Why disruptive creativity isn’t an internal luxury. It’s a necessity.
Transformation updates. Health and safety reminders. EVP launches. Strategy cascades. AI rollouts. Regulatory change. The list doesn’t slow down.
Whether you’re in a 750-person business or a 50,000-strong organisation, the challenge is the same. You’re not short of messages. You’re short of attention.
And yet most internal communication still looks and feels like it did ten years ago.
Careful. Competent. Forgettable.
That’s not a criticism. It’s an industry problem. Externally, challenger brands win by “thinking wrong”. They disrupt their own industry’s conventions. Liquid Death didn’t ask how to sell water more clearly. They asked how to make it culturally impossible to ignore. The result? A $1bn valuation for canned water.
Internally, we’re still asking: “How do we explain this?”
The better question is: “How do we make people feel this?” Because clarity alone doesn’t drive behaviour. Emotion does.
Enterprise reality: scale kills energy
In large organisations, scale smooths the edges off creativity. Legal reviews expand. Stakeholders multiply. Risk tolerance shrinks. The message gets safer. Then safer again.
By the time it lands, while it’s technically correct and it’s emotionally flat.
And here’s the uncomfortable truth: your people compare your internal experience to the best consumer experiences in the world. Netflix. Nike. Spotify. Duolingo. These can all be accessed on tap, with no effort. They don’t lower their expectations when they log in for work. If your culture narrative feels like a policy document, it won’t stick. Not because your workforce doesn’t care but because you’re competing in an attention economy.
Here’s where AI comes in. AI has made it easier than ever to produce clear, structured, well-written content at speed. That’s a good thing. But it also means everyone now has access to the same level of “good”.
The middle ground – competent, polished, perfectly fine comms – is now crowded. That’s what’s changed. AI hasn’t reduced the need for creativity. It’s made it more important. Because if everyone can produce something that reads well, the difference comes from what actually cuts through. What people remember. What people act on.
Not just clarity. But impact.
What happens when you think wrong internally
When Scottish Water wanted to go “beyond zero harm”, they didn’t need another safety reminder. They needed behaviour change across 4,500 colleagues operating in complex, high-risk environments.
Colleague listening showed health and safety communications had drifted into compliance territory. Accurate. Necessary. But emotionally distant. So, we reframed it.
Instead of telling people to “make safe choices”, we asked: “Can you get Mark home safely?”
Not to a stereotype. Not to a stock image. To a fully realised colleague with a life beyond work, shaped by pressures, responsibilities and everyday distractions. We built an interactive experience inspired by Bandersnatch and “choose your own adventure” storytelling. Viewers guided Mark through ordinary decisions across a working day. Small moments. Minor shortcuts. Realistic pressures. Human.
And it worked.
That’s not creative for creative’s sake. That’s creativity driving measurable behaviour change.
This isn’t about being edgy. It’s about being effective.
Chief People Officers don’t need gimmicks. They need:
- Culture that scales without diluting
- Change that lands across diverse workforces
- Leaders who look credible under scrutiny
- Campaigns that withstand governance and still inspire
The mistake is assuming bold equals reckless. The best disruptive internal work is strategically grounded, insight-led and operationally seamless. It respects diversity of perspective. It avoids lazy stereotypes. It reflects the real complexity of people’s lives – across roles, geographies and lived experiences.
It’s built to pass legal review and still create a moment. That’s the craft.
Why now?
AI has levelled access to “good” communication.
So advantage shifts to those who:
- frame the problem differently
- design experiences, not announcements
- treat culture as a performance driver, not a side initiative
- connect emotion to action
Because people don’t change behaviour if something was explained well. They change because something made them feel something.
We’ve spent over 40 years working with organisations navigating growth, integration, transformation and scrutiny across industries. Utilities. Financial services. Professional services. Public sector. Private equity-backed scale-ups. We know the board-level pressure. We know the governance realities. We know the workforce complexity. And we know how to design internal campaigns that make leadership teams look good. Because they drive real outcomes.
Disruptive creativity isn’t a marketing indulgence. It’s how internal comms earns its seat at the strategic table. If you’re ready to stop sending memos and start building movements, let’s talk.
Because in a world of generic content, playing safe is the riskiest strategy of all.
