More Doorways, Fewer Tunnels: Pavements Before Pixels
Creativity is not a cost
Advertising has long been sold the dream of omniscience. For decades the industry has pursued perfect knowledge of the consumer, scraping data with the fervour of Kremlin archivists, all in the name of “personalisation”. We now know whether you spread Marmite or marmalade on your toast, the birthday of your neighbour’s labradoodle and whether you skip ads after 2.3 seconds. What we cannot do, it seems, is reliably repair a pothole. The result is a glut of micro‑targeted ads that sometimes feel more intrusive than inspiring. In our zeal to follow people around the internet we risk forgetting to build anything worth going to in the first place.
That blind spot is partly a failure of imagination. Creativity in marketing isn’t confined to art direction or copywriting; it’s the discipline of solving problems in novel ways. Designing a pavement, rethinking a media plan or inventing a new service can be just as creative as writing a script. When we reduce creativity to the final execution we narrow who gets to contribute and we miss opportunities to reshape the environment itself.
If you want proof that context trumps targeting, look not at dashboards but at tarmac. Researchers found that residents of Surrey’s Mole Valley are almost twice as likely to be physically active as those in Blackpool. I don’t think anyone would seriously believe Mole Valley’s bankers are born more virtuous than Blackpool’s dockers. Of course not. The former enjoys leafy lanes, parks and pavements; the latter has fewer of them. When urban planners increased walkability in U.S. cities, residents began to take thousands more steps each day. Streetscape improvements have been shown to lift nearby retail sales and property values. Environment, not just exhortation, drives behaviour. Yet our industry obsesses over “inspiring” the individual rather than improving the stage upon which life is played.
Meanwhile, commentators readily assure us that salvation lies in artificial intelligence. Their homilies promise that a large language model will usher in a frictionless future where every message “lands”. Marketers need never plan a campaign or work on brand strategy again; they merely need give an AI‑powered platform unfettered access to the company card. However, recent findings from MIT indicate that around 95 percent of generative‑AI pilots fail to deliver a measurable return. Companies that trail‑blazed and outsourced functions to AI are having to back‑track. Because as brilliant as these tools can be, algorithms can’t yet compensate for broken infrastructure and process. We risk automating the headline and ignoring the headline act. Yet I don’t think the lesson here can be to eschew AI, but to deploy it where it adds value, augmenting our places rather than ignoring them.
That requires creative thinking from everyone, not just those with “creative” in their titles. All teams must be empowered to reframe problems and to imagine new uses for technology. Structured creativity, clear frameworks and repeatable processes, can help us decide when AI adds value and when human judgment is irreplaceable.
The irony is that we already know how to unlock growth. Behavioural scientists argue that action requires capability, opportunity and motivation. Remove any one and the edifice collapses. The UK has a long history of government and public‑sector campaigns that demonstrate this; from anti‑smoking drives to Sport England’s celebrated initiatives, these efforts succeed by improving opportunity, not just motivation. They invest in playgrounds and swimming pools, not merely slogans. Commerce could learn from this.
Those campaigns also relied on creativity in design and delivery, thinking expansively about what counts as a medium. Public health messages were matched with new classes and facilities; tax reminders were paired with convenient services. They show that rigorous, cross‑functional creativity scales when it is taught and embedded as a method, not left to serendipity.
Imagine if we allocated some of the investment currently poured into ever‑narrower targeting and instead used advertising to reinforce Category Entry Points in the real world. A coffee shop at the end of a running trail, or floating round a mountain. A bookstore that hosts weekly discussions. A bank branch that doubles as a community hub. When New York City added protected bike lanes and public seating, neighbouring businesses saw double‑digit sales lifts. That isn’t a “conversion funnel”; it’s a pavement paying dividends. The marketing world needs more doorways and fewer tunnels.
Building those doorways demands media creativity as much as copywriting. It’s about designing touchpoints that act as prompts, not interruptions; using out‑of‑home, social and experiential media in ways that invite participation. There are positive signs of hope. Specsavers realised that some elderly or disabled customers physically cannot “go to Specsavers”, so it sent opticians to them, turning its slogan on its head and winning new custom; the results were good enough to win a Gold IPA award. Lululemon turned its shops into yoga studios and community spaces, with customers reporting a deeper bond as a result. Majestic Wine lowered the barrier to entry by letting shoppers taste wines in store, creating experiences that place can stores as hosts of date nights for example. These brands didn’t just ask for more data; they built more doors. Their success shows that data‑driven insights and contextual design can complement each other: knowing where and how to show up is just as important as knowing who you’re talking to.
What unites these successes is creativity applied across disciplines. Marketeers, advertisers, store designers and service teams collaborated to reframe how and where the brand met people. They treated creativity as a business tool, a method for solving commercial problems, rather than as an indulgent flourish.
None of this precludes digital ingenuity. A truly imaginative use of AI would be to design digital spaces that mimic the spontaneity of streets and squares. Instead of conjuring yet another personalised banner, why not use machine learning to curate online events, connect like‑minded customers or suggest local meet‑ups? Community is a powerful component of our identity. The same research that shows digital economies can improve health and reduce pollution suggests that technology can augment the physical world rather than replace it.
I am not suggesting that we should not abandon data entirely; only a reactionary would propose smashing the servers and returning to painted billboards. But surely we can recognise that human beings are not simply clusters of attributes; they are citizens of places. Creativity has always driven commerce forward, and it can do so again if it turns its attention to the environments that make buying possible. Imagine campaigns that fund running tracks instead of banners, that sponsor local art exhibitions instead of generic “sponsored content”, that build virtual town squares instead of remarketing loops. These investments would show up as footfall, loyalty and sales, not just impressions.
This is where treating creativity as a discipline matters. If we teach and scale creative thinking across functions, we can build the growth infrastructure our industry needs. Structured creativity raises the floor on everyday work and lifts the ceiling on breakthrough ideas. It allows us to invest confidently in long‑term assets like park benches and digital communities because we know how they connect back to business value
Such a shift would be growth‑minded in the truest sense: stimulating local economies, strengthening communities and expanding categories by removing the barriers that keep people out. Advertising at its best has always been more than persuasion; it’s an act of creating value. If we focus our efforts on making it easier for people to participate (online and off), the returns could be far greater than another point of click‑through rate. That is a future worth building, and a brief worth pitching.
Ultimately, creativity is not a mood or a mystical spark; it is the systematic act of solving commercial problems with originality and impact. When we apply that lens to media, infrastructure and technology, we don’t just make better ads, we build better worlds for people and brands alike.