Did AI Change Creativity in 2024?

 

Over the last 12 months we’ve been collaborating with leading AI partners in motion, image, and sound technologies. By integrating their tools into our workflows and securing enterprise-safe partnerships, we’re ensuring robust protections for both ourselves. and our clients.

 

A key advantage of these partnerships is the ability to develop custom sandboxed models tailored to our clients’ unique brand, tone, voice, and identity. We're already seeing impressive results, with AI-generated outputs delivering faster and higher-quality results. Take the visual space, for instance: we can now generate entire videos from a single image reference. These outputs look realistic and consistent, offering a cost-effective solution for low-budget productions while significantly accelerating time-to-market.

 

That said, to get the best from these tools, they need to be trained on what ‘good’ looks like, and as such they are still heavily dependent on human-generated data. That’s why we see AI as a creative assistant and amplifier, and not a replacement for human creativity.

 

Two stand-out McCann campaigns from this year that showcase the unique blend of AI and human creativity are Deflatables for Thomas Cook and AI Adventure for Qatar Airways.  

 

In the Deflatables campaign, we used 3D models and seamlessly integrated them into stock environments using AI. By meticulously adjusting angles and details, we ensured a polished, cohesive, and highly realistic final product.

 

For AI Adventure, we leveraged cutting-edge AI technology to deliver an immersive experience that allowed consumers to insert themselves into the campaign film, transforming them into the stars of the narrative.

Off the back of 2023’s experimentation, it was inevitable that once tools matured and became more mainstream, that we saw a huge swing towards using AI, specifically generative AI to try and do ‘everything’. It felt that almost weekly we saw ‘yet another trailer, film or advert’ that was being celebrated for being 100% AI, then we wondered why people were getting so upset (and rightly so) about their jobs being at risk in the industry and the backlash began.

Even now as I write this, the latest Vodafone ad, directed by Sebastian Strasser is doing the rounds, and whilst it still (to me anyway) screams AI, I can at least applaud the creative effort, consideration and experimentation that went into it and his honesty about what does and does not work is refreshing and I agree with him when he says “the days of multimillion-dollar productions are over” because lets face it, they probably are. Since my first day in The Mill over 20 years ago, we’ve been looking at technology as a way of helping to create more for less, so this battle isn't particularly new, but it will likely have a much bigger impact.

 

2024 revealed AI’s potential to accelerate workflows and unlock efficiencies, but also brought up challenges to navigate such as integration, responsible use, and creativity, leaving the promise of full transformation still on the horizon.

 

AI’s ability to process and interpret vast datasets delivered some of the year’s most significant advancements. Tools like Salesforce Einstein and Adobe Sensei became indispensable for marketers, uncovering insights that drove hyper-targeted campaigns. Notable campaigns highlighted how brands leveraged AI to deliver personalised experiences. While some criticised the ‘unnatural’ feel, the effectiveness underscores growing consumer acceptance of AI-assisted creativity.

 

Gen AI tools expanded what was possible in ideation and production. Runway ML’s Gen-3 Alpha introduced 10-second AI-generated video clips, offering marketers new ways to visualise dynamic content from simple prompts. Meanwhile, Amazon’s Olympus model pushed interactive content creation to new heights. Despite these advancements, AI-generated outputs often lacked cultural nuance and originality, requiring significant human intervention to polish and align with brand values.

 

AI transformed key sales moments in 2024. On Black Friday, generative AI-powered chatbots boosted online sales by 10.2%, offering real-time assistance, personalised recommendations, and seamless shopping experiences. Yet, access to such tools remained a challenge for smaller agencies and brands, widening the gap between leaders and challengers and raising questions about scalability and inclusivity.

Managing director, integrated production and technology at David&Goliath

Generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Midjourney, and Runway have gone more mainstream but putting AI tools into everyday, practical applications has been more daunting than thought. Is there one thing holding us back? No. However, with an ever-growing quiver of tools, knowing how to use them safely to mitigate business risk should be of primary importance for agencies and brands. 

