INTERVIEW – Uncommon Founder: Creativity is an act of human survival

It’s not often you speak to an agency head who is sceptical of the word ’creativity’, but for Nils Leonard, Co-founder of Uncommon Creative Studio, it presents a problem.

“I actually struggle with the use of the word ‘creativity’,” Nils explains, “because if you were to stop everybody and ask them what it meant, everyone would say something different.

“I think that’s a problem in our industry…one person will say it has to be completely consistent, another will say it’s all about fame, for example.”

Since its founding in 2017 by Nils and two other alumni from WPP’s Grey London, Uncommon has created a reputation for unconventional and memorable advertising, with the tagline of “building brands that people in the real world actually wish existed.”

The agency’s track record includes work with major brands, notably ITV. The meeting with Dame Carolyn McCall focused on putting ITV back on the map and communicate to viewers that they made better content than everyone assumed they did. McCall explained that she wanted people to say “holy sh*t, did you see that ITV thing?”

“I wrote that down and that was page one of every deck from that meeting onward,” says Nils. “I think that brief often is the real brief.”

Last year its work with insurer Hiscox won at the Financial Services Forum’s Awards for Marketing Effectiveness. The “most disastrous campaign ever” memorably created out-of-home ads that mirrored the problems they were selling insurance for – such as a billboard installation talking about copyright which parodied ads from Weetabix and Specsavers.

“The major thing we do with every brand is try to find a friction, or a fault line, in the culture that the brand dances on,” he explains. “Most of Uncommon’s work is designed to be talked about – designed to be famous not at any cost, but the right way. It’s designed to cut through the algorithms, not play in them.”

Which is why it might surprise some readers that the agency treats creativity, fundamentally, as a process that can be scaled and repeated. Uncommon uses a set of questions to remove the subjectivity that Nils speaks of.

“What is it you’re trying to achieve and how radically, quickly and ferociously can you get that?

“What has no-one done in this category that people wish existed? What would we do tomorrow to get ourselves a million new customers? What would change this category the fastest and shall we do it? What can we learn from other categories?”

Some of these questions are less abstract. With an out-of-home installation, the question might be as tangible as “would someone pick up their phone and take a photo of it?”

This attempt to systematise creativity might sound alarming to marketers who are mulling the potential impact of generative AI on their industry – if humans can turn creativity into a system, why can’t software?

Nils argues the opposite.

“Suddenly AI has come along and everyone is suddenly quaking and asking if we are all screwed,” he says. “The reason they’re doing that is the majority of the industry don’t sell creativity. They sell integration, consistency, low-cost assets, synergy, call it what you want.

“I think most of the industry’s got addicted to that. If you’re an agency or studio, particularly one that’s been around for a while, you’ve probably shifted your business without knowing it over the last 10 to 15 years to sell more of that than you do raw and radical acts of creating.”

While he argues AI will strip away jobs doing these tasks, because it can do them more quickly and cheaply, what it can’t do better is “think radically on your behalf”.

“It’s never been bullied at school, it’s never got divorced, it’s never experienced loss.

“I think what’s left [after AI] is the radical side of what we bring; I think that’s always been the most valuable. I think it’s a bit joyous that rebalance is occurring because it’s going to be for the best of our industry to sell what only we could sell.”

The root of this radical side, he says, is seeing the real need to change things in an industry when they are broken.

“Creativity really is the most radical human act of survival. It’s what we do when we’re threatened. It’s what we do when we’re frustrated.”

He cites the example of Spotify, which he argues saw a music industry that was fundamentally broken.

“Is the model now working? I don’t know. But they were an innovative and creative response to a category that was tired and taking the piss out of people.

“(Spotify founder) Daniel Ekk has this great phrase that the value of a company is the sum of the problems it solves.

“That view of creativity, if you’re an agency – I don’t think you can afford now to not invest in that.”

To put it another way, creativity means the risks that humans take when threatened by a bigger risk. Nils has a very specific idea of what that bigger risk is.

“We try to remove the concept of risk or certainly reframe it. The biggest risk you can make as a marketer is being ignored. I think a lot of people go through the motions, have meetings and do a job. But I wonder sometimes if they are trying not to make great work but simply to bide their time.”

Beyond the “fake grown-up” voice

On the other hand, he says, some marketers wake up with the fear that if they don’t change something they are going to be in trouble. These are the clients whom Uncommon wants to work with.

Financial services specifically is “in the business of money, of progress, of safety, of freedom – all the most basic and powerful human emotions”, says Nils. He highlights Monzo, previously a client of Uncommon, as a brand that builds every aspect of its experience around the customer from marketing to the app.

“The risk is hoping you can speak with this fake grown-up voice and that people will trust you. I think a lot of the ills of this category are rooted in being ‘trusted’, and people as a result assuming they shouldn’t behave in a powerful, remarkable or even human way.”

He views the word “trust” as a problematic one, that leads to boring work.

“But think of people you trust. They’re the most real people – who tell it to you like it is.”

Banks usually focus on people saving for a rainy day or a beautiful honeymoon, whereas some people are saving for “a hair transplant, Botox, to flee a horrible landlord or to get out of a toxic relationship.”

Hiscox and its campaign are an example of this truth-telling.

“Everyone talks about insurance and we all know we need it, and it’s a very grown-up category,” says Nils. “But the truth of insurance is it’s made for when things go wrong – the low points of your story.”

This is why the Hiscox project looked to find and “rejoice in” some of these disasters. This then went further as the team realised the executions could be “disasters” in their own right.

“I think particularly within financial services, look for truths that haven’t been spoken, and don’t be afraid to play there. If you don’t, you’re missing a trick.”

Part of this is simply being truthful about the range of emotions which people commonly feel.

He quotes the American poet Maya Angelou, who famously said that “people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

“I think that’s exactly true of this category as well. It’s devoid of emotion, and a brand that moves people as well would be powerful”.

In particular, Nils argues humour is “radically underused”. Comedians, of course, are the archetypal example of people who can get away with saying hard truths because it’s packaged in a humorous way.

“Playing with negative emotions has always been incredibly powerful, and I don’t just mean sadness, I mean anger and frustration.”

All of these techniques are ways that brands can make themselves stand out. Nils quotes the legendary music producer Rick Rubin, who said “the world isn’t waiting for more of the same”. He points out that while Rubin works across multiple genres, his consistent approach is “to get to the root difference and originality of an artist.”

In financial services, Nils thinks the opportunity is huge, and leaders should be asking themselves more challenging questions – how they can turn the category on its head and create modern reference points.

“What have we done this year that will get us talked about in ten years? That would be an amazing brief someone could set themselves.”

Quotes have been lightly edited for clarity.