What is AI?
First off let’s just clarify what we mean when we talk about AI in this particular context – we are not discussing some super artificial intelligence, that AI currently being deployed anywhere and everywhere are language learning models (LLM’s) and they work by feeding off human-made data they access from the web. Nothing is sacred, they crawl the web, scraping data whenever they come across it. They are basically prediction machines, completing a sequence with the most likely answer – learn more here: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/how-ai-works/

So the AI we commonly see being integrated into offices and workplaces is basically a pattern recognition tool, whether that be a piece of music, a video clip, writing or an image – the user inputs a prompt and the AI gives its best/most likely answer. As the technology improves so does the output and it’s definitely getting harder to spot the difference between human-made and AI. But how does this impact creativity? Proponents for the technology say it allows them to be creative by being able to bring their ideas to life. I would argue that has always been the case – just pick up a pencil and draw, an instrument and play or a pen and write- what’s stopping you? The problem is that we want everything at the touch of a button, people don’t want to wait and learn or spend money on employees when they can get a machine to do the job in half the time.

What Can Generative AI Help With?

• Struggling for ideas for new content? LLM’s can give you fresh ideas to help when you’ve got writers block. Remember, it’s all about the ‘prompt’ – be as clear as possible with your wording to gain optimum results!
• Need some design inspiration? AI can help users explore different ideas when trying to come up with a concept or design – take care that the outputs are not infringing on any trademarks or copyright.
• Utilise AI as more of a tool to help enhance our thinking, rather than using to as an alternative to actual human creativity.
• Speed up mundane tasks that would take a person a large amount of time to complete – typical case uses include 3D Visualisers who need to make changes to scenes and environments but don’t have the time needed to complete the tasks by themselves. "I wouldn't have been able to complete this task on time without the help of AI…clients put unrealistic timescales on jobs because they think AI can speed EVERYTHING up.”

Why You Should Use Caution When using AI
Your customers have chosen your brand because they have forged a relationship built on trust – when you start to use generative AI to write content and create images you are risking breaking that trust if you are not diligent. It’s imperative that you carefully proof all content before you post it – the software you use produces images and text derived from a massive pool from the web and even if you feed it your own data there is still a risk it will mislead or hallucinate. We see badly thought out content rushed out all the time, often as a result of using generative AI l – this Christmas ad recently made the news : https://archive.ph/USngO

Copyright issues aside (well, the big tech companies seem to think they don’t apply to them anyway) there are other issues that arise when we use AI for creating imagery, text and music. Is it really creative to type a prompt into a machine for it to spit out an image or piece of music which is basically just a bit of a rehash of preexisting works that the AI has been trained on? Personally, I don’t think so, although I know many people who find LLM’s really helpful at drafting pieces of writing or coming up with ideas for art and design. On hearing that people are using AI to write emails or letters I was pretty baffled – is it really that hard to write a sincere email or letter? I understand that life is hectic and that we are constantly looking for ways to save time, especially on mundane tasks.

The thing is, for most creatives, their jobs are far from mundane and AI is solving a problem that was never there. In the past we dreamed of a future where robots would do the boring stuff like cleaning or ironing, or the less popular jobs like refuse collection. We were promised a utopia where we could live out our lives creating art and music but it seems the opposite is being shoved down our throats. Instead of fostering a lifelong love of learning and creating we are watching as the world becomes reliant on technology to do the thinking and creating for us. We are getting to a point where homework is being completed by AI and university degrees are accomplished because of ChatGPT – a dumbing down of the population. That sounds pretty scary to me!

Written by Louise Lockhart Digital Sorceress & Global Head of Crayons at Creative Remedy.

Take a look at fast food restaurants like McDonalds, Burger King or KFC – it’s no coincidence they all opted for bright red in their branding as red is well known to make us feel hungry!

So what do your brand colours tell us about you and your business? Let’s take a look at some popular colours and see if you’re giving you the right message to your customers:

Red
Well known as a colour that acts as a warning for danger, red can also be a sign of anger, pain and aggression. Conversely, red also symbolises love, passion, energy and power.

Uses: as a call to action (CTA) to urge customers to act quickly. Physically, it can make you feel hungry so is a good choice for fast food brands.

Orange
Orange is associated with bravery, fun, confidence and warmth. Negative connotations include immaturity, sluggishness, frustration and ignorance.

Uses: It’s fun, adventurous aesthetic is perfect for outdoor brands. Its eye-catching hue is another great choice for CTA and is also a great way to make your print marketing stand out.

Yellow
Bright, zingy, fresh – yellow is the epitome of ‘happy’ and is a perfect choice for brands that want to stand out as positive and creative. Use with caution though as the colour is also often associated with cowardice and fear.

Uses: Independent travel consultant? Stand out from your competitors with a bold, yellow logo! The association of yellow with happiness and warm, sunny escapes is perfect to attract new clients. Yellow is also a great brand colour for fitness instructors and gyms as this colour makes us feel energised and optimistic!

