Cannes Lions ‘State of Creativity 2025’ report highlights some serious flaws in the way insight helps (or doesn’t help) shape creative work. With the global advertising industry valued at $676.8bn in 2024, this is a major issue. Half ( 51%) of creatives rate their own insight ability as poor. No need to do the maths to see what this implies.

So, let’s review some of the challenges creatives face when trying to shape their work. And most importantly, think about how we can change the way creatives engage and use insight. 

Data ≠ insight

The biggest lie in marketing today is that data equals insight. These are cultural strategist Matt Klein’s words. And he’s right. A dashboard isn’t an insight. A singular bar chart isn’t an insight. So why are they sold as such? 

The problem is, unless we let our creative colleagues know what is and isn’t an insight, how do they know if they have good or bad ones? Yes, the idea of having a conceptual discussion about what an insight is risks straying away from creating commercial impactful advertising. But how will creatives know their insights are good quality if they don’t know what insight is in the first place?

Insight thrives on collaboration  

The relationship between insight and advertising agencies is complicated. Insight agencies bemoan adland’s speedy demands. Creatives approach insight agencies with the belief we want to kill off their big idea. Plus, insight practitioners sneer at creative’s neglect of rigour.

Just look at how David Ogilvy yo-yo’d between saying “The trouble with market research is that people don't think what they feel, they don't say what they think and they don't do what they say” and that research could perform miracles.

Insight can only shape creative work if the two disciplines collaborate better. So, what’s the route to doing this? A start point is to stop thinking about insight objectives and advertising objectives. And more about the client’s business objective. 

It makes sense that insight and creativity will work better together if they’re – for example – both working towards increasing a client’s brand health vs. insight aiming to deliver deep brand understanding and creative trying to increase brand engagement. 

The need for more diverse work 

Both insight professionals and creatives need to align on three key facts:

1. Neither are the consumer
2. They both need to be in the consumer’s shoes
3. Their view of the world is biased. Look no further than Andrew Tenzer and House51’s work on how advertisers differ vs. the wider population for excellent evidence on this area.

Insight professionals and creatives can solve these problems by doing two things: firstly, making a pledge to one another to take the time to experience consumer reality together. This doesn’t have to be via time and money hungry ethnography, but simply by going to where our target consumer shops or socialises. If this is too much of a time suck, just spend 20 minutes reading customer reviews on Trust Pilot or Feefo. This will allow for a more grounded, unbiased view of consumers’ moments that matter to coalesce around. 

Secondly, when building a cross-disciplinary team of insight professionals and creatives, commit to cognitive diversity. Embracing this diversity can make teams more productive and ensure that our collective view doesn’t have any intellectual blindspots, which it will given how different people who work in marketing are vs. the wider population. 

Mix up the methods

In a digital world this means one thing – going out into the real world. 

“The desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world.” 

“If you want to learn about marketing, go down the pub at midday. That’s real life.” 

These quotes are 90 years apart. They come from different places (spy novelist John le Carré and marketing podcast Call to Action). But their message has never been truer. How can you shape creative work that has to impact real-world behaviour without going out into the real world itself? 

Insight professionals are responsible for encouraging observations, ethnographies and shop-a-longs as much as they try to sell focus groups. And creatives need to put aside their preference for research methods that sounds good in favour of something that’s simple. But tried and tested. 

AI is an amplifier, not an alternative

AI offers clear benefits for creatives’ need for fast-testing and rapid data collection – and yes, in instances, a reasonable alternative to slower more costly research approaches.

But there are some insight methods that AI isn’t yet to replace. Ethnography. Co-Creation Workshops. Foresight work. And the idea that AI could ever ‘read the room’ is unlikely.

Insight professionals can guide creatives on when AI insight is their best option. And when it isn’t. Likewise, creatives need to be open these recommendations and remember that if AI can generate an insight for them, it can generate it to the other four agencies pitching for the work. 

What next?

Warc’s Culture of Creative Effectiveness Report found that brands with structured insight development are 3.4 times more likely to take bold creative risks. Creative quality contributes to 50% of media impact. 

This alone means that finding ways for insight to help shape creative work is in the interests of everyone in marketing. Insight shapes creativity and brands, and creativity and brands shape businesses. If that’s not a common goal insight professionals and creatives can’t coalesce behind, what is?

Alex Holmes is director at Shape Insight