WOOD AND HEGARTY: ADVERTISING NEEDS A NEW CREATIVE REVOLUTION

25. 9. 2025 Creativity is essential for business growth, and its importance is increasing in the age of AI. Agencies and CMOs have the opportunity to become drivers of creativity and strategic partners to company leadership, as emphasised in a webinar featuring John Hegarty and Orlando Wood.

ORLANDO WOOD AND SIR JOHN HEGARTY ON HOW CREATIVITY FUELS BRAND GROWTH

24. 9. 2025 This year marks a symbolic anniversary - 150 years since the first documented use of the word creativity in English. Historian Adolphus William Ward used the term in 1875 in reference to William Shakespeare's "poetic creativity".

ORLANDO WOOD INTERVIEW: WHY ADVERTISING NEEDS SHOWMANSHIP AGAIN – AN INTERVIEW WITH ORLANDO WOOD

2. 9. 2025 A leading voice in advertising effectiveness, Orlando Wood has transformed the industry’s understanding of how creativity drives commercial success. As Chief Innovation Officer at System1 and an Honorary Fellow of the IPA, he has studied more than 26,000 ads and authored the acclaimed books Lemon and Look Out. His award-winning research has shown why showmanship matters more than ever in an age of AI, streaming, and short-termism. We asked him to share his views on the enduring principles of effective advertising, the future role of television, and how brands can rediscover the creativity that fuels long-term growth.

SIR JOHN HEGARTY FOR GTVG ON THE POWER OF CREATIVITY

4. 8. 2025 Few figures have shaped modern advertising as profoundly as Sir John Hegarty. From co-founding Bartle Bogle Hegarty to producing some of the most iconic TV ads of the last half-century, his work has consistently championed the power of creativity to move people and markets. As brands today navigate an increasingly data-driven landscape, Sir John remains a powerful advocate for the human truths and emotional insights that lie at the heart of great advertising. We asked him to share his thoughts on creativity, the enduring role of television, and how the industry must evolve without losing its soul.

SEASONAL ADVERTISING VS EVERYDAY ADVERTISING

29. 11. 2024 Christmas isn’t just about decking the halls—it’s a global game-changer for sales and advertising. In the UK, festive ads alone drove an impressive £85 billion in seasonal sales last year, with a quarter of total ad spend dedicated to spreading holiday cheer. But with the rise of creative competition, are brands putting too much stock in Santa’s sleigh?

LES BINET: AVOID PUSHING BRAND AND PERFORMANCE AT THE SAME TIME

13. 7. 2024 Both brand building and performance advertising are vital for growth, but it’s a mistake to try to do two jobs at once, argues effectiveness expert Les Binet.

STUDY UK: FOCUS ON ATTENTION, CREATIVE AND SPEED IN ADVERTS

30. 11. 2023 Attention, creativity and speed are the three most important factors driving brand return on investment, according to an advertising effectiveness study.

WHAT NEW RESEARCH REVEALS ABOUT SLOGANS

18. 9. 2023 According to dictionary.com the word slogan is defined as “a distinctive cry, phrase, or motto of any party, group, manufacturer, or person; catchword or catch phrase.”

HOW ATTENTION AND EMOTION COMBINE TO DRIVE EFFECTIVENESS

24. 6. 2023 Without attention, ads cannot have an emotional impact, and without emotion, marketers are unlikely to build brands for the long term, new research from the Ad Council Australia, Amplified Intelligence and System1 has found.

THE ECONOMIC CRISIS AS A MARKETING OPPORTUNITY? 2023 DOESN’T HAVE TO CRIPPLE COMPANIES, BRAND LOYALTY AND A TOUCH OF EMPATHY ARE THE KEYS TO SUCCESS

5. 1. 2023 Analysts around the world predict a challenging year for business. According to them, the past year was essentially a warm-up and the cost of living crisis will only become fully apparent in the coming months. This will undoubtedly be a challenge for marketers in all sectors, but there are also words of comfort and encouragement that we can add - while the world faced an unprecedented situation during the pandemic, the cost of living crisis is not something we have no historical experience of. There was a similar situation in 2008, and it provided a lot of lesson that we can apply now. Marketing and advertising experts even claim that the crisis is an opportunity to make an established brand even stronger. The key to this is strategies that do not abandon marketing in favor of a short-term performance boost.

MARK RITSON: HOW BRANDS CAN SURVIVE THE RECESSION AND EMERGE STRONGER

4. 1. 2023 One of the most comprehensive studies on recessions shows that only 9 percent of companies emerge from a recession in better shape than they entered it. What does this mean for marketers, and how should they behave during a recession to get their company out of it in the best shape possible? Mark Ritson, professor of marketing, and Jon Evans, Chief Customer Officer of System1, talked about this during the "Ritson on recession" webinar.

CHALLENGE EVEN FOR THE BEST MARKETERS. WHY DOES A GOOD TV AD NEED TO GRAB THE VIEWER’S ATTENTION?

14. 11. 2022 Does it ever happen to you that while watching a commercial break on TV, an ad sticks in your mind so much that you have to think about it the next day? Or that you completely forget the “skip-ad” button when watching an ad before an online video? That is exactly the kind of situation where the real marketing experts rub their hands with satisfaction. They have just managed to grab your attention, which is an extremely difficult discipline that challenges even the most renowned brands. Is there any manual on how to tackle it with honour and create an ad that will become a viral hit?

ADS FOR THE RIGHT BRAIN ARE MORE EFFECTIVE BUT THERE ARE FEWER OF THEM

25. 10. 2022 ADS ACTIVATING THE RIGHT HEMISPHERE OF THE BRAIN ARE MORE EFFECTIVE AND attract MORE ATTENTION, BUT THEY DIMINISH OVER TIME. THIS WAS one of The findings presented by ORLANDO WOOD AT THE BRAND MANAGEMENT CONFERENCE

CREATING MEMORABLE CHARACTERS IN ADVERTISING

25. 10. 2022 How character fluent devices support long-term brand building?

BRING ON THE TECHNICOLOUR!

23. 3. 2022 There’s a scene in Kenneth Branagh’s Oscar-worthy Belfast where the film’s young hero Buddy is taken to the cinema to see the 1968 musical fantasy Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Branagh’s movie is beautifully, brutally monochrome but the CCBB clip appears in its original glorious Technicolour, flooding the screen with warmth and transporting the Belfast audience - and the audience watching Belfast - to a happier, sunnier place.

CREATIVE ADVERTISING IS IN CRISIS

11. 3. 2022 The author of this article is Orlando Wood, Chief Innovation Officer at System1. The following text is a summary of his book Lemon, which has sparked a positive reaction and seems to have struck a chord with advertisers, agencies (planners and creatives), media owners and broadcasters. It seems to be the start of something new. There may even be a creative renaissance in the making.

PRINCIPLES OF CREATIVE EFFECTIVENESS OR WHAT IS ‘GOOD CREATIVE’ ANYWAY?

2. 3. 2022 We have ways of testing creative, ways of measuring its effectiveness, but what do we actually know about how to make creative and effective advertising? asks Faris Yakob.