In a World of Spreadsheets, Be the Sketchpad

Creativity: The Strategic Superpower Hiding in Plain Sight

When people think about marketing in technical industries like automotive, defence, or heavy equipment, the word “creativity” often doesn’t make the starting lineup. You’ve got your engineering, your data, your manufacturing processes, your Six Sigma… and then, somewhere at the bottom of the spreadsheet, someone’s added a line item called “brand colours”.

But here’s the thing – creativity isn’t just about making things look nice or creating punchy taglines. It’s not only about producing visuals that ‘pop’ at a trade show (although that helps). Creativity is a strategic tool. An essential ingredient. A force multiplier. And I’d argue, it’s one of the most valuable assets a business, especially a technical one, can have.

At CMB, we’ve always believed that creativity sits right at the core of strategic marketing. In fact, it’s baked into our story. Our agency was born out of the recognition that highly engineered products and highly intelligent teams weren’t always being matched with equally intelligent marketing. We saw brilliant businesses doing brilliant things… and communicating like a broken fax machine.

So we decided to fix that.

We built an agency that blends strategic thinking with creative problem solving – not as two separate departments who occasionally talk over Teams, but as one integrated process. Because when creativity lives inside your thinking, not just in your design software, that’s when the magic happens.

Creativity isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s a differentiator

Let’s be clear: creativity is not the opposite of strategy. Creativity is strategy. It’s how you take a business goal and turn it into something people care about. Something they notice. Remember. Feel drawn to. In marketing, differentiation isn’t optional, is kind of the point. And you don’t get differentiation from benchmarks and best practices alone.

As Marketing Professor, Mark Ritson, says (and we quite agree), strong brands use brand codes (distinctive assets like colours, shapes, typography, tone of voice) that create memory structures. They make you recognisable. But it takes creative thinking to identify, shape and own those codes. It takes even more creativity to make them work consistently across markets, audiences and touchpoints.

Creativity isn’t just for your design team – it’s for your boardroom.

Creative thinking solves real problems. Even the expensive ones.

Take the famous Rory Sutherland example, which I never tire of quoting – because it’s both funny and painfully accurate. Eurostar wanted to improve customer satisfaction. Naturally, the engineers suggested cutting travel time. Logical, yes. And ruinously expensive.

They spent billions shaving off 40 minutes. But what if, Rory asks, they’d just added really good Wi-Fi? Or onboard entertainment? Or celebrity chefs serving wine in the aisles? Customer happiness up. Engineering budget – still intact.

That’s creative thinking: reframing the problem to find unexpected, and often better, solutions.

I see this all the time in our world. Clients want to generate more leads, so they pour budget into PPC or conference events or more social media. Sometimes that’s right. But sometimes, the real opportunity is a repositioning exercise, a new narrative, or a brand refresh that actually speaks to their audience. Sometimes, it’s building internal alignment so the message doesn’t fall apart once a prospect calls. These aren’t just cosmetic changes, they’re creative strategic choices that unlock real value.

In a technical world, creativity is your competitive edge.

Look, we work with a lot of engineers. Brilliant people. Logical, precise, data-driven. But even they know – deep down – that creativity matters. It’s what makes people want the thing you’ve so brilliantly built. It’s what turns spec sheets into compelling stories. It’s what helps you zig when everyone else is zagging – in beige.

Creative thinking helps you:

Solve internal and external problems more effectively
Communicate complex ideas in a simple, human way
Find new market opportunities
Build emotional connection with customers (yes, even B2B ones)
Identify potential new revenue streams
Bring purpose, energy, and yes, a little beauty, into industries that often feel a bit grey

And the science backs it up (kind of – look, I’m not a neuroscientist, but someone is, and they seem to think it works).

My thoughts…

You don’t have to be an “artist” to be creative. You just need the willingness to look at problems differently. To resist the obvious answer. To connect the dots others don’t see. That’s how innovation happens. That’s how strategy becomes memorable. And that’s how businesses – even the most technical, engineering-led ones – connect emotionally and create real, sustainable value.

So if you’re still treating creativity as window dressing, it’s time to invite it into the engine room. It might just be your biggest strategic advantage.

P.S. Here’s that Rory Sutherland video if you’ve not seen it — https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Bywe3NUOB1I Watch it. You’ll thank me later!