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Top Creative Trends for 2024
March 19, 2024 Leadership Management Mentorship Team Management
Guest Speaker

Adam Morgan

Senior Director of Brand and Creative at Splunk

Also appearing in this episode

Todd Henry, Founder, Accidental Creative
Shachar Aylon, Creative Director and Founder, Dawn Creative Solutions
Samantha Berg, Head Of User Experience at SeatGeek
Nicole Parente-Lopez, Executive Creative Director, Intuit Brand Storytelling & Experiences
Michelle Stuhl, Executive Search Consultant, President, CEO
Jeff Paris, VP, Executive Creative Director at MasterControl
Danny Fontaine, Creative Director, UK & Ireland at IBM, Founder of “Pitch Masters” Podcast

The hottest creative industry trends for 2024 (from the folks who set them)

In this special season five premiere of Real Creative Leadership, host Adam Morgan shares never-before-heard clips from previous guests who answer the question, “What trends are you seeing in 2024?” With insights on everything from hiring to AI, join this powerhouse digital roundtable and learn how to leverage powerful tools and strategies to make 2024 your most innovative year yet.

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REAL CREATIVE LEADERSHIP

Season: 5

Episode: 1

Episode Title: The Biggest Creativity Trends for 2024

Guest Title:
Adam Morgan, Executive Brand and Creative Leader
Todd Henry, Founder, Accidental Creative
Shachar Aylon, Creative Director and Founder, Dawn Creative Solutions
Samantha Berg, Head Of User Experience at SeatGeek
Nicole Parente-Lopez, Executive Creative Director, Intuit Brand Storytelling & Experiences
Michelle Stuhl, Executive Search Consultant, President, CEO
Jeff Paris, VP, Executive Creative Director at MasterControl
Danny Fontaine, Creative Director, UK & Ireland at IBM, Founder of “Pitch Masters” Podcast

 

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Adam Morgan
Here’s the beauty about all these trends and changes—is that we are creatives. And that part of being a creative is just adapting to change and seeing things in a different way and being able to evolve.

Welcome to Real Creative Leadership, a video podcast produced by The Stoke Group and hosted by me, Adam Morgan.

Welcome back to Real Creative Leadership. We’re embarking on a new season. We’re now starting season five, and I’m excited to welcome you back. If you’ve been a listener or a subscriber in the past, you know, thank you for joining. And if you’re new to this, for the first time listening to us, thank you for joining us and for discovering us.

So season five. For me, this is a big milestone because so many, you know, podcasts only go so far. There’s only like one or two or three seasons, but getting to season five feels like we’re a little bit of, like, an old hat, you know. We’re kind of established and we’ve been there for a while. So hopefully you’ve been enjoying the content, both the masterclasses and also the guests we have on the show.

And we’re so excited to bring you so much more this next season. Again, as always, if you have topics or things that you really want us to talk about—I get several from the community—reach out and tell us about it. And I encourage you to reach out and let us know some of those topics so we can get those taken care of.

Going back to this community—it has been amazing to see how it’s grown in ways that I never imagined. So thank you for being here and being part of Real Creative Leadership. All right. So today, kicking off season five, we have an interesting episode. We’re going to be talking about creative trends for the future.

So really what are the creative trends? You know, it’s like, this is a big question. What are the things that we’re seeing out in the marketplace? Things that we’re noticing that are changing things, that are impacting our creative work or our experiences, or even our industry overall. And let me give you a little more context. So we’ve been preparing for this for many years. Every single episode where I invite a guest at the end of the episode, we have a standard set of questions that we ask them. And one of those questions is, “What are the creative trends you’re seeing right now?” So as we’ve been listening to all these amazing answers, we thought, “This is such a great compilation of topics that we can just bring together into one, just trend topic that we can kick off the season with.”

So we’ve pulled together a lot of these insights and group them together into what I see are three key trends happening right now in creative leadership. So let’s get into it. Let’s listen to what others are saying, and then also share a little bit of context of what I’m seeing as far as trends and creative leadership.

All right. So the first trend that I’m seeing—and by the way, I also had a couple of recent roundtables where these exact same questions were asked—like, what are we seeing in creative leadership? What are the big things that are coming? What do we need to prepare and understand as we as creative leaders grow for this next year and beyond?

And so one big one that has been a huge trend over the last couple of years has been this idea of global growth—that the global straight stage is shrinking in terms of, you know, the talent, locations and all that visibility. And here’s really where it stemmed from. We as a world went through a huge pandemic, and COVID really changed things in the creative world in a big way. So backing up a little bit—at least from my perspective of how things were, you know, before COVID—it was like, if you were going to look for talent, you were looking in your local area, because everyone would be coming into that local office. And so the talent that you were stacking up against was just all the people who were in that state, city, country, whatever it may be.