Business risk is a broad topic, so I’ll double-click on brand reputation and how AI can impact consumer perceptions. We as an industry have doubts about ads created partly, or fully, with generative AI. Due to this fear, brands have been hesitant to fully adopt the technology, fearing it may damage the perception of their brands. Whether it is the potential issues of lack of human oversight, possible IP infringements, or potential bias—understandably, agencies and brands would be cautious. 

A team of gen AI experts helped Coca-Cola with ‘The Holiday Magic Is Coming’ spot, made with its Real Magic AI platform. By using artificial intelligence to reimagine brand assets, the purpose of the campaign was to reconnect the audience to the brand by evoking the nostalgia of its 1995 ‘Holidays Are Coming’ ad. With big human emotions on the line, the reaction was mixed. Some people were excited about co-creating with AI, many found the advertisement to be artificial, lacking the authenticity and emotional depth of traditional storytelling.  

There were AI campaigns that scored high. One of the most talked-about campaigns was a Pedigree campaign to adopt a dog. In this outdoor activation, the brand used Gen AI to make the matching process between potential owners and adoptable dogs feasible in an existing media plan. This intelligent use of AI made just the right mix of technology and emotion, winning the Outdoor Grand Prix at Cannes. 

We are at a pivotal moment in the marketing landscape. The demand for content has doubled as more platforms emerge, and it's set to grow fivefold by 2026. Yet, more than one-third of marketers are feeling the pressure of increasing speed and volume.

At the same time, consumers are no longer satisfied with generic content—they expect smarter, more personalised experiences. They want content that resonates on a deeply individual level, connecting with them through context and diversity.

The big question is: How do we keep pace with this explosion of content demand?

The answer lies in fueling the content machine with data-driven creative diversification. Taking a page from McLuhan’s famous theory, ‘The medium is the message’, we believe that scaling content effectively requires crafting the right message for the right person, at the right time—in the right format, right fidelity, and automatically. 

This approach introduces a new form of targeting: moving from broad demographic categories to highly personalised, precision-based engagement. Our content is designed to feed the algorithm and satisfy consumers’ ever-growing desire for personal, timely material.

We embrace test-and-learn cycles, message diversification, and hypothesis-driven creativity. This allows us to produce tailored content for each platform, delivering fresh, engaging pieces that hit the mark every time.

For a major US retail client, we built a proprietary web copywriting tool – Skuscribe - that automated SKU copy generation across six languages and multiple banner variations. The result? A 400% increase in efficiency.

2024 was the year AI graduated from novelty to utility. After the experimental rush of 2023, many in the industry approached this year with equal parts optimism and scepticism. The result? A mix of incredible advancements and sobering realities.

 

Generative AI stole much of the spotlight. No longer just a tool for creating quirky outputs, it became an essential partner in campaign ideation, real-time consumer engagement, and large-scale personalisation. The rise of AI-powered brand ambassadors and dynamic customer interfaces hinted at what’s possible when we fuse human creativity with machine intelligence. Some campaigns this year demonstrated how AI can amplify not just output, but also impact—if handled correctly.

 

Yet, for all its promise, 2024 also underscored the challenges. Caution persists among brands, particularly around data privacy, bias, and ethical use. It’s clear that while AI can optimise and accelerate, it doesn’t replace the need for strong creative strategy or human oversight. And in some cases, the industry’s tendency to overhype the technology exposed fundamental gaps in readiness—both in infrastructure and imagination.

Neil Waller 

Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Whalar Group 

I think there's been a lot of ‘AI for AI's sake’ in advertising so far, rather than a thoughtful application focused on real value creation. A lot of leaning into capability demonstrations without fully considering the human elements that make advertising truly effective. For example, it's impressive that Coke can recreate its famous holiday spot 100% in gen AI, but I'm missing the true value of creativity to the consumer, which is perhaps why it has earned the ‘lump of coal’ status.  

The most valuable progress wasn't in the AI-generated campaigns, but in the quieter integration of AI into workflow optimisation - helping with tasks like rapid prototyping, asset variation, and campaign optimization. 

Looking ahead to 2025, the real transformation will likely come as we stop treating AI as the star of the show and start using it as a powerful enabler of human creativity. The future isn't about replacing creative or creative thinking with algorithms, but about finding the sweet spot where AI amplifies rather than automates the creative process.

