our EE campaign.

Then comes innovation: the means to make that imagined world real. Sometimes that’s building new technology - we have AI labs and innovation practices for that, but it can also be about using existing platforms, like Instagram Stories, in entirely new ways.

CS: When you talk about creating impact through your work, how do you actually go about doing that?

CO: If you look at the dictionary the first definition of ‘impact’ is one object forcibly coming into contact with another. So impact requires force. In today’s world - fragmented channels, a sea of mediocre content, and so much noise - if we’re not creating impact with the people we want to reach, we’re not going to move the needle at all.

What I love about Digitas is that we work across so many outputs and for such a broad range of clients. Take EE, for instance - that might mean working on the ‘Problem Supporters’ campaign to combat hate at grassroots football, or helping parents who are worried about their child’s first phone by designing what we consider a healthier TikTok experience. It’s always about meeting a real need and creating genuine value.

BC: Trends come and go, and while some clients love to follow them, our approach isn’t about chasing the latest buzz. It’s about understanding what our clients’ customers actually need and building from there.

When EE launched their Game Store, for instance, it happened to coincide with Epic Games releasing the latest version of Unreal Engine, which allowed third-party creators to build games inside Fortnite.

So we created an activation called ‘Capture the Store’ - a virtual EE Game Store inside Fortnite. We hired streamers to defend it, and players had to break in to win prizes. But the magic wasn’t just in the game - it was in knowing what the gaming community genuinely values: authenticity and play. They’ll spot brand BS a mile off.

That led us somewhere unexpected. We needed an out-of-home (OOH) campaign to support the launch, and because we’d been building in Unreal, we ended up using it to design the OOH visuals too. It was a totally new production method - game design used to create traditional ads. So it wasn’t about jumping on a trend, it was about rethinking how we work and being open-minded about new tools.

CO: Part of that is our responsibility to tell the truth - to seek it, understand it, and build around it. We often talk about ‘digital truths’. It’s something people don’t always know, but our name, ‘Digitas’, actually comes from ‘digital’ and ‘veritas’, the Latin for truth.

And truth - let’s be honest - is rare right now. As we move deeper into a time of misinformation and distrust, truth becomes even more critical. For us, that might mean uncovering a powerful human insight or a cultural one. It could relate to AI, how it’s being used and how we educate around it ethically. Or it might be more everyday. 

The biggest truth we work from is that people don’t trust brands that say one thing and do another. And for an agency like us that does so much brand experience work, that’s fundamental. You can say anything you want in an ad campaign but if the brand experience doesn’t back it up, it falls flat.

BC: There’s been a huge cultural conversation around kids and phones - whether they're harmful or helpful. EE, through its LearnSmart platform and a partnership with BAFTA, ran a campaign called ‘Set the Stage’. It was based on a really simple but powerful insight: while many parents worry their kids are wasting time on TikTok or YouTube, some of those kids are actually developing real skills.

So we recruited a crew of first-time filmmakers from TikTok to create a film. They’re now working with young BAFTA filmmakers to bring it to life. As part of that, we also launched ‘Playbooks’ on LearnSmart - a series of step-by-step guides from professionals showing how you can turn your passion into a skillset. It frames phones and social media not as inherently bad, but as tools that can be used for creativity and growth.

That’s the kind of story that works because it’s not just a message - it’s a message backed up by action.

CS: For both of you during your time at Digitas, what do you feel has changed? What do you think you've brought to the table to help drive that mission to create impact?

CO: For me, it’s really about championing capital-C Creative. I’m a passionate person, full of energy, and I can’t hide that. I genuinely believe in the power of creativity. 

One of the first things I did when I joined was help rebrand the agency. That wasn’t about change for the sake of it - it was about injecting energy, momentum, and reflecting the level of quality we already had.

I came in thinking, ‘We do some amazing work, and no one knows about it’. The humility was great, but I felt people needed to see what we’re capable of. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy - once you start showcasing it, others want to be part of it. You feel the ripple effect.

Another shift was breaking down silos. Before, the experience team was separate from the creative team. Now it’s all one department - experience, visual design, and creative in the traditional sense. We’ve also worked hard to integrate with strategy, data, media, tech, and product teams. The question became: ‘How can we collaborate better?’ Because when we do, we make cool stuff. 

BC: From the EE side, when I joined, the setup was totally different. There were a couple of people working on the account, but it felt like a hierarchy - the lead agency would drive things, and the rest of us would come in at the end to do our bits. That’s changed massively - partly because of shifts in the media landscape, and partly because of EE’s evolving needs. Now, more often than not, we’re right at the forefront of campaigns alongside Saatchi & Saatchi. And that shift, combined with the energy and attitude Carren just described, has totally changed the team’s confidence.

CO: At the start of this year, I told all the ECDs: ‘This is the year to make your mark’. I even joked that if nobody brings me a problem caused by someone pushing the envelope, I’ll be a little disappointed. It’s about having the courage to disrupt.

CS: Off the back of Cannes Lions’ State of Creativity Report 2025, and the finding that only 13 per cent of businesses feel they can take risks with their work, how can agencies work with marketers and clients to encourage them to take those risks?

