Prompting Creativity

AI is revolutionizing the creative industry. But true creativity requires strategy and human “different thinking”. Does branding need more than just good prompts and automated outputs?

AI makes many creative processes simple, fast and cheap. Perhaps I should add “supposedly”, because like many technologies and applications, AI creativity has two sides. For someone who has been involved in brand development for many years, the introduction of ChatGPT and its ilk opened up a veritable wonderland. From brand names, logos and advertising motifs to commercials and advertising songs, AI delivers everything immediately and virtually for free.

Money for graphic designers, copywriters, composers and even models could perhaps be saved, although a number of rights issues have not yet been clarified and have triggered exciting discussions. Even if AI-generated images and texts are still often recognized as such today, this will soon change (apart from more requirements for labeling AI-generated content). Why should someone spend €3,000 to €300,000 on a logo development when you can have it for $20 – including almost any number of correction loops. There are reasons, but they don’t lie in the act of creation. If I know exactly what I want, if I have a clear positioning profile as a brand, then AI can provide me with suggestions, impulses and sometimes even solutions. Critics say that such logos and names, for example, are not legally checked. That is true, but such a check must be carried out in every case, regardless of whether the suggestions originate from an AI, a brainstorming session or a single idea.

What is creativity?

Many books have been written about this and I don’t want to adopt the definition that an older agency accountant once presented to me: “Creative is everything for which you have to pay into the artists’ social security fund.” ChatGPT answers the question of what constitutes creativity as follows: Creativity is characterized by the ability to develop new and original ideas and to implement them in an innovative way. It comprises several key characteristics.

This AI then lists seven points, which are explained in more detail:

1 originality

2 flexibility

3 associative thinking

4 curiosity and openness

5 problem-solving ability

6 willingness to take risks

7 imagination.

I can subscribe to that, although I consider points 3) and 7) to be of overriding importance. Outstanding “associative thinking” includes what perhaps needs a new word because the old one has been damaged in recent years. It is about “lateral thinking”, i.e. the ability to link seemingly unrelated ideas under a common strategic goal.

AI is still struggling a little with this lateral thinking, although there are approaches to it. In future, the main work of branding and advertising agencies will lie in strategy development, if this is not already their core competence. This includes the basic idea of a brand as well as that of a campaign. If I delegate these development tasks to AI, I easily lose authenticity and credibility. Then what happens is the biggest danger for a brand: it becomes interchangeable. Executing activities in the creative process will undoubtedly suffer from the use of AI. Media designers, copywriters and catalog models will have less to do. Good strategists, on the other hand, can become better, partly because they can try out more things in a timely manner with AI and sometimes even develop new ideas themselves using AI-generated suggestions.

Meanwhile, a number of online agencies are offering supposedly creative output at ridiculously low prices, such as 10 logos for €300 or 50 names for €500, etc. If you are considering using something like this, you don’t need an agency, you can also – even more cheaply – promote ChatGPT or Copilot yourself. Whether this will bring the desired economic success remains to be seen.

AI & creativity: it’s the interaction that counts

In our own business, verbal branding and brand name development, our customers and we benefit from the use of AI: for example, when we replace the odd brainstorming session with well-prompted AI contributions. Creative workshops are also sometimes more effective with AI support; when used correctly, it inspires human creativity. Whether the end result ultimately comes from an AI process or humanoid intelligence is irrelevant. If the former is the case, it is less due to the AI program than to the right prompting, and the latter may well have been inspired by AI output.

So how do you build the right foundation for successful AI creation?

Let’s talk about it!