Purplex Marketing founder and MD Andrew Scott argues that in an age dominated by AI and data, creativity and emotional storytelling remain the true drivers of lasting brand value.
There is a belief that modern marketing has become a science. Everywhere you look there are dashboards, algorithms, and now artificial intelligence, all analysing behaviour, predicting trends and optimising campaigns. Science makes marketing accountable and measurable, telling us what works and what does not.
However, data and AI alone do not move people. The reason for this is because marketing, at its heart, is still an art. It is about understanding what makes people feel something. It is about ideas that stir emotions, build trust and make someone choose you and your brand. Somewhere along the line, in our obsession with analytics and instant results, that human part is being lost.
The most powerful brands have always known that logic and emotion must work together. Coca-Cola’s Christmas campaigns do not sell a drink; they sell belonging. Cadbury’s Glass and a half of milk campaign, created nearly a century ago, still endures because it taps into something timeless and familiar. These ideas live on precisely because they were crafted with imagination and feeling. They are art as much as marketing.
Truly great marketing hinges on making a connection. The big idea is what cuts through the static of everyday life and lodges itself in memory, yet too many agencies have become trapped in the pursuit of short-term gains. They chase clicks and conversions, mistaking movement for progress. True brand value takes time, and the brands that endure are built through creative stories and experiences that people remember long after the ad spend runs out.
My own belief in creativity was shaped long before I entered marketing. My uncle, William Scott CBE RA, was one of the great British abstract artists of the twentieth century. His paintings hang in the Tate, the Guggenheim and the Met, and sell for staggering sums. But to me, he was simply Uncle William. I can still remember him arriving at our small council house in Belfast in his Rolls Royce, a surreal sight against the backdrop of coal fires and Formica tables. He and my Aunt Mary would spend much of their time in Italy, yet when they visited us they brought with them a sense of another world entirely — one filled with imagination and possibility.
As a child, I did not understand his work. It looked so simple; bowls, bottles and shapes, rendered with restraint. Only later did I understand that he was reducing life to its essence, removing everything unnecessary until what remained carried real power. That principle of simplicity has stayed with me ever since.
At Purplex, I often think about that lesson. Great marketing, like great art, is about clarity. Knowing what to leave out is as important as knowing what to include. In an industry filled with noise, the clean line and the pure idea always stand out.
When I founded the agency, my goal was to bring that balance of art and science into everything we do. Data can make a campaign more efficient, AI can make it faster and more targeted, but neither can make it meaningful. Only creativity can do that. Data wins the short-term game, but creativity wins the long one.
The influence of my family, and of my uncle in particular, reminds me that creativity is not a luxury in marketing. In fact, it is the foundation. It is what transforms information into inspiration, and customers into believers.
In a world that worships algorithms and AI, let us never forget that imagination is the most valuable asset of all.
Discover how creativity can transform your brand. Talk to Purplex Marketing and see what great marketing looks like when art meets science. www.purplexmarketing.com