BC: We’re talking about imagination and innovation - and by definition, innovation means doing something that hasn’t been done before. That’s inherently risky. We can’t avoid it. It’s part of the job. If we’re not taking risks, we’re not doing what we’re here for. It’s essential, and it has to be part of the mindset - in our teams, and in the people we hire. We can’t afford to play it safe.

CO: I find that stat disheartening but also motivating. If only 13 per cent feel they’re taking risks, that means there’s huge opportunity to help shift that. One of our values at Digitas is ‘risk pays off’, but honestly, I think the industry talks a bigger game than it plays. We like to sound provocative, but we’re not always walking the walk.

I get it - clients are under immense pressure and scrutiny, probably more than ever before. And with data, we now have proof of what works and what doesn’t. But sometimes, the data doesn’t tell the full story. It can become a crutch - even a blocker, and create a culture of fear. Playing it safe might be the riskiest move of all.

For a while, our industry loved doing things just because they were wild. But now, it’s about strategic risk - believing in your gut, not just relying on a machine to tell you it’s right.

CS: How have you been integrating AI into your work? 

CO: AI isn’t entirely new to us as an agency - we’ve been working with it in different forms for years. What’s changed is the processing power - now it's more accessible so it’s become the buzzword.

Last year, we partnered with the University of Bath and our strategy partner Caitriona Gallagher - especially around the Game Store work, and she pointed out that many studies claiming AI is ‘more creative than humans’ were done on engineers - left-brain thinkers. We thought, let’s do our own study focused on creatives.

Together, we developed proprietary research into the impact of large language models (LLMs) on the creative ideation process. We ran it across our creative department and a broader public sample. 

We found three key insights:

• Humans in collaboration with AI came up with more innovative solutions. 

• Ideas were evaluated more quickly, which meant faster iteration - and ultimately, better outcomes in less time.

• Stigma around AI-generated work is fading. People were generally neutral about whether something was created by AI.

We now use these tools as collaborators in what I call an infinite loop of design and ideation. That OOH work in Unreal was just the beginning and that was back in November. 

Now I can take a vision in my head that might’ve taken six weeks to render, see it immediately, and keep iterating. That speed of creation opens up so much potential - not just in what we make, but how we make it.

BC: While that's one end of the spectrum, on the other end, we’re using AI to create work about AI, helping people live with it.

There’s the other end with AI aside from how we operate as a business, but how we use it for our clients. So for instance, the ‘healthy data’ platform - one of the skills we've got on there is just teaching kids how to live with AI - how to interrogate the source of information you're getting, how to spot deep fakes.

CS: What campaigns are you most proud of and why?

BC: The work we’ve done for BAFTA really stands out. It’s all about creating real value for kids - connecting them to opportunities through film, whether it’s roles on set or access to creative experiences, often through social activations. It’s purposeful and makes a difference.

Another one is our work on the Euros with Saatchi & Saatchi for EE’s ‘Hate, Not In My Shirt campaign’. Football culture can still come with a lot of toxicity, and we wanted to address that. So we created the ‘Crowd Supporter’ programme - a set of films and content aimed at parents and kids, offering them tools and language to deal with hate in the game.

CO: The first is Crocs. We handle all their social content and what makes it special is how community-led it is. Crocs are all about self-expression, and their fanbase really leans into that - so the social content is intentionally weird, fun, and full of personality. 

I loved ‘Pack Your Crocs’; the team found people who’d commented things like, ‘You’d have to pay me to wear Crocs’. So we did. We picked one guy and sent him to Amsterdam in custom Crocs, and he had to wear them everywhere. It was hilarious, good-natured, and the community loved it. By the end, the guy was like, ‘Yeah... I’d wear them again.' It’s a perfect fan-first activation that scaled beautifully.

The second is the F1 Academy work. F1 is one of our big clients and this was a relaunch of the female academy under the banner ‘Discover Your Drive’. It was about opening up the sport - not just for female drivers but across all the behind-the-scenes roles that are still male-dominated.

F1 had never given the Academy live race timing or interactive features we’d built for the main F1 platform. We said, ‘Why not?’ and mirrored those tools across. Symbolically, it mattered; sports equity isn't just about how athletes are treated, but how fans experience them. That work made a real difference.

CS: Finally, what’s currently inspiring your creativity? 

BC: I just got back from my first trip to Japan and I can’t stop thinking about it. The level of attention to detail in Japanese culture is astonishing. It’s in everything: packaging, service, signage, even the way people queue.

The level of care is inspiring not just in life but creatively. I came back thinking: maybe it’s not about just obsessing over the ‘big ideas’ - maybe it starts from the bottom up. It really stuck with me.

CO: Sport. Always has been. I used to be a powerlifter then a yoga instructor. I love how different disciplines collide - when you bring seemingly opposite worlds together and create something unexpected. That mindset carries over into creativity.

I’m really into the idea of applying the athlete’s mentality beyond sport. There’s this quote from Pat Summitt, a legendary US basketball coach: ‘Sure, winning is fun, but winning isn’t the point. Wanting to win is the point’. That hit me hard. That drive, that hunger - it’s the whole reason I’m trying the Three Peaks Challenge this summer. I don’t know if I can do it, but I want to find out. I want to want it. I find that incredibly inspiring - in sport, in work, in life.