Oliver Atkinson sits down with global brand strategist Sabrina Godden, fresh off her tenure as Vodafone’s Global Creative Director, to explore how authenticity can survive when machines do the heavy lifting. Discover why the best prompt you can give an AI is “Tell me why this idea won’t work,” and dive into the mindset shift that keeps human judgment at the center of every campaign.

The discussion ranges from a playful riff on AI as a “creative intern” to the hard realities of scaling content responsibly in heavily regulated markets.

With analysts predicting that AI-made media will triple by 2026, learn how a critical, curiosity-driven process turns automation into competitive advantage rather than brand risk.

For marketers, creatives and business leaders, this episode delivers actionable insights on anchoring ideas in brand purpose, stress-testing creative through iterative sprints, and using automation to amplify, not replace, emotional storytelling.

 

01:54 The journey into AI implementation and integrating technology with human creativity in the creative process

08:48 Emotional resonance and whether AI-generated content can create genuine goosebumps, hair-raising moments, or authentic human connection

14:14 The risk of AI becoming the "Google Maps of creativity" and potentially weakening our creative brain muscles through over-reliance

24:09 The massive sustainability and regulatory challenges facing AI adoption, including environmental impact and resource consumption

33:54 Whether creatives are genuinely under threat in the new AI-driven world or if it's an opportunity for amplification

 

Oliver (00:00)
everyone, welcome back to the audience connection. Today I'm excited to have
the brilliant Sabrina Godden with me. Sabz has a wealth of experience from
both agency and client side. So she was most recently global creative director
at Vodafone and is now stepping into a very senior role as a global brand. We
can't say much more about that, but.
She's a passionate advocate for using AI in the creative process. And so in this
episode, we're exploring authenticity in the age of AI, what it truly means, how
to stay human in a world of automation.

Oliver (01:08)
Sabz, it's fantastic to have you here and thank you for
It's the Audience Connection podcast. So who is your audience and how do
you connect with them?

Sabs Godden (00:43)
Thanks, Olly Thanks so much for having me. Super excited to be here, first of
all. So who's my audience? Who do I talk to? To lots of different audiences, mostly
or maybe in the same way or none of the same way at the same time. As a
creative director within a global or a huge company, you have stakeholders
internally, which you have to speak to in one way. But then also you have
teams. You have to talk to, communicate and connect.
But then also you have your wider audiences, your actual clients. And they're
obviously and always the most important. And as a creative, I strongly believe
that creativity is a universal language that connects us. It's really finding to
bridge these gaps between brands and audiences, really tap into people who
have, you know, simple problems, whether that's connectivity at the moment.
⁓ gadgets that don't work, cars that don't run. ⁓ As a creative you are a
problem solver so we speak to people who need to have problems that need to
be solved.

Oliver (01:54)
yeah, and creativity is not just limited to one area, it? It covers absolutely
everything. It sounds like ⁓ you're spinning an awful lot of plates. that instance,
presumably AI is incredibly alluring for someone in your position, but how did
you get started with your AI journey? When did you first start to implement it
into your

Sabs Godden (02:16)
think probably need to take even a step further back. Yes, AI is super important
now and I will get to that point, but I think it's creativity and technology. It's not just AI. So I've been in the industry for quite a few years now. And technology,
always loved to integrate technology in our creativity and the creative journey.
And now that we have AI,
I have talked about that maybe 10 years ago for the first time and now we go
into Gen.ai where it becomes much more accessible and probably more
tangible because people can see outputs, they have a better understanding of
the impact of the technology that's been with us for many, years. With having
to wear multiple hats in my position in this role, it's really
Bridging, I'm always about bridging gaps, you know, between technology and
human creativity, but also integrating AI and GenAI in our teams to enable my
team members to have bigger impacts, to become more efficient, but also more
effective.
someone asked me the other day, where should they use AI? Where should
they use it the first?
a good point is to think about what do you not like about your job? Why do you
really hate, know, is there certain tasks you could easily shove away? I know
someone came up with this example, you could use the AI to wash your dishes
and you're doing your folding while you can focus on the stuff you love. And in
some ways you can use it for that. And there's a way I can use it within our
teams with people and we say, use it for the stuff you don't want to do. And it
can really help you.
But there's the more exciting part of it where we use it to amplify what you
want to achieve potentially, but make sure that you remain critical and you
remain to be seated in that driving seat. So it's not suddenly taking over for
you, but really use it to your own benefit. And while you do that, always
embrace the unexpected, learn from it and have fun with it.