And when we were working on big projects, we were, you know, most everyone was in the same room. We were in a big conference room and there’d be someone on video who is at a remote location, but it was really, really hard for those people to participate and be a part of the whole conversation. They’d always have to, like, jump in or try and be a little bit louder. And it was hard when people were in a room speaking to each other and listening to someone remotely.

Well, COVID changed all that. And we were all on video and no one was in the same room. And so technology and just the way we work completely changed. And so now all of us here are on, you know, digital platforms, video platforms and just kind of calling in; and kind of the anomaly are the people who are in the office, a couple of them in  a conference room calling in.

So as that’s changed, so has the makeup of teams. Like before, my team was mostly all in one office and we had a couple of people remote. Now, my team spans the whole, you know, continent. And even, you know, now into other countries, I’ve got people on East coast, West coast, Central, Mountain time zones. I also have, you know, a team of seven down in Costa Rica. We have team members in our EMEA office and our APAC office, and we’re working with them constantly. So things really changed a lot with this idea of global growth.

And so what does this mean for creatives? Right. What does this mean for us? Well, for managers and creative leaders, it means we more and more often are managing a team of global creatives. We have to not just deal with our local team and having those one-on-one conversations, but we’ve got to, you know, reach across borders and time zones and make things work in unique and different ways. Not only that, like, when it comes to hiring now, you know, if I have a spot open, instead of just getting, you know, a dozen or so qualified candidates from my local city or local time zone, I’m getting hundreds of people who are qualified from around the world. And this has made it intensely competitive, like, the playing field is flat, everyone can join in. And now, everyone is, you know, trying for those same jobs, which means the job market, especially right now, is extremely tight. There may be one job where hundreds and hundreds of people apply, you know, and it’s a real challenge to be able to navigate all of that.

And can this person fit and does this culture fit and do I understand the time zones and how are we going to be able to work and manage all this work, you know. Even more so than that, this global trend is not just in house or on your own team. It’s also partnerships. So I’ve been working lately with a lot of different agencies and film companies and different groups around the world. And, you know, I think the easy story for everyone is like, “Oh, great. You know, people in other time zones, you just send it over and they’ll work at night and then you get it back and things can progress faster.” But it hasn’t actually worked out that well. It’s been a lot more challenging in trying to work through all these different zones and languages and cultures and things. And so it’s been really, really fascinating.

So I would say that is a huge trend for us as creative leaders and as creatives in general. And what that means for us also is that, you know, back in the days, I remember in the early nineties, I’d look through the one show or the, you know, communication awards, and you’d see someone from San Paolo or somewhere, you know, in Ukraine or whatever it was where people were competing and winning some awards. But now that’s like, not just a distant thing. Now it’s like, we know those people, we know the groups, we know the companies, and we have maybe team members out there. And so what it means to us as creatives is we have to really step up. And now the competition for your skillset is not just locally, like, you can’t just be like the best person who does a specific thing or a person who does, you know, maybe you’re great at PowerPoint or something like that. You can’t just be the PowerPoint person here locally. Like, you’ve got thousands of people all over who are competing for that. So you’ve got to get really good at your own personal skills. You’ve got to expand your personal skills. You’ve got to get good at your management skills of running teams and keeping teams engaged in far reaching locations.

So, you know, anyhow, that’s one big trend. And now next I want to cut to just a couple of people who have been on the show and have noticed that same trend and they’ve talked about it. So we’re going to cut to just a couple of quick [00:07:45] clips.

The first one’s going to be Todd Henry. If you don’t know Todd Henry, he’s an amazing person who’s written a lot of books. He has his own podcast, a lot of great masterclasses. You need to check out Todd Henry. So Todd Henry is going to talk to us for a minute, a little bit about this global expansion and growth and how we can help work on it.

Todd Henry
I think one trend that’s happening—and it’s undeniable and we all know about it—is that the global talent marketplace has completely opened up. And I think what we’re going to see is organizations that used to be largely geography based are going to now be global. Um, we’re going to have people working in the Philippines, people working in Austin, people working in New York, all in the same project. We’re already seeing that, but I think we’re going to see it even in greater measure, and that’s going to change the economics of the industry.

