Digitas UK’s Creative Leaders on The Agency’s Digital Empire

CS: For both of you during your time at Digitas, what do you feel has changed? What do you think you’ve brought to the table to help drive that mission to create impact?

CO: For me, it’s really about championing capital-C Creative. I’m a passionate person, full of energy, and I can’t hide that. I genuinely believe in the power of creativity. 

One of the first things I did when I joined was help rebrand the agency. That wasn’t about change for the sake of it – it was about injecting energy, momentum, and reflecting the level of quality we already had.

I came in thinking, ‘We do some amazing work, and no one knows about it’. The humility was great, but I felt people needed to see what we’re capable of. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy – once you start showcasing it, others want to be part of it. You feel the ripple effect.

Another shift was breaking down silos. Before, the experience team was separate from the creative team. Now it’s all one department – experience, visual design, and creative in the traditional sense. We’ve also worked hard to integrate with strategy, data, media, tech, and product teams. The question became: ‘How can we collaborate better?’ Because when we do, we make cool stuff. 

BC: From the EE side, when I joined, the setup was totally different. There were a couple of people working on the account, but it felt like a hierarchy – the lead agency would drive things, and the rest of us would come in at the end to do our bits. That’s changed massively – partly because of shifts in the media landscape, and partly because of EE’s evolving needs. Now, more often than not, we’re right at the forefront of campaigns alongside Saatchi & Saatchi. And that shift, combined with the energy and attitude Carren just described, has totally changed the team’s confidence.

CO: At the start of this year, I told all the ECDs: ‘This is the year to make your mark’. I even joked that if nobody brings me a problem caused by someone pushing the envelope, I’ll be a little disappointed. It’s about having the courage to disrupt.

CS: Off the back of Cannes Lions’ State of Creativity Report 2025, and the finding that only 13 per cent of businesses feel they can take risks with their work, how can agencies work with marketers and clients to encourage them to take those risks?

BC: We’re talking about imagination and innovation – and by definition, innovation means doing something that hasn’t been done before. That’s inherently risky. We can’t avoid it. It’s part of the job. If we’re not taking risks, we’re not doing what we’re here for. It’s essential, and it has to be part of the mindset – in our teams, and in the people we hire. We can’t afford to play it safe.

CO: I find that stat disheartening but also motivating. If only 13 per cent feel they’re taking risks, that means there’s huge opportunity to help shift that. One of our values at Digitas is ‘risk pays off’, but honestly, I think the industry talks a bigger game than it plays. We like to sound provocative, but we’re not always walking the walk.

I get it – clients are under immense pressure and scrutiny, probably more than ever before. And with data, we now have proof of what works and what doesn’t. But sometimes, the data doesn’t tell the full story. It can become a crutch – even a blocker, and create a culture of fear. Playing it safe might be the riskiest move of all.

For a while, our industry loved doing things just because they were wild. But now, it’s about strategic risk – believing in your gut, not just relying on a machine to tell you it’s right.

CS: How have you been integrating AI into your work? 

CO: AI isn’t entirely new to us as an agency – we’ve been working with it in different forms for years. What’s changed is the processing power – now it’s more accessible so it’s become the buzzword.

Last year, we partnered with the University of Bath and our strategy partner Caitriona Gallagher – especially around the Game Store work, and she pointed out that many studies claiming AI is ‘more creative than humans’ were done on engineers – left-brain thinkers. We thought, let’s do our own study focused on creatives.

Together, we developed proprietary research into the impact of large language models (LLMs) on the creative ideation process. We ran it across our creative department and a broader public sample. 

We found three key insights:

• Humans in collaboration with AI came up with more innovative solutions. 

• Ideas were evaluated more quickly, which meant faster iteration – and ultimately, better outcomes in less time.

• Stigma around AI-generated work is fading. People were generally neutral about whether something was created by AI.

We now use these tools as collaborators in what I call an infinite loop of design and ideation. That OOH work in Unreal was just the beginning and that was back in November. 

Now I can take a vision in my head that might’ve taken six weeks to render, see it immediately, and keep iterating. That speed of creation opens up so much potential – not just in what we make, but how we make it.

BC: While that’s one end of the spectrum, on the other end, we’re using AI to create work about AI, helping people live with it.

There’s the other end with AI aside from how we operate as a business, but how we use it for our clients. So for instance, the ‘healthy data’ platform – one of the skills we’ve got on there is just teaching kids how to live with AI – how to interrogate the source of information you’re getting, how to spot deep fakes.

CS: What campaigns are you most proud of and why?

BC: The work we’ve done for BAFTA really stands out. It’s all about creating real value for kids – connecting them to opportunities through film, whether it’s roles on set or access to creative experiences, often through social activations. It’s purposeful and makes a difference.

Another one is our work on the Euros with Saatchi & Saatchi for EE’s ‘Hate, Not In My Shirt campaign’. Football culture can still come with a lot of toxicity, and we wanted to address that. So we created the ‘Crowd Supporter’ programme – a set of films and content aimed at parents and kids, offering them tools and language to deal with hate in the game.