Oliver (04:35)
Yeah,
you're asking people to just embrace it and go with it, I do also think that
humans are inherently lazy. And there's a real temptation to just let AI do
absolutely everything. What would be your advice on somebody who's looking
at this, basically getting chat GPT to write the script, you know, doing
absolutely everything.
What would your advice be to them and how to kind of add that human element
back in?

Sabs Godden (05:03)
You are right, humans are lazy. I'm teaching a course at the moment that is AI and creativity. And it's quite interesting. It's a fantastic audience. I love all the
engaging conversations we have. What sometimes comes through, and not just
in that course, but when I meet people, we talk often about that is people
haven't got the patience. We have no fantastic tools that help us to be faster
than we've ever been before. Also, region creates stuff we weren't.
weren't capable or it took us much longer to get to the point. So people then
think, because they have to tech, they could just do that super quickly and then
they're having, they're having done. But then people get frustrated because the
output isn't as good as they want it. So it is, for me, don't be lazy, because
when you're lazy, and that was well before Gen.ai, when you're lazy and you're
trying to use shortcuts,

Oliver (05:36)
Mm

Sabs Godden (06:00)
in the end that will come out and do a fail. Let's go back when people started
about internet, when creatives suddenly had to face the brutal reality there's
Fivver online where you can go and download logos. Why do you need an
identity designer anymore? Why do you need graphic designers anymore? And
their companies, they're lazy, their people are lazy. I think if I could just do that,
we can fix that. You can botch something together. We all know that the 60
makeovers
aren't as good as they look like when you watch them on TV. There is a lot of
stuff you need to go and fix afterwards. So sure, use it in your journey. I use it
on a daily basis and as I said, experiment with it. But if you become lazy and
you just use an AI, then we get to the danger that everything will look the same.
To a moment, people a lot often,
blame technology, blame AI for the fact everything will start to look the same. I
do agree to that if we are becoming lazy and less critical and let it do all the
work for us. But if we really remain, as again going back what I said, remain
critical, know, be cautious how we want to use it and we really drive it, that
will...
Remain those people who are not lazy, who really go into the nitty gritty of it,
know, who really twisty, bendy, who ask the questions. They are more
uncomfortable and have this chat, this banter with technology. Now, they will
stand out. Lazy people, they will just drop off at some point.

Oliver (07:48)
Yeah, yeah. It's like there's this whole thing about AI slop, isn't there? And it's
going to fill the internet with AI slop. And really the internet is already full of
terrible stock edits and terrible, know, there's loads of terrible work out there
already. That's not AI that's doing that. That's us,
Emotional resonance is why it still matters. So that feeling of connection, the
goosebumps, the hair on the neck, the lump in the throat. Have you ever had
that from AI generated content?

Sabs Godden (08:48)
where we use it the most. And I'm going to get to that raising like hair in a
minute. We are using it quite a lot and helps our team where we using this
much more with content scaling. Because we have a fairly small team that
needs to create thousands of assets for campaign activities. Then we are really
using the AI within the content production.

Oliver (08:56)
Hmm.

Sabs Godden (09:15)
We've had the ideas and the ideas was 100 % human creative, but we're using
now the tools to really amplify the content following the creative direction
we've given it.
We haven't created a single piece that would really give you the goosebumps
yet, you know, to be completely honest. However, I have seen pieces and that's
probably more from individuals who they were their film directors, their art
directors, their people exploring the storytelling through AI. What has given me
the goosebumps?

Oliver (09:37)
Mm-hmm.

Sabs Godden (09:56)
It's not the tech, you the output. It's still the idea behind the film, behind the
content that's giving the goosebumps. I have a very talented video editor in my
team and she's experimenting a lot with that. And sadly, can't show it here, but
she created a very short video just to test certain tools.
And the story behind it nearly had me in tears, but it was just the human
storytelling behind it. What I found really fascinating is the tools she used and
how much she pushed it. If I would have not had known this was AI, I didn't,
you wouldn't have seen it. But that goes back to me that we're the storytellers.
What makes us humans are the stories we have and the stories.

Oliver (10:42)
Mm.