I think in a lot of ways—because what it’s going to take to build a talented organization is going to be different— and so for those who are creative pros, we need to be sharpening our skills. We need to become resourceful. We need to have some competitive advantage. You can’t just be a specialist and say, “I do this thing really well.” Because the chances are, we’re going to be able to find, you know, 3,000 people who do that thing really well, but also do a couple of other things really well, and you’re now competing against them, whereas before you might have been the best person in your area at that skill, but now you’re—it doesn’t matter anymore because now we can find 3,000 people who can do that. And they also have all of these other skills as well. So for creative pros, this is the time to be developing your skills and building out that portfolio that you bring, that you bring to the table every day.

Adam Morgan
Next, let’s listen to Shachar Aylon. He also brought a really interesting topic that is connected to this, but more on not only just building a brand, but how are you as creative leaders going out and getting all those skills and being prepared to take on more and to be, you know, give a bigger vision in the world. And the best part is he’s taking his own advice. So he was working in-house and now he’s broken away and started his own company and just is so excited to show how he can take some of that good learning and his skills and take it to a completely different level. So let’s hear what he has to say.

Shachar Aylon
One of the trends I’ve noticed is that people are becoming a channel. What I mean by that is if before we’ve seen people invest in, like, their YouTube channel or in their Instagram or LinkedIn, I’m seeing more and more creative leaders become their own content stream or their own channel where they’re creating online courses on their website. They’re sharing TikToks about creative leadership tips. They’re becoming a channel or, like, a megaphone for their own thoughts and beliefs. And they’re finding all these different canvases, all these different mediums to kind of disperse these ideas. I think it’s a beautiful way to think about yourself as the story rather than the medium or the different channels.

Adam Morgan
Excellent. That was some great advice from Shachar. And now let’s move on to the next topic. So the next trend in creative leadership that I’m seeing that’s really, really  important is this idea of creative vision is more important than ever. So backing up a little bit and giving some context to this.As we’ve been looking over the last, you know, decade of, like, the changes in creative leadership, where things are going, and even in business strategy, I would say, you know, it used to be like, you look back to the, the nineties of total quality management and how it was all about operations and how it was, you know, we saw this big move of, “If you want to read more about that, just go read The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek, and you’ll learn all about this trend away from total quality, quality management towards more customer experience.” And today we’re in the customer experience era, and it’s all about really understanding, like, what are the customers, who they are, what do they want, how you as a brand and a company, you know, fulfill those needs for those customers. And what it’s changing is, like, the differentiation of businesses is no longer just about how fast we operate and how quickly we can get a widget from point A to point B. Now it’s all about how are we as a company really embracing the customer experience and our differentiation is how are we creating unique and better and awesome experiences for our customers.

What that trend is pushing is that creativity is a big part of that. Like, if you look at the people who totally understand those customer experiences, like, there’s some great research on it on one of our past shows where we talk all about how creative leaders are really, really diving deep into that customer experience because we put our feet in their customer shoes. We understand their emotional journey when we really want to create an empathetic moment for them, a great peak moment for them so they can have a great experience with our brand. The trick is, right now we still have leadership and boards of directors that are all still back in that two QM mindset, right? Where it’s all about operations and finance and, you know, making sure like the leadership is all focused on that. But there is this trend where more and more companies are, especially startups, are saying, “You know what? Forget it. We’re not about just  operations. We’re about that customer experience, and we’re gonna make sure that customer experience  is critical in all the decisions we make as a company.”

And where we as creatives come in, since we’re awesome at that, is helping create and establish those awesome customer experiences. Now the catch is we’re seeing this change, we’re seeing more opportunities where in-house creative leaders are giving, getting more of a seat at the table. There’s still a long ways to go. We still have, you know, there’s not like a chief creative officer on the board of directors in many companies, but, you know, we’re working up towards VPs and VPs of brands and in different marketing organizations where there are creatives who are moving up. In fact, I’m hoping to get a show soon on a creative who’s become a CMO because you traditionally—CMOs don’t come from the creative field. It’s usually from other marketing disciplines. So anyhow, there’s movement happening in this trend. And I think there’s really important opportunities here, but that opportunity is really on us as creative leaders to step up and help drive those moments, those customer moments and really drive that creative leadership and get on the board seats and get an influence more in the company direction where decision making and finances are all driving towards those better experiences rather than just towards operational efficiency. So we have an awesome opportunity and we need to bring the creativity into the heart of the business. I’m seeing some, you know, in startups, like some CEOs are creatives who have flipped and are starting companies. And so that’s an awesome big sign.

But now let’s talk up through how a few of the guests on the show have been seeing the same trend. We want to talk through a few of these here. First, it’s going to be Michelle Stuhl. She is an executive recruiter, and she is the one who is placing creatives in these senior roles. And she had an awesome little clip here on her trend that she’s seeing is how we can get more  of these creative leaderships to step up in house and drive these experiences.

