Issue 83: A Bulletin for Big Ideas and Better Business

OPINION/ CREATIVITY

Creativity: what is it good for?

💬 Sir John Hegarty

When companies find themselves in choppy waters, some leaders have a tendency to respond with subtractive measures. That means cutting expenditure, slimming down teams, and trying to do more with less (and faster). These tactics can avert disaster in the short term, but apply them for too long – or with too much zeal – and they create problems of their own. On the other side of the options open to crisis-struck leaders are additive measures. Like inventing something, moving into a new category or bringing a product to market. In short, creativity.

So how do business leaders think about door number two? Anecdotally, we might assume they believe it is the preserve of the marketing department, or for brand executions. Not so, according to respondents in our recent white paper. Those on our panel take a holistic and hard-nosed commercial view of the benefit of creativity. Encouragingly enough, they see it is as powerful a driver of longevity, prosperity, and resilience as cutting costs.

Cutting expenditure, slimming down, trying to do more with less, are tactics to avert disaster in the short term, but they create problems

For instance, 82% said creativity is important for driving innovation in products and services. Then 81% thought the same of spotting new opportunities in the market. And 82% said it was important for generating or growing revenue – reassuring that such a high proportion of business leaders agree with our over-arching hypothesis. Creativity means growth. Most surprisingly of all, 83% said that creativity was important in adapting to change, and navigating new or unexpected challenges.

Cost-cutting (however prudent) is born from trepidation. Creativity, meanwhile, is born from boldness, belief and optimism. The first is about defence, and the second about action. History shows that companies that prioritise the latter are most likely to win through. Our masterclass Creativity for Growth is launching this week. It is an intensive syllabus designed to help teams harness the limitless (and often untapped) power of their imagination. What is creativity good for? Absolutely everything, really.

Sign up here. Or head here to learn more.

THE AGENDA

🗓️ Diarise this: your agenda for the coming week

1.
The latest edition of the Guinness World Records 2026 hardcover book is out today. Aside from being a longstanding marketing marvel, the publication is a record-breaker itself. It is the world’s best selling copyrighted book.
26th August

2.
Few things revive the creative spirit like a dip in a cool, clean lake – the sort that is teeming with life and with waters pure enough to drink. But as with most natural wonders, such pools are under threat. In response, the UN is raising awareness by staging World Lake Day this Wednesday.
27th August

3.
Play is crucial when it comes to cultivating imagination, especially in children. Meanwhile, toys are big business. The International Tokyo Toy Show lands in the Japanese capital this week.
28th – 31st August 2025

4.
Chicago has plenty going for it. Iconic architecture, world-beating art museums – and deep dish pizzas. But another quality to trumpet is the annual Chicago Jazz Festival, organised by the Jazz Institute of Chicago. The city was a hotbed for the genre in the 1920s.
28th – 31st August

5.
This Thursday marks the anniversary of some of the most stirring, motivating and politically significant words ever uttered in public: Martin Luther King’s famous ‘I have a dream’ speech.
28th August

SILICON VALLEY / TECHNOLOGY

Cutting-edge graphic design in 1998: Actually not really, just Google
Source: VersionMuseum.com

Google Zero has arrived

For decades, Google has been the portal through which we access the online world. The whole web is built on the formula of users searching for information, then discovering what they are looking for on websites, which are built and owned by third parties. In the age of AI, that formula is being disrupted. Google’s AI mode scrapes web pages, and offers summarised answers to queries without our having to actually visit a site. Nilay Patel, editor of tech publication The Verge, calls this state of affairs Google Zero, a scenario where the world’s biggest (or rather, only) search engine no longer navigates people to your URL. Small businesses have been the canary in the mine, and now larger publishers are looking for ways to deal with the commercial reality of fewer clicks. It raises larger questions to do with how humans take in information. Fast highlights are useful when it comes to basic questions – “what’s the cooking time for a soft boiled egg?” – but more in-depth reading requires us to head to the source.

ON CREATIVITY /

Contributor: Sir John Hegarty

VENICE / FILM

A brilliant scientist brings to life a monstrous experiment: del Toro’s reimagining of Shelley’s masterpiece in official competition
Source: La Biennale di Venezia / Netflix

Venice Film Festival hots up

The bold and the beautiful will be heading to the Lido for the 82nd Venice International Film Festival this week. The jury this year will be headed by filmmaker Alexander Payne and will include actors Fernanda Torres and Zhao Tao. Meanwhile, German director Werner Herzog will pick up this instalment’s Golden Lion for lifetime achievement. Amidst the fanfare, organisers will be quietly conscious of the festival’s effectiveness as a launchpad for award-winning titles. Recent seasons have been dominated by features that were set into motion at the festival’s rival in Cannes. Screendaily notes that the last best picture Oscar winner to launch at Venice was Nomadland, back in 2020. Benny Safdie’s The Smashing Machine starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, and Guillermo del Toro’s re-imagining of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley should offer some hope for an Italian renaissance.

SCOTLAND / ADVERTISING

‘Show the world who you truly are’: Irn-Bru return to humour
Source: Irn-Bru

Creativity, made from girders

The iconic Scottish fizzy drink Irn-Bru has rediscovered the communication style that made it great in previous decades, reviving the offbeat end-line: “Made in Scotland from Girders”. It isn’t really – the company relies on a secret recipe that has thirty-two ingredients, apparently. Formula notwithstanding, the new campaign, devised by agency, Lucky Generals, plays on the notion that Irn-Bru is anything but a ‘soft’ drink. An ad features a flame-haired Scottish lad in a white vest offering a soliloquy in a corner shop. “This is not a soft drink… this is running into the freezing cold sea, in just your granny pants… This is flying too close to the sun, with ginger hair, and a heatwave.” It’s a glorious return to humour, character, and bombast in advertising. Beyond this, it hinges on a powerful truth: Irn-Bru isn’t for the weak of heart.

Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see.

/Arthur Schopenhauer