Sabs Godden (10:52)
we create and with the stories we grow. And I think we can really use the
technology. I'm a strong believer to amplify that and bring it to life. It's not to
tech that gives us the goose bumps. It's still the humans that make that
happen. But we can now make that happen maybe slightly quicker, with less,
yes, with less effort, with less production.
set up behind it, but it allows people to really bring their own stories to life.
Again, the example I'm talking about with the team member who tried that, she
played a lot around, know, which tool is the best one when it comes to human
characters, to human emotions, to details within skin. And I think that's where
we really need to look into and be critical and play with and see how far can we
push it that we can
authentically express these emotions we have with the help of AI.

Oliver (11:54)
Yeah, and I think there's a... ⁓
a new challenge where we actually need to change how we think creatively. So
before you would sort of assess a project and go, okay, this is how I'm going to
execute that. the rules have changed so much in the last few weeks. I think on
our discovery call, it was a couple of weeks ago and I think Google VO3
launched the same day or something that we had our chat. And so I was about
to just looking back and I was like, well, so much has happened since I spoke to
Sabir. I think it must have been ages ago, but actually it's only two weeks. And
so it's changing.

Sabs Godden (12:24)
Okay.

Oliver (12:26)
so much but we we need to
stretch ourselves creatively of how to use this new tool and I still think we're in
our infancy there on how we approach it.

Sabs Godden (12:36)
And we are. look, there is, again, I find it super exciting we're here now. I've got
a nine year old who loves to create his own videos. And I think I've talked about
it yesterday. He's created a tie and donuts eating babies. And I think
something's wrong about that. But there are amazing tools out here where we
can really play and play around. And as you said, Veo 3 just came out and it's
mind blowing how far that step, that big leap that happened just by ⁓ this
update now.
⁓

Sabs Godden (13:07)
You're not a creative genius just by using it.
And a lot just throw everything at it because it's just there and they're using it
because of it, because you can, but it's still, I think we need to be careful how
we're using it. And yes, there is a lot of rubbish out there. And just because you
use AI to produce it doesn't make it better. That doesn't make it...

Oliver (13:24)
Yeah.

Sabs Godden (13:30)
justified that you should be doing that in my opinion. ⁓ But it's good people
learn with it and people should have fun and I think sometimes we need to take
a step back and be honest about it rather than expecting everything or
everyone creates needs to be perfect, brilliant, excellent. We should also be
honest and say look I've just had some fun with this and that happened. Yes by
far this is not perfect this is by

Oliver (13:34)
Hmm

Sabs Godden (13:59)
far not the final piece, but it's just to see what's possible and I think that's
where we should allow, maybe be less judgmental ourselves whilst, and again
going back, still be critical about the actual end output.

Oliver (14:14)
Yeah, yeah, I think you're right. mean, however, do you think there's a risk if we
do lean on AI a bit too much that it becomes the Google Maps of creativity and  we all forget how to create something we lose our, you know, the brain is a
muscle and we do need to exercise it to keep it going. And it does feel like
there might be, you know, if we you rely on it too much, I guess this goes back
to your initial point about, know, don't be lazy.
make sure you're putting that into your place. Where is the human section in
your workflow where that's the human bit where you input and then you do an
AI sprint and then you go back to a human input side of it. do you think that
we're at a risk of becoming, know, reducing that area of our creative area of
our brain because we're leaning on it too much?

Sabs Godden (15:03)
I think there will be a divide. I
people who want to, always have been and have that ability to drive creativity,
have that true creativity at heart, they will not let go of that. They will not hand
that over just because they have the tool. They see the benefit of the tool.
But you'll have others who will, they will use it because it's there and they think
they, that's what they should be doing. And they use it because in their nature
and there's no judgment here. are, I don't know, they are slightly lazier or they
just, they feel they can fix everything with the technology now. That's where
the divide will be. we've seen this and this is a repetition that goes back to, you
know, suddenly
We've had no tech, then we've had tech. So everyone was a web designer,
everyone was a web agency and you've had them overnight. You've had them
in every corner. Two years later, 75 % was gone again and we've had 25 %
who actually succeeded because they knew what they were talking about.
They understood the technology, they understood the drive. I think we have a
similar thing. It creates massive opportunity.