AI certainly blew our minds and stoked our fears in 2024, but as far as changing the world, it didn’t do a dramatic amount.

As a creative director, AI capabilities have posed a million and one hypotheticals that inspired experimentation, to be sure, but none that would outright replace what I would call ‘the correct’ way to produce content. As a creative, I think what it transformed was my ability to do more as an individual (as in concepting solo, creating my boards, refining my copy), and as a CD it ‘supercharged’ my creative teams’ productivity. Where it would have meant I’d see a single frame per concept a year ago, now I see fully blown-out ideas in round one. This has definitely freed up my creatives to explore more in a shorter amount of time, which — on a tight timeline — has definitely been transformational. We can visualise difficult-to-describe ideas for our clients, which means we are able to sell-through more outlandish, original work. All of this is something we do with the goal of producing work the ‘old-fashioned way' — meaning with the right equipment, carefully selected talent, artists, and refining the work using highly skilled individuals who can achieve exactly what we want. That part of creativity, for me, will never change. When I want to visualise something, I want the utmost control, and that comes from communicating constantly with an artist (and a human).

It still takes human imagination to really find something of value. In the same way that a prestigious photography prize was won by the ‘promptographer’ Boris Eldagsen, the data sets that we use, and the ideas that we have that we’re asking AI to dig into, need human ingenuity to create the kind of storytelling that’s required to encourage our clients to embrace the bold, original ideas.

That said, I am more cautious about using AI in creative work. Of course, it excels in personalisation, and any smart agency is using it for adapting ideas at scale. However, I’ve seen some shonky examples of ‘let’s be the first to do this’ work this year. For instance, a campaign by a certain Middle Eastern airline allowed me to place my head on a model’s size six body, but it hardly inspired me to book a ticket. In contrast, I was impressed by the DMA Awards’ silver-winning campaign for Snickers, where an AI-powered José Mourinho delivered personalised messages to hilarious effect. Another standout was O2’s anti-scamming initiative, a genuinely useful service for its customers.

 

Artificial intelligence is gradually permeating every aspect of our lives, including how businesses communicate with their audiences. Croatia Polyclinic’s innovative ‘We Got Your Back!’ campaign exemplifies this trend by addressing the growing issue of poor posture through technology-driven public engagement. 

  

Hippocrates already recognised the significance of the spine in health, stating, “Look well to the spine for the cause of disease.” Today, modern lifestyles—characterised by long periods of sitting and heavy use of electronic devices—have resulted in widespread posture-related issues. Nearly 50% of the population experiences spine problems, leading to pain, reduced mobility, and negative effects on overall health. 

Croatia Polyclinic’s solution involves interactive digital city light billboards equipped with computer vision and using artificial intelligence prediction. Using Mediapipe Pose Model and Bodypix, these billboards analyse spinal curvature and detect posture irregularities in real time. Participants with poor posture are offered free spine assessments at Croatia Polyclinic. 

  

This campaign leverages Croatia’s advanced Go2Digital network of outdoor advertising, providing precise and engaging interactions that bridge the gap between technology and healthcare. 

  

The campaign’s impact has been remarkable. Nearly 48% of passersby engaged with the installations, spending an average of 21.8 seconds interacting—804% above industry norms. Over 100,000 posture assessments were conducted, leading to a 46% increase in preventive spine check-ups at the clinic compared to pre-campaign levels. 

  

By integrating technology and healthcare, ‘We Got Your Back!’ has set a new standard for public health campaigns. It not only highlights the importance of proper posture but also provides practical tools to address this widespread issue. 

  

This campaign shows how innovative strategies can inspire change and promote better health. 

  

Beyond raising awareness, the campaign fosters a culture of health consciousness, encouraging individuals to take control of their well-being. Croatia Polyclinic’s approach demonstrates the immense potential of technology to create meaningful public health solutions. 

2024 has been the year that gen AI promised to revolutionise advertising, offering tools to code without coding, strategise without Sinek, and create without critique. It turned dilettantism into a virtue. But while dabbling is delightful, navigating gen AI in practice feels like a split-screen dilemma: two paths, both rocky.

