What Creatives Think

MARKET RESEARCH

Data Demographics

About the
Respondents

Respondents

301 people who work for creative or marketing agencies and whose job involves image creation/manipulation.

301
CREATIVES
RESPONDED

Region Numbers

Region Percent
London 30%
East of England 24%
South East 10%
East Midlands 6%
Yorkshire & Humber 5%
North East 4%
Northern Ireland 4%
Scotland 4%
South West 4%
Wales 3%
West Midlands 3%
North West 2%

Lost in Translation

How long it takes to agree on a creative idea with a client


Time Percent
1-3 days 20.6%
Less than a day 2.6%
4-6 days 35.9%
Three weeks-one month 8.6%
One-two weeks 29.9%
Two-three months 2%

17%

Business Owner

23%

Director

27%

Senior Manager

16%

Middle Manager

17%

Junior Level

Creative Struggles

More than 70% of respondents said they experience the following unhelpful client behaviours at least once a week.

Unspecific feedback that is difficult to take onboard.

Micromanaging and restricting the creative process

Unrealistic Deadlines

Replies and feedback taking too much time to come back.

Clients don't really know what they want.

Changing their mind halfway through resulting in wasted work.

Creative Struggles

64% find that getting a colleague or
client to see their vision can be
lengthy and/or frustrating.

frustrating process

And these frustrations are all too clear and familiar when creatives share their stories of difficult clients.

Ah there was this one where I spent 2 weeks working on a project, spent hours doing all the creative work and illustrations and then they came to me and completely changed their entire idea. I had to start from scratch all over again.

Don't give a clear brief. Then on review of my work give very specific feedback that would've helped the first time around. Giving feedback that is based on their personal preference, not what's best for the target audience.

I had a client that had a vision in their brain that we just couldn't match. In the end, after 17 versions they failed to pay.

Most clients demand nothing but 100% on my job... They pay extreme attention to details and I must follow it to the letter. This could be stressful but in the end, I would rather deliver a perfect job and my client is satisfied.

AI Adoption

Could AI Help? How do the
creatives feel about AI?

THREAT

3 in 4 creatives see AI as a direct threat to their job/livelihood

RISK

3 in 4 creatives feel they need to learn how to use AI or risk losing their job

PROCESS

3 in 4 creatives are open to using AI as part of their creative process

TOOLS

3 in 4 creatives believe AI will be a part of the creative tools they use every day in the next year

But 65% of creatives find the current generative AI image tools to be unhelpful/not relevant professionaly

AI Adoption

72% of creatives say they would would use AI more often as part of their creative process if the images/suggestions were less derivative

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