Green
Green is associated with health, vitality, and environment. Often thought of as the perfect colour to portray positive health and well being. Negative connotations include envy and boredom.

Uses: Great in your branding if you want to convey freshness. People associate green with ‘Go’ making it another great choice for a CTA!

Blue
In 2015 a YouGov survey found that blue was the most popular colour in the world. Different shades of blue will elicit different reactions – pale blue is associated with calmness, clarity and serenity while dark/navy blue has connotations of trust, reliability and seriousness, making it a perfect choice for businesses such as banks and insurance companies.

Uses: Choose blue in your logo to convey a dependable, trustworthy brand.

Indigo
This colour – a deep, midnight blue – is symbolic of sincerity and integrity and is another option when you are trying to convey trust and tradition. It also pairs perfectly with bright colours such as magenta or turquoise which will help lighten the mood and energy.

Uses: Branding for traditional businesses such as funeral directors, educational institutions, banks.

Violet
Violet is often thought of as a regal colour. It symbolises wisdom, wealth, spirituality and sophistication. Negative connotations include depression and moodiness.

Uses: Stand out from the crowd with violet branding/logo. Violet is evocative of mindfulness, relaxation and well being making it a fantastic choice for Holistic Practitioners and Yoga Instructors.

It’s important to remember that colours can mean different things to different people – neurodivergent people may not react in the same way as someone who is neurotypical. Likewise, people with colourblindness might also have a different experience or reaction to the one intended.

Need help choosing the right colours for your logo, brand and marketing? Book a consultation and find out how we can help you pick the perfect palette.

We have talked before about the importance of marketing including making sure you have a marketing strategy and a budget. But in the current economic climate businesses are looking to make savings wherever they can and you might be questioning the value of marketing.

​This month we thought we’d take a look at how you can measure whether your marketing is giving you a good ROI (Return On Investment) by comparing how much you are spending on marketing with the revenue created.

How to measure marketing ROI
There is a simple formula you can use to measure marketing ROI but first you need to gather certain metrics:

• Number of leads: How many people converted to a lead?
• Lead-to-customer rate: From those leads what percentage converted into customers? Eg if 10 leads out of 100 converted into customers that gives you a lead to customer rate of 10%
• What is the average price of your product?
• How much did your marketing campaign cost? Include costs of the ads including staff costs of those who worked on the campaign.

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
CLV is another useful measure of ROI – a simple formula for calculating your CLV is:
CLV = (Average value of a transaction) x (Average number of transactions) x (Customer lifespan)

CLV is a great marketing analytic because it tells you how much a customer is likely to spend with you and gives you insights that will help you plan your marketing strategies.

But ROI isn’t just about financial measurements, you can also get a good indication of ROI from other sources:

• Increased brand awareness – A big marketing push is common among startups to increase brand awareness and carve a space in the market.
• New social media followers – While increased numbers alone doesn’t necessarily mean positive ROI, if the new followers are your target audience and are engaging with your content then they are more likely to become customers.
• Email newsletter signups – Email marketing is a valuable way of reaching both new and existing customers. Use email marketing to send personalised offers, deals and new products and services. Tracking sales attributed to email subscribers can help you decide whether to invest more or less time in your email marketing.

How you can Improve your ROI

• Set Clear SMART Goals: Be specific about what you want to achieve and set a deadline (and stick to it)
• Track your metrics: Google Analytics is great for keeping you up to date with important metrics such as sales, website traffic etc.
• Analyse the right metrics: There’s no point focussing on metrics that don’t help you achieve your goal. Wanting to increase revenue? Focus on conversion rates and CLV. Looking to increase brand awareness? Direct traffic and social media mentions will give you good insights.

Is your business marketing in need of a boost? Creative Remedy can help improve your ROI with a bespoke prescription for your business. Get in touch to find out more.

When you think of the word ‘brand’ what comes to mind? Do you imagine big brands’ such as McDonalds, Coca Cola or large supermarkets such as Tesco and Asda?

They’re all great examples of successful businesses that have managed to build recognisable and highly successful brands.

But every business, large and small, needs to focus on building their brand. It’s no small task, brands don’t become successful overnight and it takes hard work, determination and patience to build a strong and successful brand for your business.

What Makes a Brand Successful?
Aside from the above, there are steps every business must take to build a successful brand:

Market Research
Your brand will only succeed if you find out who your target audience is - you need to build trust and a lasting relationship with your customers so it’s imperative you learn who they are and what they want.

What is your Mission?
What are you trying to achieve? Why did you start your business? In order to create a successful brand you need to pin down what you're trying to achieve- all your branding including logo design will then reflect this ethos to reinforce your message to your audience.

