Creativity that Drives Business
Preface
Creativity has always been at the heart of effective communication, brand building, and business differentiation. But as the digital age accelerates—with content being created, shared, and consumed at breakneck speed—creativity is being reshaped in real time. The rise of AI, shifting attention spans, and an increasingly content-saturated world are redefining what it means to connect with audiences meaningfully.
In this conversation, we sit down with Valeria Diaz, our Creative Director, to explore the state of creativity today: what’s changing, what remains timeless, and where we’re headed. From Gen Z’s influence on visual culture to the role of AI in the creative process, we unpack the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for brands and businesses.
Creativity that Drives Business
Q: Let’s start with a big one: What does creativity mean to you in the context of business today?
A: Let me start by making a distinction… Creativity is generally associated with self-expression, unbound by objectives or outcomes. Creativity in the business context is quite different… It’s best described as a powerful form of communication that uses verbal, aural, and visual assets to contextualize ideas and give them shape and purpose. Most importantly, we leverage these assets to create preference, to persuade, to provide our clients with a competitive advantage. Every creative business assignment comes with a brief containing specific communication objectives. For creativity to be successful in business, it must meet its objectives and ultimately drive business.
Q: How is creativity evolving?
A: In today’s digital-first business environment, our main focus is on the user experience, or UX. I think the best way to explain UX is that it’s the sum of how a person feels when interacting with a product, a service, or a brand… how a person feels based on the experience we create.
So here we’re constantly seeking creative ways to transform functional interactions into memorable and engaging experiences that solve problems, simplify complexity, and delight users. Take our client Sotheby’s Motorsport where we created their online auction site. The UX is simple, super functional, and engaging. What is happening behind the screen is incredibly complex. We have thousands of high security operations happening every second, updating bids in real-time coming from everywhere. It’s almost unimaginable. And yet, for the user, it’s as functionally simple and exciting as it gets.
Today most UX is experienced on computers or mobile devices. At Paktolus we also create UX experiences for more immersive, interactive 3D environments for tech-enabled training and learning programs. Either way, creativity’s purpose is to generate positive emotional responses from our audiences, teach them, delight them, ultimately to reinforce brand relationships.
Q: With so much of today’s creativity playing out online—across platforms like TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and more—how has digital culture influenced the way you approach creative work?
A: Digital culture has definitely shaped how we approach creative work. Our team at Paktolus spans Miami, Lima, Buenos Aires, San Francisco, and Mumbai — a group of culturally attuned digital natives who live and breathe what’s happening online. We constantly share what’s trending locally and globally, from visual aesthetics on TikTok to motion trends on YouTube and design languages emerging on Instagram.
That awareness helps us create work that feels current and authentic. For example, in a recent project for Quva, we produced a motion video that drew inspiration from modern digital aesthetics — fast-paced cuts, kinetic type, and minimal composition — the kind of rhythm people are used to seeing in social media content. But we adapted that energy into a polished, brand-driven piece that still aligned with their professional tone.
So digital culture doesn’t just inspire us creatively — it keeps us connected to how audiences actually consume and respond to content today.
Q: We’re seeing an explosion of content, but also a shrinking attention span. How do you think brands can still stand out and create lasting impact?
A: They can and they will continue to stand out. In fact it’s precisely this explosion of content and those shrinking attention spans among constituents that have become a central part of our purpose. Creativity is precisely the tool we use to differentiate companies, products, and services… to create and support powerful brands in compelling and memorable ways in order to reinforce relationships between our clients’ brands and their customers.
Q: The next generation of consumers — especially Gen Z — seems to engage with content and creativity very differently. What are they teaching us about what resonates today?
A: (She laughs, again) Gen Z engagement is shaped by short attention spans, which is why they like visual-first platforms like TikTok and Instagram. As a consequence, they tend to engage with content and creativity in a way that’s fast, interactive, and deeply personal. They value authenticity over polish, co-creation over passive consumption, and they’re drawn to content that feels real-time, relevant, and culturally aware. They also like being part of the conversation, expect interactivity, want representation, purpose, and individuality. In short, they’re not the easiest group to please. But our team is comprised of Gen Z’s, so we get it.
But it’s interesting when you look at the next groups, for example, Millennials who today are 30 to 45. They came of age during the rise of the internet and social media, but they also tell us they remember a time before it — which gives them a sort of unique hybrid mindset.
When it comes to business creativity, they typically value storytelling and purpose, but with a bit more skepticism than Gen Zs. They respond well to traditional brand-building, especially when it’s backed by authentic values and clear benefits… And I suppose they’re like me in that they prefer experiences over just messages. They want to see how a brand fits into their lifestyle. As creatives, we need to think about these generational preferences and behaviors to be sure we’re appealing to them within the right creative context and with the right types of messages.
Q: As a creative leader, how do you balance staying ahead of trends with staying true to timeless creative principles?
A: Well, timeless creative principles are just that… timeless. For example, iconic brands and powerful taglines are timeless. My job is to make sure our creative team captures the imagination of today’s target audiences and to make sure our clients’ brands remain relevant, appreciated, and in demand. That means our verbal and visual creative storytelling needs to be in line with or even lead today’s trends.
Take Apple… while its only about 50 years old, by today’s standards, one can argue it’s already a seasoned brand, at least in terms of years. Yet, it remains the most valuable brand in history. Apple owns and manages a thoroughly engaged global ecosystem that it evolves to fit into modern life, focusing on health, privacy, sustainability… things that matter today. They run appealing, fun commercials using very likable celebrities. They use creativity to connect emotionally. Even if you’re not a Mac or iPhone user, you “get it”.
We push to do the same for our clients like New Look Vision luxury eyewear, DuPont REGISTRY, Bolt Insurance, and up and coming players like Universal Matter.
Q: AI tools are now part of the creative toolkit — whether we like it or not. In your view, is AI enhancing or diluting creativity?
A: As we’re a digital-first company, we’ve been using AI tools for a while now. We also have engineers who specialize in AI — by that I mean they develop AI applications.
AI is incredibly powerful and has already become a major part of our toolkit. Your question is a good one. Is AI enhancing or diluting creativity? We’re seeing an exponential volume of what can be called creative work piling up in our already-crowded digital environment. In this sense, you can say that it has a diluting impact on creativity. AI also tends to deliver…based on its ability to process massive amounts of existing data. The result is that it tends to commoditize creativity.
The flip side is that when AI is used by highly creative members of our team, it can do things like process imagery at incredible speeds, which frees us to focus on the real creative challenges and solutions. In this sense, it also has an enhancing effect. But in the end, at least at this time, human creativity is perhaps that single thing that differentiates us from machines. It’s what remains… human… for humans. The day AI replicates humans, it could be that the only thing it won’t ever be able to fully replicate is human creativity. Maybe AI will keep us around just to entertain the machines, to perform symphonies, to create human experiences (she laughs).
Q: Any last thoughts regarding creativity at Paktolus?
A: First, I would say that our technology offering is great and so is our tech-enabled training offering. As for our creative… I am proud to say that we have a world-class team that delivers exceptional work at great speed. Our ability to integrate creativity with technology is perhaps one of our greatest strengths at Paktolus. It’s one of our single and most pronounced differentiators as a technology-first company.
My goal is to make sure that we remain at the top of our game, challenge the status quo, and deliver our clients the best creativity available.
If this conversation resonates, let’s take it further.
Explore our Creative Services and see how we can elevate your brand’s experience end-to-end: https://www.paktolus.com/creative-services/