I’ve been thinking about what separates the campaigns that stop you in your tracks from the ones you scroll right past. It’s rarely the budget. It’s rarely even the brief.
It’s whether someone, at some point in the creative process, trusted their instincts enough to do an unexpected thing…and didn’t talk themselves out of it.
As author and screenwriter Rita Mae Brown once said “Creativity comes from trust. Trust your instincts. And never hope more than you work!”
– Jeanne Kirby, CMO
Today in marketing school: don’t skip the storyboard!
CJ Hutchings, Senior Art Director at Inviso, has built enough AI video projects to know where things could go sideways — and it almost always happens before a single frame is generated.
“No matter how much you talk through an idea, or even pair it with a script, storyboarding is non-negotiable. With a storyboard, the client gets a detailed visual concept before the expensive, time-consuming part begins. They can see where the video is going and give real feedback early, when changes are still easy.”
The biggest temptation with AI video is speed. Tools move fast, tight turnarounds feel possible, and the pressure to skip steps is real.
Don’t.
Hours spent on a storyboard can save you weeks of rework later. Get the script and storyboard locked before anything else moves. This doesn’t slow you down, it actually helps you move faster.
Thinking about an AI video for your next project? We can help you get it right.
This campaign made us irrationally anxious
Pizza Hut UK didn’t launch a product. They launched a question.
The Vertical Pizza Box, a seemingly impossible invention spotted on the streets of London, was never explained or announced.
It was simply launched into the world, and the internet did exactly what it does best: spotted it, shared it, and spent days debating whether it could possibly be real. The conversation is still going — just ask Reddit.
You know that every single person who saw this pizza box was thinking the same thing: what about the toppings?! This collective anxiety was half the campaign.
Pizza Hut has a long history of firsts for pizzas (stuffed crust, pizzas in space), so a vertical box is on brand for them. The idea is highly shareable in both the real world and across socials. While it’s advertising a physical product, it’s also selling the intriguing feeling of wanting something weird to exist, even if it doesn’t make any sense.
The takeaway
Sometimes, not explaining a joke is exactly why it works. This campaign trusted its audience to feel the absurdity, ask the questions, and share the confusion. In a world where most brands over-explain everything, a little strategic silence goes a long way.
Nike takes Mumbai
Nike’s recent Mumbai campaign didn’t use a single AI pixel. Instead, the brand rolled out 40-foot high cut-outs of local athletes across the city. The raw, gritty, visually arresting campaign told real stories about competing, losing, and showing up anyway. One of the athletes featured was a three-year-old cricket prodigy.
Hyperlocal storytelling, when it’s done with genuine attention to a community, hits differently than anything built for scale. Nike didn’t import a global campaign and translate it. They made something that could only exist in Mumbai, for Mumbai.
April’s word: Instinct
There’s a moment in every creative project where the data runs out and something else takes over. Some call it experience, some call it gut feel — we call it instinct.
It’s the thing that tells you the vertical pizza box is a better campaign than a coupon drop. That your audience will get the joke if you trust them enough to make it.
Instinct isn’t the opposite of strategy. It’s what strategy looks like after years of paying attention to customers and human psychology.
Marketing in the wild
Coachella’s billboards this year deserve a fist bump. Whoever was briefing these clearly had full creative freedom, and used every bit of it. Each board captured the exact vibe of its performer, with some taking a pointed jab at the kind of person you’ll definitely see in the crowd. Tongue-in-cheek, visually confident, and genuinely funny without trying too hard.
Got your own “marketing in the wild” find? We’d love to see it! Send a pic to max@invisomarketing.com with your favorite bits of IRL ad genius.
Keep trusting your instincts out there everybody. Until next month.
The Inviso Marketing Team