Michelle Stuhl
You know, a key trend is us recognizing that different businesses and different business leaders embrace the idea of important, strategic, creative in-house capability so differently. And it’s that inconsistency leads to a lack of performance, a lack of strategic involvement by partners that could truly help serve the mission and vision of the business.

Adam Morgan
All right. Thank you. That was a great, great insight. Let’s keep going. So another person, Nicole Lopez—she was on the show and also talked about the same trend of creating work as being brought in-house.So it’s moving, you know, some of the big decisions are moving away from just always farming it out to agencies, but she’s seeing more of a trend where in-house creative leaders are getting given an opportunity to drive a vision and drive a direction. So let’s hear what Nicole has to say.

Nicole Lopez
One thing I’m noticing and one that my team is—that I’m proud to be a part of—is that more and more often I’m seeing that creative work is being brought in-house versus going to an agency to  spend the dollars and do the work. And I think internal creative teams, we’ll always, always deliver more impactful work because they feel the business strategy in their hearts and minds. It’s so great to see more and more brands adopting this mindset.

Adam Morgan
Just a couple more, cause this is a really big topic of really owning that vision and how creatives have this opportunity, but we need to like, we need to do it. We need to own the vision for these businesses and help drive it. So Jeff Paris, another great UCD on the show talked about how he’s seeing this happen. He’s seeing more creatives moving up the corporate ladder and influencing business decisions. So let’s hear what he has to say about it.

Jeff Paris
I think creative leaders are more and more having to contemplate business opportunities as much as creative opportunities. Even in the agency world, we’re seeing that shift where creative leadership is happening, and is an important part of how agencies succeed. And the agency world gets harder and harder to deal with some of that business requirement and making a business work. And it’s the same way on the client side.

I think a trend is that you’re seeing more creative leaders who are escalating higher up in organizations because that creative thinking is so valuable. But that means you really do have to also understand what makes your company successful and how does creativity contribute to that success.

Adam Morgan
All right. Thanks, Jeff. That was awesome. Next, one more on this topic, because it’s such a big trend is Samantha Berg, and she’s talking about these blurred lines, about how experiences—how, sorry—or how leaders are needing to move up and create these better experiences. And where she’s seeing a trend where we’re actually getting a little bit more of those senior leaders who have a creative background and she’s hoping to get, like, a chief digital office or something like that. So that, and she’s seeing more and more of these pop up here and there. So  it’s starting to happen. Let’s hear what Samantha has to say.

Samantha Berg
A trend I think I’m starting to see in creative leadership is a little bit more of these blurred lines. And Adam, I think you and I have had this discussion, you know, design, creative, et cetera, but I think as we focus more on experience and on holistic experience, there stops being such firm lines between those and in the way that we lead those teams. And a trend I would love to see is more of the chief design officer.

Adam Morgan
All right. That was awesome. Now onto the last and third trend that I’m seeing. And if I didn’t say this, of course, most people think this is trend number one, and I pushed it to number three, because I just feel like it’s a little over-talked about, and it’s the idea of AI. So of course we’ve gotta talk about it because it is the big thing.

Every conference, every time I’ve been out speaking, they want me to just speak on AI and speak on AI. And there is a lot happening in the world of AI, especially around creatives. Like, just as we talked before about how global is leveling the playing field, AI is really leveling the playing field for a lot of people, because people who don’t have good creative skills can go and have AI help them create art or create stories or create articles or whatever it may be.

So there’s a huge growth in AI and it is—it is everything. Everyone is talking about it. There are a couple of things that I want to focus on. Like, certainly, do we need to be integrated? Absolutely. Like, your job may be like to be really, really good at, you know, figuring out good prompts for AI to get the right creative, because that’s a skillset that not everyone has. And it’s really, like, a skill right now, getting that right prompt to get the right output. So here’s what I want to talk about as far as like trends that I’m seeing. Yes, AI is the big thing, but there’s some important things for us to understand about this.

Number one is, you know, the fear that it’s just going to take everyone’s creative jobs and we’re all in trouble and you know, your hair’s on fire, you got to run around. And I don’t foresee that. Is it going to change our jobs? A hundred percent. Our jobs are going to change, but there are so many other trends that have happened in the past that have changed our jobs. And taking away a lot of that minutiae and it’s okay, like, just over the years, like, I worked for Adobe and there were so many elements and features in the products that were all about taking away the minutiae and giving you a better opportunity to focus on big ideas.

