WPP creative boss says industry chaos will unlock creativity

The impact of AI on the advertising and marketing industry is an opportunity for the market to get back to what it does best: creativity, according to WPP global creative chief Rob Reilly.

WPP global chief creative officer Rob Reilly

Marketers and agencies need to lean into the current industry pressure and chaos to unlock greater creativity, WPP global chief creative officer Rob Reilly says.

Mr Reilly, who is responsible for championing creativity across the global holding company, has a significant vantage point on the challenges affecting the advertising and marketing industry, and believes it’s an opportunity to improve the work.

“Sometimes you need things that put some tension into the world to get you off your arse and to be a maker again. And we’re all better when we’re makers,” he told The Australian.

Mr Reilly’s comments come during a period of significant upheaval, both within WPP and across the market as declining budgets and artificial intelligence continue to reshape the industry.

The disruption is widespread. From the departures of WPP chief executive Mark Read, Accenture Song boss David Droga, a raft of agency closures and the imminent merger of Omnicom and IPG, the ad industry is facing unprecedented challenges.

While the tech-triggered job losses are unavoidable, Mr Reilly maintains the smart people need to keep reaching for the opportunities, which he believes are significant. “With technology, so many people are going to be able to put so many interesting things into the world that are pretty well produced,” he said.

“The bar is getting higher. So who is coming up with the ideas that really break through? How do you really break through as a brand if you’re trying to tell your story and your point of voice?

“I think you’ll need human creativity to really push that through.

“As the people who are responsible for that, we now have to go to a higher level and use AI to help us. It’s an amazing tool. If you’re not using it, you’re absolutely crazy. But I do think it’s gonna be needed more and more.

“I go into everything I do and I imagine there’s no media budget, so how do I have an idea that’s going to be so special that people will be the media and they will spread it and love it and share it. Now, more than ever, I think that earned media mentality – I call it zero mentality – is what you need to break through.

“You add AI and it’s an amazing tool to help you get there.”

To counter the reticence and nerves around AI, WPP launched its first B2B marketing campaign this year to promote its approach to the tech, and how the business is using AI to amplify human creativity. The “Transforming How We Create” campaign was led by Mr Reilly and co-created with WPP AI and WPP Open.

The creative veteran whose career includes roles with famed creative agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky, where he created the iconic King character for Burger King, as well as a global creative role with McCann overseeing the Fearless Girl work, admits embracing AI was a journey.

“It’s a B2B campaign meant for CEOs and CMOs, but it was also for 110,000 people at WPP; the idea was to be very clear that we’re committed to AI and we’re transforming how we create,” he said.

“Humans were the authors, and AI helped with tone; it was like having an editor. It was interesting and it really challenged the tone, and my initial reaction was that’s what I meant to do.

“I’m the writer, I know what I’m doing. But in the end, I went back and I changed it because the most important thing to me, in any kind of communication, is to be clear. And the second most important thing is to be interesting. So when you’re clear and interesting, that’s how you break through.

“I might have given up a bit of cleverness to make sure the clarity was 100 per cent the best it could be. Sometimes we jump to trying to make something so breakthrough and we forget that the job is to communicate. It’s our job to sell something; a narrative, a philosophy, a product, so how good as salespeople are we?”

Mr Reilly could not comment on incoming CEO Cindy Rose but said he was supportive of his former boss Mr Read and the legacy of his AI strategy. “We’ve pushed ourselves into this and we’ve done it quickly,” he said.

“And sometimes that comes with a bit of trouble and a bit of challenges that we fight through, but ... we definitely are betting on the right model. We’ll look back on it … and while (Mr Read)’s not here anymore, you will still feel his imprint three years from now.”

Mr Reilly maintains that while AI will play a central role in advertising and marketing, it should be viewed as another tool in the industry’s tool belt while agencies continue to focus on helping clients grow their business.

“Growth is the name of the game, so the opportunity is to use creativity to help our brands grow fast,” he said. “And that’s in every form; media, and production, and planning, and strategy, and performance marketing, I want deep creativity in all of that.

“The faster the brand, and the more the brand grows, the more chances we get to use creativity to help them grow again.

“There’s a reason why Nike and Done have bet on creativity, and they’ve won year after year and grown, and done all these things.

“If we’re not using AI to help the branch grow faster, not just grow, well then we’ve really missed the opportunity.

“AI will help us. What’s been removed from our business, the creativity side of it, is time and money, AI brings it back.”