On one side, you have upskilling. Brands eagerly embraced tools for generating images, videos, and audio, hoping to automate creativity. But these tools come with a catch: their reliability. AI’s occasional hallucinations mean campaigns get bogged down in endless trial-and-error loops. The time you save generating assets is lost tweaking outputs and navigating approval purgatory. Black-box solutions promise magic but often deliver uncertainty.

On the other side, you have insourcing—an open-source renaissance powered by platforms like Hugging Face and ComfyUI. Hugging Face has become the go-to marketplace for models, offering everything from language processors to image generators, while ComfyUI lets creatives build fully customisable workflows. Together, they empower brands to take control, ensuring transparency, adaptability, and ownership of data.

But insourcing comes with its own demands. Open-source tools are flexible but require expertise. Teams need creative technologists fluent in both AI architecture and the art of advertising. Without someone who can optimize Hugging Face models or customise Comfy workflows, the promise of independence feels like a pipe dream.

This is the Goldilocks problem of gen AI: the search for a solution that’s not too hot (opaque and over-reliant on big tech) or too cold (too technical for widespread use). Advertising needs a middle ground—an AI ecosystem that balances simplicity and control, letting creatives work without needing a PhD in computational linguistics.

The core innovation of Large Language Models (LLMs) is their ability to ‘pay attention’ at scale and synthesise vast amounts of data—from entire websites and research documents to complex datasets—in an insightful and coherent way. At H/L, our most impactful uses of AI in 2024 focused on using this ‘attention’ ability to gain a competitive advantage. 

We deployed AI tools—like Gemini, with its huge context window—to analyse brand/message alignment, conduct market research, and provide in-depth competitive analysis, all at a speed and efficiency that were simply unattainable. The ability to digest hundreds of hours of content and produce actionable insights in a fraction of the time has been transformative.

However, despite the strides made, it's clear we're still scratching the surface of AI's potential in the industry.

In 2024, AI evolved from a curious child into a spotty teenager teetering on adulthood. Next year, it will be all grown up – leaving home, making new friends, staying up late, and burning the candle at both ends. Vast leaps and bounds were made, some we anticipated, others took us by surprise. AI-generated images became strikingly lifelike, often indistinguishable from reality. Motion is steadily catching up: camera controls in Dream Machine, Motion Brush in Kling, Act-One in Runway, and more. Every platform is racing to perfect artefact-free, controllable video, but this journey has its hurdles.

From the AI work I have done this year, I have realised the potential and need to craft bespoke, fine tuned branded models. There is serious artistry in building models that can reproduce a desired mise-en scene. It is clear that once created, these models will be the ultimate branding tools, allowing creatives to easily, rapidly and efficiently experiment and explore outputs that all sit within a brand's universe.

This past year, AI has fundamentally transformed (and dominated) the advertising landscape across every aspect of the business – and I'm not only referring to the final product consumers might be seeing/experiencing across media channels. The transformation, for instance, is happening across all stages of the ad industry, externally AND internally. Starting with collaboration and development, clients are providing creative references and feedback using AI. Agency storyboards seem to be ~50% AI-generated imagery. Production companies (like TigerLily) are finding ways to integrate AI into storytelling when there's a budget constraint or creative efficiencies to be leveraged on behalf of clients. On the flip side, there's an explosion of consumers changing their search and buying behaviours because products like Google Lens and brands are adapting and optimizing accordingly (and then using AI again to do it)! Look at any recent campaign or final creative product placed in front of consumers that leveraged AI... love or hate, AI ends up being at the center of the conversation. If AI wasn't transforming the ad industry, then why aren't we all able to shut the hell up about it?

The total transformation of work may have its place someday. But depending on the need, it is still far from perfect. The technology, in its current state, works wonders to generate variations, but it cannot make creative decisions for a brand. However, it can transform workflows and the creative process. The beginning stages of creative work are extremely collaborative, requiring the sharing of ideas across departments, teams, clients and brand partners. Stronger visuals in this phase of the creative process improve how we communicate ideas with clients and lead to better decision-making for the brand. Having a new and very powerful tool that helps to communicate ideas visually vs verbally will lead to greater brand experiences and higher quality work.