Sabs Godden (16:22)
And there's a lot of people who jump on that. You suddenly have a lot of
specialists. I think true creatives, they will stick to their true creativity and that
will be human driven and they will elevate their positions, I think, because they
are embracing the technology. People who use it as a shortcut, they will be
here for a while. There will be a lot of noise, but I think that noise will dim down.

Oliver (16:49)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree. And what would you say about the, I think when we
did our call initially, we were talking about authenticity and what it means to be
authentic. Now you've got all these new platforms where you can create
footage by a prompt and it appears and it's so real, you can't tell the difference.
And so authenticity is so important in connecting and it's used as a word all
over by brands for that. And but do think we're entering into a new era where
authenticity is different now?

Sabs Godden (17:24)
we do. Authenticity is more important than ever, I suppose, for a brand. think an
authentic brand will always succeed. There's different ways of authenticity.
think we'll talk about that in a moment. People are quite critical when they, as
soon as they know something's been created with AI. And there's without.
And quite often you see, think specifically in our industry, that people are quite
often too poo poo over something or point to finger something because they
know it's being created by AI and they feel it's less authentic. I feel that that
part will go away and we will accept that the majority of the content we
creating will be created through AI. This will become part of who we are and
how we create and how we produce. That's the tech with
we will do all of that. For brands to be authentic, that is extremely important.
But that means they need to stick to their vision, their mission, their purpose
even more so and not just because they have to technology now or let their
influence and derive from that. People are more critical about how a brand
talks, how it makes them feel, where we will take them. Then
potentially whether that single asset is being created by or with support of AI.

Oliver (18:53)
Yeah, and
obviously being done very well by some brands and not so well in others. What
would you say are the red flags to look out for if you can see a brand that's,
you know, if a brand's disappearing down an AI hole, what would you say is the
kind of watch out?

Sabs Godden (19:10)
well, there's so many brands, companies, services who just include AI to
whatever they've done. They've never spoke about it. It was never been there.
And I think that's definitely a huge watch out. Brands who stick to their voice,
their same language. I think that's the brands you can trust. think it becomes
sticky and dodgy to brands who

Oliver (19:20)
Mm.

Sabs Godden (19:36)
constantly change their direction with the wind or depending what the wind
blows. I think you need to stick to your vision to what makes you you, what
makes you really connect with your audience to have that deep understanding
of your audience, what they seek, what they need, what their pain points are
and that's how you connect to them.
not constantly changed that and trying to reinvent. know that, you know,
brands with heritage, brands who were consistent ⁓ despite the fact there was
a new trend coming in despite the fact we have a new teacher. These were the
brands who were most successful throughout history. I think they need to
remain and they need to stick to that.

Oliver (20:24)
Yeah, it's those guiding principles that will get you through an industrial
revolution essentially. Yeah. What would you say is a kind of way to foster AI
and creativity within the team? What's the best language to use? How do you
start to do that in a team? If you've got a brand that they're looking to
implement more AI in their process, what's a good starting point?

Sabs Godden (20:27)
Yes.
think it's understand that people feel differently within the team. You will have
teams who are super excited. You have individuals who are super excited about
it and you have individuals who are very critical about it and rightly so. And you
have individuals who are scared about it. And there's different views or
different points and reasons why people are scared. It's one, yes, there's the
whole point of, it take my job? Will we suddenly not be sitting here? But there's
still the bits that people who start embracing your style working in and then feel
like,
Are they cheating? You know, there's the element of if I tell someone that I'm
using AI, are we still doing the job properly or are we now being lazy? Going
back to that answer. And then comes the third is they using AI, they've actually
been successful. But then it goes back to the beginning. So I've now used AI,
I've been successful. That was really good. But that doesn't mean if I go and
tell them I've used AI and that was really good. Okay, now.

Oliver (21:29)
Hmm.

Sabs Godden (21:46)
am I being replaced again? So there's, lots of different things. think it's bringing
understanding or respecting that people have different viewpoints of that. And
then integrating into places, I think one of the biggest places is where you see
big pain points within a team or within a, within a workflow. And these
workframes or workflows that they look differently in each agency or company,
but where you can
take a heavy weight of someone's shoulder by telling them, there is support for
you. We can take that off of you. And therefore, you have the chance to
actually concentrate more on the strategic point of view. But then where we do
is also fun when it comes to creativity is invite it to your brainstorming
sessions. I think similar brainstorming sessions are hugely misleading. They
hardly ever work because people are under so much pressure. You hear the
same voices all the time. The other people are
The quiet ones are always quiet. But by bringing that third neutral party in, you
can just throw it at it and see what comes out. And that can open up amazing
conversations, whether everyone's happy to point a finger at bloody AI who's
just created something that's completely useless. Even that is a good starting
point, know, because it's...
It's an So you think it's identify the pain points and that's where you can take
weight off your staff or weight off your team members, but integrate any, by
letting them have a little bit of fun with it and by growing with it. And it's that
person, as I said, you can point a finger at, and you don't have to worry about
AHR going to say anything if you're even rude to it. So there's different ways of
how you can do that.

