At adfest 2026, Donal Keenan, Chief Operating Officer of D&AD in London, presented “Creative Bravery.” His session looked at why creative excellence still matters when people are surrounded by more content, more distractions and more brands fighting for attention.
Keenan began by asking why creativity and creative excellence matter. For D&AD, creativity is one of the industry’s most powerful tools. It can drive business, solve social challenges and shape the world people want to live in. Creative excellence takes that further. It is the work that turns heads, holds attention and makes brands memorable.
Research compiled by D&AD and System1 showed that creative excellence can outperform standard work and act as a growth multiplier. Emotionally engaging, clearly branded and consistently run campaigns also generate significantly higher profits. With more work competing for attention, raising the standard becomes increasingly important.
Keenan broke creative bravery into five areas: Unmistakably Human, Brand DNA, Connection, Simplicity and Radical Candour. Together, they showed where brands can find more room to stand out.
The human side of creativity becomes more valuable as more work is automated. Keenan pointed to humour, emotion, sensitivity, imperfection and the weirdness that comes from people thinking in unexpected ways.
Cheetos turned a small piece of human behaviour into a campaign. Since 99% of people eat Cheetos with their dominant hand, The Other Hand imagined what would happen if they had to do everything else with their non-dominant one. The result was funny, irreverent and unmistakably Cheetos.
Keenan encouraged creatives to take a leap of faith, lean into imperfections and bring something algorithms cannot. In a sea of blandness, those human quirks can give people something to connect with and remember.
Only 5% of brands are considered unique by consumers. That leaves most brands competing in a space where people see little difference between one and another.
LEGO rebuilt its identity around something already its own: the brick. More than 110 design principles were reduced to five, with the way LEGO pieces connect carried through typography, motion, colour and layout. The system created more consistency while keeping play at the centre of the brand.
Nike took a stand to cement its brand DNA through its Colin Kaepernick campaign. The work took a clear position and created strong reactions both for and against it. For Keenan, having a voice can be part of what makes a brand recognisable, as long as it knows what it stands for and is prepared to stand behind it.
The advice was to find what is genuinely different about the brand, build from it and show up consistently. Once that foundation is clear, there is more room to experiment and break the rules.
Creators now play a major role in how brands reach communities. Keenan shared research showing that 61% of consumers trust recommendations from creators more than brand advertising, making the relationship increasingly important.
Amazon Prime Belgium worked with three local creators to make Prime feel more connected to Belgian culture for its Money Can’t Buy Experiences campaign. Average Rob created the Prime Turbo Triathlon, Pablo Andres staged a comedy show in the bar where he began his career, and Amber Broos hosted a rave inside an Amazon warehouse.
The campaign brought in 1,400 Prime members, generated more than 1,000 pieces of user-generated content and over 4 million views, with zero paid media.
Keenan reduced the approach to three things:
Start with a clear strategy.
Treat creators and communities as creative partners.
Play the long game.
Creators understand their audiences and communities better than brands ever can. Working with that knowledge can build much more than a short spike in attention.
Clear communication takes discipline, especially when brands are tempted to fit several messages into the same piece of work.
It’s A Tide Ad was built around one observation: if everyone in an advertisement is wearing perfectly clean clothes, perhaps every ad is a Tide ad. That idea was clear enough to work across familiar Super Bowl advertising formats without losing the product at the centre.
Penny Price Packs used design in a similarly direct way. During a period of grocery inflation in Germany, Penny committed to fixed prices by printing them on the packaging. In bold, giant numbers for all to see. It was the brand’s commitment to price stability like no other. A simple idea to convey a brand’s promise.
Human truth can create memorable work when the brand has something real to say. Keenan shared research showing that 80% of people trust brands they use, giving brands an opportunity to speak openly about experiences people recognise.
A Burger King campaign, Bundles of Joy, began with the insight that 33% of women wanted a burger after giving birth. The work showed new mothers in a raw way rarely seen in advertising and drew strong reactions from both sides. As the conversation grew, Burger King continued the campaign and offered free Whoppers to new mothers.
Keenan warned against jumping onto social issues or trends simply because they are current. The truth has to be real, make sense for the brand and be different from what everyone else in the category could say. Human truth and human inventiveness, he said, are key ingredients in memorable work.
Keenan touched on AI at the end of the session. While Keenan encouraged creatives to use it, learn it and understand its capabilities, he recognises that simply using AI is no longer impressive. It can be powerful for inputs and outputs, but people still bring the emotion, weirdness, critical thinking, taste and wisdom that shape the work. Humanity will always be the superpower. Humanity is a creative advantage. Our emotions, quirks, imperfections and unexpected perspectives are what allow us to connect with audiences in ways that generic, automated content cannot.
He wrapped up with Volvo Trucks’ Epic Split as a reminder of what craft can do to a simple idea. The idea is easy to understand. The execution made it iconic.
Creative excellence takes bravery. It demands curiosity, conviction and an unwavering commitment to craft. Keenan closed where he began: creativity works. Believe in it.
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