As AI makes production more accessible, the creative advantage increasingly depends on what organisations understand before they begin.
Two brands can use the same technology and arrive at very different ideas. The difference may begin with a conversation one team had, a contradiction it noticed or an assumption it was willing to question.
That is where human understanding becomes commercially relevant. It shapes the problem we choose to solve and the reason someone might care about our response.
AI gives us more ways to develop and express an idea. Our responsibility is to bring something worth expressing.
Distinctive work needs distinctive inputs
A 2024 study published in Science Advances offers a useful insight. In a short story experiment, access to AI ideas improved evaluations of individual creativity, particularly among less creative writers. However, the stories produced with AI assistance were more similar to one another.
The experiment does not establish what happens across every creative discipline. It does suggest a tension worth examining: better individual outputs can coexist with less variety overall.
For brands, our inference is that the source material deserves greater scrutiny. If a brief contains familiar assumptions, standard audience descriptions and the same category references, we risk narrowing the possibilities before creative development begins.
Distinctiveness starts with what we discover. A customer’s unexpected explanation, an unspoken concern or a cultural detail can change the direction of the work. AI can help teams explore and interpret this material. Its usefulness depends partly on the questions we ask and the assumptions we test.
Look for the reason beneath the response
An audience profile might tell us that someone is a senior decision maker interested in innovation. It leaves open a more useful question: what makes innovation difficult for that person?
Perhaps they need evidence to secure investment. Perhaps they fear disrupting a team already managing change. Perhaps they want to explore an unfamiliar idea without appearing uninformed.
Each possibility suggests a different creative response. A demonstration, a private conversation and a peer discussion serve different needs, even when they concern the same offer.
Understanding becomes actionable when it changes a decision. It should influence the story, setting, format or invitation. If an insight changes nothing in the work, we should question what it has contributed.
An insight should therefore be treated as a proposition to investigate, with room for real people to surprise us and change our initial direction.
Make the connection specific
MCI Switzerland’s launch of the Nespresso and Faction collaboration illustrates the value of a specific creative connection.
The published case describes a concept linking coffee and skiing through energy, focus and the feeling of a first run. In Verbier, at 2,200 metres, the team combined coffee, music and a product reveal. The collection included products partly made from recycled aluminium and coffee grounds from used capsules.
Our reading of the work is that this connection gave circularity a setting and a story people could experience. The creative decision brought the collaboration into a recognisable world with its own rituals and associations.
The case demonstrates how a specific idea can organise an experience. Assessing its commercial contribution requires separate evidence of audience response and subsequent behaviour.
Change what goes into the brief
For marketing leaders, this means giving discovery a clear role in creative development.
Start by identifying the assumption carrying the most weight. Perhaps we believe people want more information, when they actually need confidence to choose. Speak with people who acted and people who hesitated. Compare their explanations with observed behaviour.
Then ask the creative team to show how that learning changes the idea. Which decision would be different without it? This makes understanding accountable to the work and gives teams a reason to challenge a familiar approach.
Finally, test the intended response before scaling production. Can people explain the offer? Do they see its relevance? Do they know what to do next? Choose measures that reflect the business objective, then examine whether the response translates into action.
At mci group, experiences, content and communities offer complementary ways to put that understanding to work. They also create opportunities to listen, learn and refine the relationship as people’s needs change.
The commercial value lies in making better decisions about where to invest creative effort and what that effort should achieve. Growth needs evidence; human understanding gives us a stronger starting hypothesis.
When everyone can create, the advantage belongs to those who discover something worth creating around.
The next creative breakthrough may begin with a better conversation.
References
- Doshi, A. R. and Hauser, O. P. (2024). “Generative AI enhances individual creativity but reduces the collective diversity of novel content.” Science Advances, 10(28), eadn5290. Read the full study.
- MCI Switzerland. “Where innovation meets the mountain: Nespresso × Faction in Verbier.” Read the case study.