Back in 2019, we were presenting to a legacy confectionary brand with ambitions beyond its category. You might expect me to say this, but the work was brilliant. Genuinely stop-you-in-your-tracks brilliant. A campaign that would reposition a legacy brand as a cultural provocateur, the kind of work that wins Grand Prix awards and shifts market share in equal measure.

It took weeks to develop. And just 45 minutes to kill. But the meeting was no bloodbath. In fact, the room was full of positive energy. We presented with flair, bringing drama and joy. We even got a laugh. In the right place, too. Then came the feedback. All well-intentioned. All reasonable-sounding. All fatal.

“Love it, but can we make it less edgy? Our CEO is quite conservative,” was one request. “Really great, but can we also include a second message?” another. And the lowlight: “Brilliant thinking, but can we test it first? Maybe a smaller, safer version?”

We entered the room with big knight energy on a proverbial white horse, ready to save the brand. Maybe even the world. We left tugging a creative camel, designed by committee. Barely holding water. Even against our best strategic reasoning, life-changing alterations had been made. The camel ran. Or rather lolloped. It won nothing, moved nothing, and smelt funny. Six months later the brand hired a new CMO who wanted “breakthrough thinking”.

I’ve watched this happen countless times. The hard truth is those marketers weren’t wrong to have concerns. Their CEO was conservative. Other messages did get left out. Testing can reduce risk. Every individual piece of feedback made logical sense.

But collectively, they killed a £10m idea and instead ran something akin to very expensive wallpaper. It generated minimal social conversation, shifted no sales, and the brand’s market position remained static. The £10m wasn’t wasted on media – that performed as expected. It was wasted on creative that nobody noticed.

How to talk to your CFO about creativity

The business case for bravery

Blunt the creative, kill the impact. The gap between safe and bold creative isn’t artistic, it’s financial.

Binet & Field’s research, based on the IPA’s Databank, shows creatively awarded campaigns are 7 times more efficient at driving market share growth. Their analysis confirms that emotional, creative, and “fame-building” campaigns are the most effective, particularly when maintaining a budget balance of approximately 60% for long-term brand building and 40% for short-term activation.  

Two well-known examples illustrate the case for bold creative perfectly. Firstly, Old Spice’s 2010 Cannes Lion Grand Prix winner ‘The Man Your Man Could Smell Like’. The ad for the men’s body wash brand targeted women and used absurdist humour. Itg,  broke many category rules. It also smashed sales targets, delivering 125% growth. Secondly, ‘Mouldy Whopper’ from Burger King, Cannes Lion Grand Prix winner in 2020, which went to the most uncomfortable place possible for a food brand and showed their signature burger rotting over 34 days. The campaign, which promoted the removal of artificial preservatives, generated 8.4 billion impressions, an 88% increase in positive brand sentiment and a 14% increase in sales, according to WPP data. Both took guts to buy. Both worked.

Despite the evidence linking creativity and effectiveness, it’s rare for a strong creative idea to remain intact between presentation and final output.

Yet despite the link between creativity and effectiveness, it’s rare for a strong creative idea to remain intact between presentation and final output. Not because marketers don’t value creativity, but because the review process is structurally designed to reduce risk, smooth edges, and find consensus. I’ve led countless pitches and sat through hundreds of creative presentations over 25 years, and the pattern is unmistakable.

The AI opportunity 

AI makes things more interesting. Generative AI is creating a paradox in creative decision-making that’s playing out in real time.

System1’s Andrew Tindall and my colleague Tom Roach recently released some research into AI-assisted video ads. They tested AI-assisted ads and compared customer response scores with traditionally produced work. They found AI-assisted ads averaged higher scores than traditional work.

On paper, this seems like a home-run for the machine. But the reality is more nuanced.

Coca-Cola’s recent, AI-generated ‘Holidays Are Coming’ scored exceptionally well in testing, yet it faced fierce backlash from some who felt the brand had sacrificed genuine emotion for efficiency.

Coke likely knew this would happen. It’s not as simple as taking the easy route, they’re actually making a long-term bet. They’re preparing for a future where AI-generated content is the norm, where audiences are accustomed to it, and crucially, where the technology can convey the emotional depth it currently struggles with. A future that, arguably, seems increasingly likely.