Oliver (23:31)
Yeah

Yeah, and I think that's important that you mentioned there about having a
quieter member of the team in the room and then trying to kind of, you know,
get that out of, know, getting ideas out of, they might be quieter, but they might
have some brilliant ideas. And if they're able to bounce that off AI or kind of
formulate that in some way before presenting it, that could give them more
confidence to share something, right? So that could be a real positive as
Obviously, there are...
massive sustainability and regulatory issues with AI. What's your take on all of
that? Big question.

Sabs Godden (24:09)
I think if I'd be sitting here and telling you, I don't know what you're talking
about, I mean, it'd be lying. I think it's, it's, it's how it's known. We know that
the more technology there is, more we do. And there's huge implications of,
you know, they said even from the point of, know, how many water coolers are
actually required, how much water is used to

Oliver (24:14)
Yeah.

Sabs Godden (24:28)
have open AI to make them functional. So all the supercomputers are actually
still working. And from a sustainable point of view, it has lots of different
effects, but we're in a transitional, transformational period. And as much as I
would love to say, there is the solution out there, and it hasn't got an impact.
Yes, it has an impact. There is impact. But I think that goes back to us humans.

Oliver (24:31)
Hmm.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sabs Godden (24:55)
We're also working on that and people are working on it and it's important that
we have people being critical around that and then we have loud voices who
know much more about that than I do, but who really speak behind it and see
that we can create a balance. It's always when we have a revolution, doesn't
matter what, something shifts out of balance. I think now it's important that
we're working on bringing that balance back in to become and be sustainable.

Oliver (25:07)
Hmm.

Sabs Godden (25:25)
when moving forward with it.

Oliver (25:27)
Yeah, completely. that sits with obviously the tech companies and the
governments. But then it does sit with brands and how we also personally
respond and how we use AI as well.

Sabs Godden (25:32)
Yeah, it is, yes. People need to be aware of that.

Oliver (25:38)
Yeah, so in our initial chat, we talked a bit about ⁓ the expectation from senior
stakeholders and how there's this idea because of all the narrative that's come
out from the tech companies about how much AI can do it and it can do a lot.
But there's this expectation now of just produce it with AI, whereas actually
that's not the reality. Have you had to talk a bit about that experience, walk us
through your time, you know, talking to senior stakeholders about AI?

Sabs Godden (26:08)
We completely have that and it's, you know, managing expectations can be
really hard in that area and that space right now. It's, as you said, you have AI,
so let's, let's do it with AI and we said really good. We're very excited. Let's
look about how we can, how we can integrate AI to make this work, to make it
efficient, effective and all of these. But then you turn around and then you go
back. Okay. We've, we're able to do that with AI to that degree. And then it's
like,

Oliver (26:19)
Hmm.

Sabs Godden (26:37)
Well, that's not well, why are we not done yet? Why is it not there yet? Why is it
not as good as well? Because we're in the same boat as everyone else. We are
experimenting with trialing we doing and this can be quite hard because the
expectation is okay. The tech is out there now we need to use it right now. It
needs to be perfect. I think sometimes it's important that we are again on all the
levels more critical that
Just because it's there right now, it doesn't mean it's perfect. And it can be
used to think it's important that you have, you know, focus groups or task
forces or whatever you want to call that who are able to look into it, you know,
how is the best practice? How can it be worked sustainably, but also effectively
and efficiently? And then manage these expectations because there's many
times where we had, you know, blunt combi-
conversations where it was, yes, but that was, it's not, it's not actually better.
It's not actually quicker, isn't it? Was that actually cheaper? said, well, to be
honest, no, not quite yet, but we're getting there. It's just a way of how we
using it and experimenting with it. And we will get there and we've done this
now here. This is by far not what we're going to show to the end user, but at
least we have certain learnings. Okay. Now we can take this forward and I think
that's important that.
There's transparency, think transparency is key in order to you're able to
manage these expectations. Are they easy conversations sometimes? No,
they're not, but they're worth, they're still worth having.