What is your USP?
You need to stand out from your competitors so make sure you shout about what makes you different. What are your company values? Ethics? Do you offer locally sourced goods for example? Champion what makes your business unique.

Great Visual Assets
​Once you’ve established the above you can get creative and build your brand assets - your logo, colour palette, fonts etc.

Why Hire a Designer?
A professional designer has a swathe of skills and knowledge to help you build your brand. They know how to help you craft your story and can help you find your audience. Not only that, they can take your story and USP and together create the perfect logo and other visual assets to determine your unique brand style.

You might think you know exactly how you want your logo to look but a designer can help you push the boundaries and create something truly spectacular. Their knowledge of colour and how it will work on the web and in print will be invaluable- get ready for hexadecimal triplets and Pantone chats over a cup of coffee!

Even after you’ve established your brand image, you need to reinforce that image at every customer touch point. Website, social media, email marketing, in print and your physical premises - all need to give out the same message using the same brand imagery. Your designer will ensure your logo is the correct format for every requirement - print ready and web optimised.

Ultimately, a great designer will save you time and money in the long run. They can be on hand at every step in building your brand and can help ensure you stay true to your brand values, message and story.

Are you struggling to establish your brand? We can help bring your brand to life, contact us for more information: Contact Creative Remedy

You can’t have failed to have noticed the buzz surrounding the recent launch of ChatGPT. Initial excitement may have waned a little but with version 4 recently made available to paying subscribers, it is certainly making its mark. Its release took the world by storm as us mere humans watched in awe as the AI spat out written content based on carefully constructed prompts.

First thoughts for those who rely on creative jobs in order to earn a living may well have been ones of dread and fear, afterall, if AI can write content or produce images in a fraction of the time it takes a human, is there any need for the human to have this job at all?

It’s a complex question and the answer will no doubt change as time goes on and AI becomes even more intelligent. But, for now at least, although AI is absolutely a tool that can aid the creative processes of many jobs it is a tool that still requires the human touch.

Using AI For Content Creation
Struggling for ideas for content creation? It can be hard to be able to keep up with the constant need to post content and AI is a great tool to help when you’ve got writer's block. Just one prompt can yield multiple ideas for content, saving you valuable time and allowing you to get on with the writing/creating part.

With design and art, AI can create ideas you might not have thought of. Instead of seeing AI as a way of producing the finished piece, it could become more a part of the ideas process, speeding up the initial ‘thinking’ part before you execute the final design.
AI is a great tool that is advancing at great speed. But we need to be sure what we are posting or creating is safe and legal.

Plagiarism
One obvious yet often ignored problem with using AI for content creation is the risk of plagiarism. If you ask a chat bot to write you a blog it will scrape content from multiple sources and will not provide citation. If you choose to write content in this way you run the risk of plagiarising published work.

Misinformation
Because AI doesn't provide evidence or citations you have no way of knowing if what it has written is actually true. We are all painfully aware of the dangers of misinformation so to avoid posting false information it is very important to check anything written using AI.

Content creation is a huge part of a brand’s identity. In order to build a loyal customer base, brands rely on having a unique voice and message that conveys their brand ethos. If this voice isn’t consistent or the messages don’t match the brand values then customers will lose trust.

In order for AI to produce unique content it needs to be told how to do it. No matter how good AI is it still needs to be trained to be able to write in the unique voice of an individual business. For small businesses in particular, that unique voice and message is what will set you apart from your competitors.
When creating content and designs for your business you need to ensure you are delivering:

• Personal touch
• Unique voice/message
• Stand out from competitors/big brands
  
  

This will help protect your brand and ensure your customers continue to put their trust in you and your business.

AI for Design
There has been a lot of backlash from artists and creators surrounding the training of the technology, as it scrapes images from the internet and mashes them together to answer the prompts. Artists rightly protest their work being used without consent or credit.

As well as potentially infringing copyrighted work there is also no way to copyright any work produced by AI- so even if it produces something you want to use as a logo for example, there would be nothing to stop anyone else using the same image for their logo.

Adobe’s hotly anticipated release of Firefly may answer some of those concerns as they have trained their technology on Adobe stock images, openly licensed content and public domain content where copyright has expired. In a bid to help creators produce great designs regardless of their skill levels, Adobe’s Firefly could be a tool that allows users to improve their working practices. It has to be noted that it is not currently possible to opt-out of data set training for content submitted to Stock, although Adobe do say they are looking at ways to make this a possibility in the future.

Personally, I’m a little worried that AI will make it harder to tell what is fact and what is misinformation eg. when doing web searches or reading ‘news’ on social media platforms.

AI is constantly evolving and is definitely here to stay, but for now, is it best used as a tool to help optimise our workflow to avoid running the risk of producing soulless and generic creative work.   And, if content is wholly written by AI do you think it should be credited as such so that readers can verify its accuracy?

Written by Louise Lockhart at Creative Remedy