Get off the conveyor belt: 22 leaders on the secret to great work

Assembly lines are out. Real creative partnerships are in. In our latest guide, 22 top creative and marketing leaders unpack how great work really gets made—from bold ideas to buy-in.

The source of great ideas

No, it’s not ChatGPT. Though it can certainly play a role, which we’ll touch on in a sec.

First and foremost, great ideas can come from everywhere. Being open to inspiration from every source, both internally from every person and department and externally from every brand and vertical. At Wistia, fostering an environment where great ideas can come from everywhere is one of the creative team’s secrets.

"The best ideas come from all over. We get a lot of inspiration from brands outside our industry. And we have a creative inspo channel in Slack where people from all over can share examples of social posts, advertisements, anything related to creative to spark ideas."

Taylor Corrado and Adam Day from Wistia didn’t just talk the talk. They walked the walk, sharing examples of SNL skits inspiring a live show format for their annual report and Hinge’s phonebook campaign sparking their own physical Webinar Guidebook.

"The best idea is so subjective. What’s the best idea for the outcome you want? What’s the best idea for the goal?"

Day shared simple frameworks for both sourcing and validating ideas, as well as advice for fostering an environment where creativity can thrive. The bottom line: Teams need to feel safe and supported to do their absolute best work.

Now let’s talk about AI

Though ChatGPT may not be the source of all great ideas, it can expand your thinking, leading you down a path full of possibilities.

"A lot of the point of generative AI is iteration. It’s having iterative, variable, constantly-evolving and changing imagery, which I find very helpful for improving or getting closer to a good idea."

The key to unlocking AI’s value? Human input. Hughes leans into the happy accidents that arise when using AI tools in design, but knows when it’s time to refine and ensure the final aesthetic aligns with the creative brief.

Viac o tom, ako AI mení kreatívny priemysel, si prečítajte v článku Ako AI zmenila stav kreatívy.

"It’s all about input. The way I see it, I’m the brain and AI is the hands. So now, what I focus on is being very precise about what I need, how I need it and how I frame it."

How to actually do more with less

How many times have you heard the phrase do more with less this year? Has anyone ever explained how to actually do that? The creative and marketing teams at Typeform have some tangible advice. Tess Ramsey has built structured processes to scale sustainably: A tiering model that categorizes projects by complexity and a point system to guide planning.

"Some kinds of projects we know don’t need a creative review—they can just have one stakeholder review and go out the door. Others might need full art direction."

While these systems help them scale, the real glue is the collaborative relationship between marketing and creative. Dalton Nascimento knows the demands he places on the creative team are intensive, and does his best to prioritize high-impact work.

"We really prioritize what we believe would have an impact instead of just requesting a lot of stuff for the sake of quantity."

"We try to use AI with intention. It’s not about doing things faster just for the sake of it. It should boost our creativity—not dictate it."

The code to quality at scale

Have you heard the phrase fast is good, but thoughtful is better? Otherwise known as ASAP, but also perfect, it captures the eternal balancing act of creative teams. So, is there a way for speed and scale to coexist with quality? Daniel Bell, Design Manager of Brand at Booking.com has cracked the code.

"The brand is our north star. The thing that everyone’s aiming for. It sets out the narrative of who we are and creative aims to match that. If we’re telling the story right, we’re hitting that consistency."

Bell broke down what those foundations look like at Booking.com, including their brand guidelines and creative principles, and shared how these constraints can actually spark creativity. The best example: Booking.com’s Muppet-forward Super Bowl ad starring the iconic Miss Piggy.

What wows and why

There’s no singular formula for breakthrough creative. But if there were, it would include emotion, value and targeted formats. Darren Suffolk emphasized the need to provide value in every interaction.

"People will give you their time—on the bus, at lunch, between meetings—if what you’re showing is actually worth it. And if it moves, it grabs attention."

Meg Gowell and Kevin Branscum from Typeform got more tactical, speaking to matching formats to funnel stages.

"You have to keep your finger on the pulse of how people are consuming. Some formats work better at the top of the funnel for emotional impact—like video—and others are great for more technical content. It’s about matching the medium to the moment."

"In this do more with less era, we look at every initiative and ask: Is this something that I will be able to reuse or is this an isolated moment? Is this campaign something that will live on?"

How to get buy-in from top to bottom

Making work that moves is half the battle. The other half is getting buy-in, so you can focus on the work that matters. Twilio’s Adam Morgan, VP of Brand, and Nicholas Kontopoulos, VP of Marketing, know a thing or two about selling a creative vision upwards and downwards.

"It’s about creating an excitement, a buzz, a sense of being able to walk into the room with your head lifted a bit higher and your shoulders back."

Both leaders emphasized the importance of knowing your internal audience. Morgan’s practical next step is putting together a presentation for his specific audience. His goal is to elicit an emotional response and inspire trust.

"When you say educating them, it’s about building trust and proving to them you’ve got this. You’ve got a vision. You’ve got a good plan."

Kontopoulos then takes Morgan’s vision and translates it into the love language of sales in the field. In its simplest form, that means tying creative initiatives to pipeline and revenue.

Climb the ladder, collaboratively

Did you spot the throughline? It takes a team. Great creative isn’t churned out on a conveyor belt. It’s sparked in brainstorms, scaled through alignment and amplified by internal buy-in.

As every leader in this guide shows, real impact comes from real creative partnerships—when marketers and creatives think together, build together and win together.

Potrebujete pomoc s profesionálnymi prezentáciami? Pozrite si naše služby na PeknéPrezky.sk.