Oliver (28:16)
And early buy-in as well. So getting your stakeholders to understand what the
journey is going to look like really early on. ⁓ Yeah, that's definitely something
we've seen really helps. And with all creative projects, it's probably going to
start off being a bit bad. And then you develop and you iterate. And that's how
you grow, right? That's how you get to where you want to get to.

Sabs Godden (28:24)
Yeah.
And I think iterating, know, is the key. Everything starts with a single line or a
single dot and ⁓ just add to it all the time a little bit and then take away, add a
little bit, take away bit more, add a bit more. And I think you will get there. It's
just not giving up on the way.

Oliver (28:56)
I was thinking there might be a ⁓ future where you have a website and you
have this sort of one door, is, you like to produce something with AI or would
you like it completely human made? And there is obviously, we've seen a trend
in our industry about pushback on AI content and people wanting to do
something very analog almost, going completely the opposite direction. Can
you see a future where there's that sort of divide?
or do you think AI will be integrated into the entire process and it would just
become a tool like anything else?

Sabs Godden (29:24)
really I think in AR will become part of how we work. ⁓ The human touch, think people are very
aware of that and we talked about authenticity and it will be key and it will
remain. ⁓ But right now, because I just thought if you ask me, if I'm going to the
website and then you have the two buttons, do you want to see this how it's
been created by AI or do you want to see it how it's been created by human? I
would...quite boldly say that 90 % will gonna go have a look at how it would look like
when created by an AI. Just because of we curious, we curious by nature, the
majority of us is curious by nature and just to see whether it's good or not But
there is always a thing, I can always come back if it doesn't work, I can then go
the other way just to see both. I think.

Oliver (30:20)
Yeah, and then you tell them you say I did I never went through the AI door. I always went
to you anyway. I'm very you know, I'm a I'm a purist. I'm a purist. I'm just
humans only. Yeah, yeah.

Sabs Godden (30:24)
No, no, no, I always went that first. That's what we all love to believe. Yeah. But
we're all really honest, I think it looks quite different. I human connections are
we we're we drawn to each other. We've always been. It's it's it's a basic
instinct. We will always have that. AI, will it become is it really become part of
how we work?
what we do 100 % my opinion. ⁓ But the human connection will always remain
extremely important. I'm at least I'm a positive, you know, I've got positive
viewpoint on that.

Oliver (31:04)
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, it has to
be, it has to be. If we're getting rid of human connection, then we're doomed.
what do you think creatives need to unlearn to start using AI effectively?

Sabs Godden (31:19)
we all have habits, specifically if we've been within industry and we've used
tools to where you're happy for, think it's really be critical to ourselves and look
into our own habits. And there's little steps we could do, little actions we can
take to become a little bit more effective or be more efficient. I can give you a
super simple example. Image search.
I think it's a good example where if you're trying to find a put concept together
or you're trying to visualise a type of art direction you want to go and you want
to use for a project. ⁓ If you're not a brilliant illustrator and you can do that, if
you haven't got the camera in front of you and you can shoot that, what would
you go? You go through stock, you get some ideas on stock, go socially, you
use some images down just to give some visuals.

Oliver (32:08)
Mm-hmm.

Sabs Godden (32:11)
And that can take you days, that can take hours, can take days. It's just like, it's
brain-numbing and you still haven't got the image you actually want here. But
then now you just go to any tool. don't want to say any names now, but you go
to it, it's image generating tools where you have the ability to pretty much
create, you know, your ideas or you can bring your visuals to life in order to
give a certain direction.

Oliver (32:14)
takes ages. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Hmm

Sabs Godden (32:41)
And that's just a habit change because before you've done one thing and now
understanding that you have a tool, you can get to that aim much quicker.
bigger things to unlearn. I'm not sure. think because again, we all have different
backgrounds, but I think it's visualizing all our habits, way we do something and
being aware, is there a way how we could do it slightly differently? But then
again, that comes.

Oliver (33:07)
Hmm.