So will AI take care of some of those kind of manual processes? Absolutely. And that’s great because the big thing is that it’s still about big ideas, big stories, vision, you know, in that last trend that I talked about, understanding a good vision is so, so critical. So just using AI to get to that better step is totally worth it.

The next thing, and the last thing I want to talk about in AI that’s so critical is that as AI becomes more and more universal, you know, it’s a trend that I’m seeing, and then I’m hearing people talk about, and we’re going to be getting there, is as creatives, it’s our job to not only show how we have different skills, different from AI, or how we can use AI to get to a better place, but it’s really all about how we can show how—the need to show our humanity. Like, our humanity is what’s going to differentiate us in the future from AI, our ability to bring the right value at the right moment to do, be able to flex and see things in different ways. And creativity as a whole is all about looking at problems with unique angles and with a different perspective. And that is a hundred percent the value that we bring as creatives. So instead of fearing AI, let’s embrace it and bring our humanity to the table. Let’s show how we empathize and connect with people. And we’re not a robot, and we can understand those, the nuances and how we can bring together the right amount of creativity and the right ideas in the right situation. So that is, like, the most awesome story that I’m hearing is if you can show how you can bring your humanity to the table and differentiate from AI—that is where you’re going to succeed.

Now we’ve got one person who is going to give us a nice, good quote on this, which is Danny Fontaine. He also has his own show and he’s worked for IBM and has been doing some amazing things on the pitch, but he also talks about how AI is a big trend. And so let’s keep talking about generative AI and how we’re going to use that in the future.

Danny Fontaine
In terms of trends, you know, for me, it’s generative AI. Generative AI is everywhere. We could talk for a whole podcast on gen AI. I use it all the time, but I’m trying to figure out how to use it in a really good way rather than the wangle way that I use it at the minute. That’s the trend for sure: Gen AI.

Adam Morgan
All right. Well, that was awesome. Thanks, Danny. And you know, there are so many other quotes out there on AI. I’m not going to keep—you know, this episode’s already going long—but just know that there’s a lot out there on AI and there’s plenty for you to read about it. But again, I just want to focus on, on the other ways of, instead of focusing on just the tech—cause there’s always going to be a shiny new tech—but how are we going to take creativity and our humanity and make better, smarter, faster decisions and make better experiences.

So, those were the three trends. Certainly there are many, many more and we’ll just keep collecting them and thinking about them. But I just wanted to share those with you at the start of this new season, season five. What are some of the big creative trends? And those are three. So: how are we becoming more global? How we still need a big vision to drive big ideas and big direction for companies; and then three, AI and how that’s going to change our teams and the way we work. So if you have ideas of other trends that you’re seeing, we would love to hear from you. Please go to realcreativeleadership.com. Send us a note on any of our channels, email us, whatever it may be. Send us your thoughts—thoughts of different insights or trends that you’re seeing. Or if these three trends are a part of your world, how they’re, you know, changing your world or how we can get ahead of them and start to prepare and be better creative leaders moving forward, because that’s the thing.

Here’s the beauty about all these trends and changes is that we are creatives. And that part of being a creative is just adapting to change and seeing things in a different way and being able to evolve. So it’s totally awesome. I’m super excited about things that are coming up because as a creative. It’s just, you know, let’s just adapt, let’s just change and let’s just keep going with it. And I think that’s an awesome way to understand trends. Like, use them to your advantage, but then just keep moving forward.

So how do we keep staying on top of trends? Let’s—there are great ways of just, like, looking at listening to this podcast as one, going to conferences, reading, like, there’s so many ways that we can look for and find new trends. So if you see them, or if you’re out there, please, again, share it with us and let’s just share it with the broader community so that we’re all on top of it.

That’s it for now. Thank you so much for listening. And I also like to take this time, like, just to welcome you to season five. There’s so many great, there are so many great topics that we’re going to be discussing this next year, and we’re just so excited. Like, there’s just this idea that, like, you know, many podcasts die after the first couple episodes or the first, you know, season or so, and we’ve made it into season five and five years. And so we’re totally stoked about that. And we are so grateful for your participation and for you listening to every episode. Hope you get great things out of it. And if you have other ideas again, share with me, I’d love to make it, you know, the best season ever. So thanks for listening and we’ll see you next time.

As always, you can find me at adamwmorgan.com. And finally, this show is produced by The Stoke Group, a full service digital agency that specializes in content, marketing, video, and interactive experiences. So if you’re looking for a partner for strategy or content or anything else, visit thestokegroup.com. Thanks again for listening, and we’ll see you next time.