{"id":129090,"date":"2026-05-31T05:12:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T05:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2026\/05\/31\/sir-john-hegarty-thinks-marketing-and-media-have-stalled-ai-could-kickstart-them\/"},"modified":"2026-05-31T05:13:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T05:13:19","slug":"sir-john-hegarty-thinks-marketing-and-media-have-stalled-ai-could-kickstart-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2026\/05\/31\/sir-john-hegarty-thinks-marketing-and-media-have-stalled-ai-could-kickstart-them\/","title":{"rendered":"Sir John Hegarty thinks marketing and media have stalled. AI could kickstart them"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>\n
<\/p>\n

Mark Challinor speaks to Sir John Hegarty about why AI wants human creativeness, why style issues in model constructing and why information firms ought to reframe themselves as truthful media.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sir John Hegarty has been central to the worldwide promoting scene for six many years, working with manufacturers together with Levi\u2019s, Audi, Boddingtons, Lynx, British Airways and Johnnie Walker. He was a founding accomplice of Saatchi & Saatchi in 1970 and co-founded Bartle Bogle Hegarty in 1982 with John Bartle and Nigel Bogle. His awards embrace the D&AD President\u2019s Award, induction into the US AAF Corridor of Fame in 2014, a knighthood in 2007 and the primary Lion of St Mark award on the Cannes Pageant of Creativity in 2011. He has written two books: \u2018Hegarty on Promoting \u2013 Turning Intelligence into Magic\u2019 and \u2018Hegarty on Creativity \u2013 There Are No Guidelines.\u2019<\/p>\n

In 2022, Hegarty co-founded The Business of Creativity<\/a>, which helps organizations construct creativity as a sensible, learnable talent. Via expert-led programs, consulting and media, it helps groups create higher concepts, construct stronger manufacturers and drive development.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

And naturally, the promoting legend has a view on the wave of AI tech uprooting the business. He warns, AI isn\u2019t right here to switch you; it\u2019s ready so that you can give it one thing fascinating to do.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a wide-ranging sit-down with me at his Soho, London HQ, the BBH co-founder broke down why creativity is the one hedge in opposition to the \u201cchimpanzee\u201d logic of huge tech.<\/p>\n

For a person who has spent half a century on the coalface of the world\u2019s most influential companies, Sir John Hegarty isn\u2019t significantly considering trying backward. He’s, nevertheless, very considering why the fashionable advertising and marketing machine appears to be stalling.<\/p>\n

Regardless of the digital revolution\u2019s promise of countless development, Hegarty argues we haven\u2019t seen it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Why?<\/p>\n

As a result of the business has mistaken data for inspiration. Now, as we stand on the precipice of the AI period, Hegarty believes the \u201csubsequent massive frontier\u201d isn\u2019t the tech itself, however our means to lastly perceive our personal creativity.<\/p>\n

The AI collaborator: past the software<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The widespread mistake with AI, in line with Hegarty, is treating it as a glorified hammer. \u201cCease enthusiastic about it as a software,\u201d he insists. \u201cYou collaborate with it.\u201d For Hegarty, AI is a accomplice that lacks the one factor people possess in spades: creativeness.<\/p>\n

\u201cAI is fortunate to have us,\u201d he says. \u201cWith out us, AI goes to be fairly ineffective as a result of all it could do is regurgitate what\u2019s on the market. We always think about, we feed that into our AI collaborator and it could then transfer ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n

He dismisses the fearmongering round automation by pointing to the democratization of alternative.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With AI, smaller, extra agile teams can outpace the \u201clong-hairs\u201d and \u201cgiants\u201d of the legacy company world. The price of grand concepts is plummeting; Hegarty cites a coming UN undertaking he helmed that merely wouldn\u2019t have been financially viable with out AI\u2019s heavy lifting.<\/p>\n

\n

Need to go deeper? Ask The Drum<\/h4>\n


\n <\/p>\n

<\/miso-explore>\n <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The way forward for branding: from USP to style<\/strong><\/h2>\n

If AI is the engine, creativity is the motive force and Hegarty believes the roadmap for model constructing is essentially shifting. The period of the distinctive promoting proposition is fading, changed by a extra nebulous however highly effective metric: how a model makes you’re feeling.<\/p>\n

\u201cAdvertising and marketing is failing as a result of it\u2019s measuring the issues it could measure, not the issues that matter,\u201d Hegarty argues. Whereas spreadsheets can observe clicks, they wrestle to quantify \u201cstyle.\u201d Utilizing the instance of James Dyson, who revolutionized the vacuum by making it each bagless and exquisite, Hegarty notes that profitable manufacturers of the long run should join by means of aesthetics and perception methods.<\/p>\n

He warns that we’ve moved from the Industrial Age to the Consideration Age, but advertising and marketing stays caught within the former. \u201cDo I like that model? Does it resonate with my beliefs? Do I need to be seen with it?\u201d These are the inventive questions that tech-obsessed entrepreneurs are failing to ask.<\/p>\n

Information media\u2019s pivot to fact<\/strong><\/h2>\n

For the worldwide information executives watching their margins shrink, Hegarty presents a blunt rebrand. Cease calling yourselves \u201clegacy media\u201d or \u201cconventional media.\u201d It sounds just like the previous.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As an alternative, name yourselves \u201ctruthful media.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hegarty\u2019s view on the evolution of stories is rooted in a basic distinction between digital platforms and the press. He characterizes digital expertise as a drive driving us again to \u201cbeing chimpanzees\u201d: purely informational, transactional and sometimes unreliable. In distinction, he views information media because the practitioners of \u201cfictive language,\u201d media created by the creativeness, with the storytelling that really builds societies.<\/p>\n

He highlighted just a few key components for the way forward for the information enterprise, particularly:<\/p>\n

The belief premium: \u201cI might virtually declare if it\u2019s printed you possibly can imagine it, and you may\u2019t imagine it if it\u2019s not printed,\u201d Hegarty says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Belief is the basic foreign money that massive tech platforms, which refuse to be liable for their content material, merely can’t mint.<\/p>\n

Turning want into need: Folks want correct data, however media firms should make them need it by means of higher storytelling and extra inventive presentation.<\/p>\n

The ability of the tangible: Hegarty is bullish on the way forward for print, noting that whereas newspapers have change into extra pictorial to remain aggressive, their bodily nature gives a permanence that digital lacks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cFaux information occurs within the digital media,\u201d he notes. \u201cIt tends to not occur [in print] since you\u2019ve acquired to place your identify to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finally, Hegarty\u2019s recommendation to information media executives is to cease competing with massive tech on tech\u2019s phrases. Don\u2019t simply promote area; promote the way forward for the model.<\/p>\n

\u201cIdeas stay, however practices change,\u201d he concludes. Whether or not you’re promoting a newspaper, a vacuum or a automotive, the aim is identical: be daring, be constant and always remember {that a} model is a continuing in folks\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n

In a world of \u201cchimpanzee\u201d knowledge, being human is the final word aggressive benefit.<\/p>\n

Challinor\u2019s abstract<\/strong><\/h2>\n

My interview with Sir John Hegarty reveals that whereas expertise evolves, the basic ideas of branding and creativity stay fixed. Hegarty argues that advertising and marketing is presently \u201ccaught within the Industrial Age,\u201d over-measuring knowledge whereas failing to quantify \u201cstyle\u201d and emotional resonance.<\/p>\n

He says we should always use:<\/p>\n