Sabs Godden (33:09)
Going back to my self example, I've been there for a while and having grown up
with Photoshop every time, every year Photoshop came up once a year with
these updates. The whole year you get to the point of finally knowing how this
works and then you've got it and then they come with an update and then you
just relearn everything. Now it's just a little bit quicker, but it's just the way
we've worked this thing, being aware of how you work and not being afraid to
change your process.
think we are all we can be quite set in the way we work and I think accepting
that are different ways that can get you to similar, different, better results,
potentially slightly quicker.

Oliver (33:39)
Hmm.
Yeah, and change is quite scary. So that's why people maybe pull back
because they don't want to go into it. segues into my next question, which is,
do you think creatives are under threat in this new world we're going into?

Sabs Godden (33:54)
Yes.
You should ask me down a good day and then ask me down a bad day. Today
I'm on a good day. I think it goes back to an answer I've had earlier. Is a true
creative? No, because it can really, it can take you much further than you
probably thought of. It can really amplify your ideas and your thinking. Is it
harder for people who come out of university who...
quite often maybe have learned, you know, it's a more manual way or manual
art or much more analog art. I think it can be scary for them. can just say, you
know, there's a lot of stuff how you can bring the analog world together to the
digital world. So it has, there's a lot of layers you can put on top of each other
to actually work together and be more creative.

Oliver (34:56)
Mm-hmm.

Sabs Godden (35:05)
So my answer is, I don't think we are under threat because we just have given
amazing new tools how we can really be more creative.

Oliver (35:16)
Yeah.
AI is essentially an avalanche moving in one direction and it will always just
keep and that might change. You might be able to ask it to go the opposite
direction. But at the moment, if you ask it to do anything, it just, it just agrees
and produces something for you. And that creativity that the, you know, the
mindset of like, okay, well, let's do something different and go the other way, or
let's do something that's
it's more space to breathe or less, you know, and that's, I feel like you're still
gonna need creatives to achieve that. Whether that changes in the next couple
of weeks, I'm not sure, but at the moment, I feel that's the case.

Sabs Godden (35:48)
one hundred percent
Well, see what happens once we hang here up, you know, what's the latest
updates and go online and see something else come up with something else.
But you said a really, really good point just now, and it's, it will always agree
with you, whatever you do with, with AI. And yes, whatever you ask AI to do, I
mean, whether that's use OpenAI, whatever question you put in there, it will
always agree with you. And it will always tell you how great this idea was, how
fantastic and how brilliant it is. But if you ask.

Oliver (35:56)
Yeah, exactly.

Sabs Godden (36:21)
why this isn't okay or why this shouldn't be working and what's wrong with
that, then it becomes much more interesting and then you are challenging
yourself instantly. you go to AI just to seek a shoulder tap, then fair enough, but
that's not how you're improving and that's not how it won't help you to improve.
But if you're critical and if you remain critical and if you

Oliver (36:43)
Mm.

Sabs Godden (36:47)
asked a critical question then I think you can get some interesting
conversations going.
How do you make sure your team isn't just chasing the next AI shiny tool?
What's a framework or anything you can put in place that makes sure the brand

is protected and you're not just chasing the next thing?

Sabs Godden (37:48)
is a really good question specifically now, because everything's changing so
quickly. And then you constantly want to go grab and want to grab and want to
go and grab. I think it's important that you're honest and and start slowing
down a little bit and not just constantly race with it or trying to even go as far as
racing ahead of it is.
have tools, know, have a process, you've analyzed that, let's say you've gone
through that workflow, you know where your pain points are, and then stick to
something and really trial it, trial and error it, fail with it, and then don't just give
up because it's quite often. People with ADHD feel like there's so many new
things out there and we can do this and do that and do that and that that. I you
need to just take that step back and understand,
These are really our pain points. This is what we want to achieve. Now we're
going to, we are going with this, that, that, that, and then really, you know, take
it apart, experiment, rip it apart, go really deep. And then yes, you know, iterate,
review after a certain amount of time.

Oliver (38:54)
Hmm.

Sabs Godden (38:58)
Yes, it's all about going faster and more efficient, but there's also a point in time
where you need to take that step back and just take it a bit slower and really go
a little bit deeper.

Oliver (39:10)
Yeah, yeah. I think there's a lot to be said for slowing down and just focusing on
what's working and looking at the creative process in general. At the moment,
there's a massive trend of chasing the next thing. so if you can, I guess it's that
sense of safety as well that you need to foster in the team.

