Adam Horne Creative Services

Somewhere around the third paragraph of every sports essay, there’s a moment where the writer pivots to business lessons.

My daughter is 16 months old.

I didn’t go to Cannes Lions this year.

Walk through any city, scroll through any platform, flip through anything print, and you’ll notice something unsettling: most advertising within the same category looks disturbingly similar.

“Creativity” isn’t some divine spark, some mystical essence emanating solely from our carbon-based brains; it’s an emergent property of the interaction between an artefact and an interpreter.

The New Creative Crucible – Forging Future Leaders Picture this: Your most seasoned creative, who still mumbles about “the good old days of Letraset,” just nervously asked if “ChatGPT thingamajig can, you know, do the concepts for the next pitch.”

For a while, I clung to “curiosity.”

This video argues yes, drawing parallels between the hostage’s adaptation and our own relationship with addictive, algorithm-driven platforms.

Every successful organisation has a golden goose.

Note: There’s an updated version of this reading list over at my new site, Aizle.Co.

The Problem with Perfect Here’s the thing: Traditional AI like ChatGPT-4o and Claude are like colleagues who always show up with immaculate presentations but never share their messy notebooks—you know, the ones where all the real creative gold lives.

They’re from a kick-off meeting before summer with the team that organised the graduation exhibition.

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As a fan of Adam Curtis, it feels very familiar.

Linear Thinking: This is a step-by-step, sequential approach to problem solving.

As a creative professional and while teaching at Monash University in Australia, ISCOM in Paris, and now Berghs School of Communication, one mindset that stands out always (that rookies don’t often realise), particularly during brainstorming and conceptua…

How do you reduce food waste, kickstart a smarthome ecosystem, and win a hackathon?

Donec sollicitudin neque vitae eros posuere bibendum.

There are lots of reasons why people don’t naturally fall into the creative industry.

With Sustain – the entry we made that won the hackathon.

You do it with an Americana themed costume party and build a campaign from the results.

You do it with an old-school email strategy to hit up people with the latest stuff to hit Adidas in Australia.

You do it by developing each colour into a personality that reacts to events, pop-culture, and each other.

You start by examining the early spirit of the Paco Rabanne brand in the 60s, and reimagine it for the post-modern, post-truth, post-gender, post-cool, post-internet age.

You do it by showing them looking great in all the places that matters.

You do it with a loyalty program based on their needs, interests and usage patterns that fits all kinds of Aussie lifestyles.

You do it with memes and stuff they’ll get a little LOL from that gently reminds them of the Lion brand.

You start with an always-on social strategy aimed at French teens who spend their time on their smartphones, gaming with friends and diving into the latest pop-culture.

You do it with a Twitter bot that suggests completely random Subway suggestion!

By jumping on the British trend of drinking cider on ice, we could get Aussie’s to look at cider in a new way.

With a campaign that flirts with the hubris that often comes with high-salary, high-stress, high-prestige jobs and the people that are attracted to them… // Source

You do it by showing a couple of mates using their sandpit, barbecue and clothesline to train for beach cricket and pursue sporting glory.

You do it by meeting normal curious people where normal curious people hangout.

I was on a podcast a few months ago and really enjoyed it.

You do it with If this, then that, a podcast that explores how Brand Strategy is more than just a mindset that applies to brands and the corporate world.

With a whole lot of self-deprecating humour on posters all over Sydney. // Source

I’ve had the chance to work on a bunch of audio-content, sometimes on my own, sometimes with others.

You focus on the thing your competitors don’t have.

You do it with words as clean and as sharp as George himself… A project I worked on with the teams at McCann Paris & McCann New York.

You get your nerd on and make a simple voice-based trivia game for the Amazon Echo.

By creating a web app that randomly builds sentences based on the projects and personal anecdotes you’ve shared over the last year.

You do it with a campaign that contrasts things right in front of us all the time, like our smartphones, with things in front of us that we forget to check.

You raise awareness AND money.

With a campaign that focuses on fun things you can be doing while your personal assistant organises your life.

I worked in this project when I was creative director at Wunderman in Melbourne, Australia. // Source

You do it by celebrating your shortcoming on a beautiful website.

You do it though close consultation and consensus building with all of Nestlé’s regional stakeholder.

With an online festival built from the ground up to explore excellent student work, discuss exciting trends and themes around communication industries, and to hang out and enjoy a bunch of entertainment.

By gamifying sex as an Apple Watch app!

With a montage of the biggest thrills and spills from the previous Grand Prix and a call to “Storm the Island”.