By Dominic Goldman, Founder & Chief Creative Officer, You’re The Goods
Everyone says creativity builds brands. I believe the best creativity also builds sales.
I came up through the early digital years when the internet still felt new and every brief came with a question mark. People were chasing the technology. The excitement was in what could be made, not always in why it was being made. For a time, digital creativity was rightly accused of lacking ideas. The medium was clever but often empty. Much like the AI slop we’re witnessing now.
I felt compelled to make work that proved digital could be both creative and effective, that it could build a brand and drive an immediate response.
When story meets action
One of those moments was a humble banner for The Economist on a financial website, the kind of format everyone loved to hate. It simply asked people to blow on their screens. When they did, the microphone picked up on this and the words The Competition were literally blown away and The Economist logo appeared in its place. The design and tone were in keeping with the brand’s print work of the day, sharp, intelligent and dry. It mesmerised people. It also converted them. People could subscribe directly from within the banner. It went on to win awards and, more importantly, win their CFO.
A little later came Barnardo’s Break the Cycle, the first HD full-screen film played from a banner. The story showed a young person trapped in a cycle of abuse, and the only way to stop it was to interact. Pressing the stop button paused the film and revealed the message about breaking the cycle. Once people were moved, they could choose to donate or learn more. It drove record donations and was even discussed on the Jeremy Paxman show for its unflinching tone. It also won a Yellow Pencil at D&AD.
The false divide between brand and performance
As the technology advanced, so did the ambition. A project for ASOS brought together some of the world’s best street dancers in an interactive film. Viewers could click on any dancer at any moment to see them perform while wearing the new collection. Each click revealed the clothes in detail and linked directly to purchase through an integrated e-commerce engine, one of the first of its kind. So many people visited that the site briefly crashed. It proved that story, technology and shopping could exist in one seamless experience. A Cannes Gold Lion was the byproduct, along with an audience who now not only knew ASOS had menswear but wore the collection proudly.
Those moments convinced me that the divide between brand and performance was false. Digital was never about the tools. It was about using them to make people feel something and giving them a way to act on that feeling.
Somewhere along the way we lost that link. Brand became the long game. Performance became the engine. The industry started measuring everything except how people actually behave. Audiences do not move in straight lines. They skip, loop, replay, share and act when something moves them. They buy because a story made them feel.
Proof that balance pays off
The latest Bellwether report shows budgets creeping up again. The industry is waking up, cautiously. Spend is returning, but the mood still feels careful. Everyone wants proof before they want a point of view. Yet the truth hasn’t changed. The only work that cuts through a cautious market is the work that takes a risk. The work that believes in the power of story.
The data supports it. WARC’s Multiplier Effect study shows that campaigns combining brand and performance are more than twice as likely to drive profit and revenue growth. That’s creativity doing its job.
The new middle ground
As an agency leader, this balance sits at the heart of what we build. The middle between fame and function. Between story and system. It is where a film can move you and still make the numbers move too. Where audiences join in rather than scroll past. The story becomes participation. Participation becomes performance.
The most ambitious clients we work with understand this instinctively. They know fame and conversion are two sides of the same conversation.
Creativity is the multiplier
Creativity isn’t decoration. It is the multiplier. It makes every channel, every pound, every impression work harder. It gives emotion a commercial purpose and gives numbers something worth measuring.
Budgets will rise and fall. Platforms and technology will change again. The middle remains. It is where story becomes movement and movement becomes growth.