Sabs Godden (39:18)
Yeah.
Yeah.

Oliver (39:36)
How do you do that? How do you make sure failure is okay?

Sabs Godden (39:43)
we learn from failure, will never, we don't grow without making mistakes. don't
grow. We don't become the, you know, just go much deeper. We don't become
the humans, but who we are if we don't learn from our own mistakes or if we
don't make mistakes. Failure is there to, to even to celebrate to a certain
degree. It's with these tools, with integrating it is being honest about it and you
know,
It comes, I think it comes when you're in a leadership position to be a person
who can honestly say when they've made a mistake or when they're not right.
think that's where, that's where you need to start. And I think for people to
understand, okay, this person, people look up to certain people, being able to
give, to be transparent about it when mistakes are happening and that's okay.
⁓
not it's okay you know okay something hasn't worked but there's learnings we
can take from that so let's learn from that let's not just put a head in a sands
and be worried and be angry about it that's not not helping anyone it's really
embracing that thinking okay maybe that didn't work that well so what could
we do differently what could be done differently how can we approach it
differently
And, and, you learn from it. And the next time, you know, it won't happen. It
might, another mistake might happen that was unpredictable, that we couldn't
foresee, but that's fine. So let's analyze it. Let's visualize it, um, in a, positive
way, and then move on from that. There's no point of looking back constantly
because it already happened. It happened. There's no point. can't change that.
You can't go back and make it unhappen. So accept the fact, whatever it was.

Oliver (41:14)
Hmm.
Yeah.

Sabs Godden (41:37)
from it and move on.

Oliver (41:40)
Yeah, and then that vulnerability comes from the top as well, doesn't it? As long
as that's coming down, that's the culture that you're showing and you're able to
admit to your own mistakes as well, then everyone else feels safer to do so

Oliver (42:41)
the last question that we're asking to all of our guests is who is your audience
of one? So ⁓ who's that person you think of when you're creating a piece of
content, a creative idea? Who is that person for you that you're speaking to?

Sabs Godden (42:57)
It's always the same person. ⁓ It's my uncle. It's funny, he's a creative director.
So Marcus, I was working in his agency for many years and he taught me a lot.
We call him the eagle eye because he could spot everything, whether that's
from micro topography stuff that wouldn't quite work to
looking at the wider concept and asking the questions you just haven't thought
of and you were so prepared that you knew the answer and he still comes with
something that you haven't expected. So when I create ideas and ideas or
concepts, I always go back and visualise myself standing in front of him and
talking to him and through the idea.
and think about all the different angles he potentially would be looking at. And
from a design point of view, he's a fantastic designer. Have a thought about all
the difficulties. How is it affecting someone when they interact with it? He's
been an amazing, he's a great uncle. He's been an amazing boss for many
years and he's still something I think about all the time.

Oliver (44:21)
He sounds almost quite close to AI, if I'm honest. He's kind of so thorough with
where he has the eagle eye. ⁓ But yeah, that's fantastic. How do you think that
changes your process in terms of when you're delivering something? it just you
think about it more critically or strategically? What is it that changes in your
work, would you say?

Sabs Godden (44:25)
Laughter ⁓
I think much more critically. I'm more critical of, there were many in the ways
we have worked with him grew up and was, of course, there are moments
where I could have sat in a corner and just cried because I thought I've had it
and he told me, he basically told me you have to go back to the drawing board.
And I didn't understand why do I have to go back to the drawing board. And
when I came back from the drawing board, I actually could see why he said
that in the first place. But, you know, being, yes, I am.

Oliver (44:42)
Mm-hmm.

Sabs Godden (45:10)
very critical with the work I am doing myself. And I think the one thing I maybe
have to learn is that, well, I am critical with the work my team members
producing, but I always try to turn that phrase as positively as I can. It's okay to
be critical because as I said, even now we need to be more critical than ever,
otherwise everything will be completely the same.

Oliver (45:36)
Yeah, makes sense. Sabs, thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate
it. It's been a great chat Yeah, thanks for coming on.

Sabs Godden (45:41)
Thanks for having me.

Oliver (45:46)
Thanks to Sabs for joining. If this episode got you thinking differently about AI,
please do share it with someone in your team. As always, thank you for
listening to the Audience Connection. And if you want to find out more, please
go to casualfilms.com.