This creates an interesting tension for creative decision-making. Like it or not, we’re entering an era where AI can generate perfectly adequate creative at unprecedented speed and scale. Which means the review process needs to evolve in two directions simultaneously.

First, understand the ‘safe’ option – the diluted, committee-approved version – is exactly what AI does perfectly efficiently. The sanitised thinking that emerges from ‘make it safer’ feedback is increasingly indistinguishable from algorithmically generated content.

Second, recognise AI is genuinely expanding what’s creatively possible. Small brands can now access production values previously reserved for Fortune 500 companies. Impossible ideas are becoming possible. 

But the ideas themselves – the culturally intelligent, emotionally complex, genuinely risky, gloriously edgy thinking – still require human intuition and courage.

The creative that will matter most is the work that could only exist because a human had the conviction to fight for it in a room full of reasonable objections.

5 lethal feedback patterns 

After 25 years of presentations, I’ve recognised five key idea killers.

• “Love it, but can we also…?” Each addition dilutes focus. Bold ideas are sharp. The moment you start adding, you start subtracting impact.
• “Our customers aren’t ready for this.” You’re almost certainly wrong. Brands consistently underestimate their audience’s appetite for interesting, provocative communication.
• “Can we test it first?” Breakthrough ideas test poorly. People struggle to evaluate what they haven’t seen before. Focus groups would have destroyed Apple’s ‘Think Different’.
• “I like it, but I’m not sure [insert bosses name] will.” You’re editing for someone who isn’t in the room based on assumed concerns.
• “This is perfect, but can we make it safer?” The feedback that kills more great work than anything else. Safe ideas aren’t perfect. Perfect ideas aren’t safe.

All is not lost. My experience might mean I have heard many of the likely challenges but also one or two things to do in mitigation. Here’s a framework that could help.

First, separate strategic from executional concerns. “This doesn’t solve our business problem” is valid feedback. “I don’t like the shade of blue” typically isn’t.

Second, ask ‘does this make the idea sharper or broader?’ Sharper is almost always better. If your feedback adds elements or expands scope, consider whether you’re strengthening or weakening. Additions dilute. Bold ideas get more focused, not more comprehensive.

Third, pressure-test your discomfort. When you feel worried about an idea, ask yourself ‘is this a genuine business risk, or am I just uncomfortable?’ Discomfort often means something is truly distinctive. Vague fears kill ideas, whereas specific concerns can be solved. So, name the fear.

Fourth, question the pre-emptive edit. Before changing something “because the CEO won’t like it”, be brave enough to take the work to the CEO. Most great ideas die from assumed objections, not real ones.

Fifth, understand the part only humans can greenlight. Algorithms can generate competent content. They can’t generate courage. Work worth protecting requires human bravery to approve.

The $10m meeting isn’t where great ideas are created. It’s where they either survive or die.

I understand the pressure. Quarterly targets, ROI scrutiny, shortened CMO tenures – the incentives all push toward safety. And yes, some bold ideas do require conviction that feels risky when your job depends on hitting this quarter’s numbers.

But here’s what’s often missed – bold doesn’t always mean expensive or risky. Some of the best breakthrough work I’ve seen succeeded precisely because it was sharper and more focused, not because it had a bigger budget. The ‘safer’ diluted version often costs the same to produce and media-buy, it just achieves less.

In a world where AI can instantly produce safe, adequate creative, breakthrough work has become more valuable, not less. (Who wants to aim for adequate?)

The ideas that make it through your review process will increasingly be what will differentiate your brand. Which means every time you walk into a room, you’re deciding which version of yourself walks out: the marketer who played it safe, or the one who backed a breakthrough idea when it mattered.

Put simply, bold feels uncomfortable but only bold drives impact. 

As I was finishing writing this, we received this piece of feedback from a client regarding our creative pitch response: “This agency gave me the most anxiety because they don’t play it safe. And I liked that.”

I like that they liked that.

So, next time you’re reviewing creative work, I hope you find yourself sitting uncomfortably. It’s how you respond to that feeling that will likely be the difference between adequate marketing and work that actually moves the needle.

Jo Wallace is global executive creative director at Jellyfish.