March 26, 2025
Associate Creative Director
There is a term in fitness: “Time Under Tension” (TUT). It simply means putting sustained, deliberate stress on your muscles, forcing them to adapt and strengthen. It’s a simple principle with a powerful implication when recognized and built into practice: because the better you get at putting your muscles under tension, and more time you spend doing it, the more of a growth response you can produce and the more muscle you build.
On top of this, the rise of conversational AI platforms like ChatGPT and Google Gemini presents both new challenges and exciting opportunities for brands to reach and engage their audiences.
Here’s a comprehensive look at what’s in store for 2025 when it comes to Google ads and Search Marketing, and some guidance for this new landscape:
I know what you’re thinking, “Matt, knowing all this, you must be a veritable He-Man.” To which I must reply, “no, I’m afraid I’m a copywriter.” But back to our principle:
Time + Tension = muscle growth
It wasn’t long ago that TUT would be known only by sports science professionals and lifting afficionados. Whereas now, thanks to proliferation of fitness information on social media, it’s recognized almost in the mainstream. Which also makes this a pretty good example of information democratization (more on this later).
Obviously, my use of TUT as a concept is stripped of the unavoidable nuances of lifting and nutrition, but it has an important lesson in the realm of creative marketing. It serves as a powerful metaphor for how success in creative is built, and how we might approach AI implementation in creative marketing.
As creatives, what does it look like when we invest time into a creative idea? I think back on hours of desk research, brainstorming sessions, every difficult question asked, every idea cultivated or cut, every round of revision and every moment of critical feedback. We all know – creative or not – that it’s not just about the time put in, it’s about the intelligence of our approach and our team’s expertise. It’s about the scrutiny – the tension – we place our brief under.
Time + Tension = Better Ads
A successful ad doesn’t fall into our laps, or – to many creatives’ dismay – arrive to us like some divine lighting strike in the depths of the night. A successful ad is built, painstakingly through the intentional investment of time and effort.
But by taking a principle like TUT, we can shape our approaches to help us get there.
Sometimes stuff doesn’t go to plan. Sometimes the ideas don’t come as easy, and sometimes the timelines are… stupid. But we know we need “enough” time, and we know we need to place our brief under tension. So, when all else fails, we must have a creative process to fall back on.
Just as a strong foundation is essential for any structure, the creative process lays the groundwork for a creative function that creates killer campaigns. Turning up and rushing through these stages may yield a product, but it rarely delivers the depth or impact that comes from thoughtful, iterative work.
So, to drag-in my fitness metaphor: “Are you here to intentionally build muscle, or to throw a dumbbell from point A to point B and see what happens?”
That brings us to the quick wins. As I creative, I could easily be painted as averse to quick wins – I’m not. I get it, the creative route might often prove rewarding, but it’s also slower and more difficult to quantify when compared to tactical approaches. Sometimes, the tactical route is the right one. And sometimes it’s not. Things get messy when we confuse these two worlds.
Because it’s not about quality vs speed, it’s about working tactically on tactical plays, and working creatively and strategically on creative and strategic plays.
It’s critical to invest your time to your chosen flavour of value. The kind of deep engagement we strive for with the Time Under Tension concept, means talent, budget, effort, and time – but it also means rich, strategic insights, awesome results and closer relationships with clients.
I’ve seen firsthand how the effort put into a campaign directly correlates with its performance. In a recent cybersecurity brand launch campaign for OpenText, my ACD Art partner and I were given what many creatives dream of: a client with an open mind – and time. With time, we had one half of the equation, all we had to do was put the brief under tension. So, we did.
After several iterative rounds of messaging refinement and creative development, we landed on a creative that broke the cybersecurity mould. We flew to LA to supervise the TV spot shoot and had the awesome opportunity to unite with our US Creative Director and the rest of the OpenText team in person.
We used AI to scamp close-to-finished static ads to accelerate sign-off on a tight timeline before final photography. We brought humour to an often dull market place with a campaign founded on a fun, relatable, human story with a simple, effective message that answered the brief. The campaign saw huge success, millions of views and multiplied engagement rates. We were given the time (and the budget) and we put the creative under tension. And it worked.
I know what you’re thinking: what does AI have anything to do with your tenuous weightlifting, muscle-building analogy, Matt? Well, here’s the thing – I, and thousands of others, already use AI for fitness. I use it for program alteration, for research, I even use it to find meal ideas or ingredients to hit specific nutrient requirements. (I am fully aware of how insane this sounds). But does that AI walk into the gym and lift for me? Of course not.
But just as athletes now use tech to gain insights into their form, performance, and recovery. AI can provide us with comparable guidance and strategic insights – data and processing that was once the domain of larger teams with vast resources. This is part of democratization of data I was talking about.
As a copywriter, it has been super-important to fully-recognize this distinction as my experience with AI – especially ChatGPT – has matured. AI is categorically not a shortcut that replaces ‘cerebral’ hard work, but it is an advanced tool in your approach.
It’s worth mentioning that this blog focusses on ideation and creative conception, when it comes to AI in execution, such as image and copy generation, it gets much more complicated (my feelings included). But at the very core of this, creative functions need to think about efficacy, not efficiency. If you replace your talent with AI, you are no longer effective.
The essence of success in creative remains unchanged. The raw material, the creative spark, still requires “Time Under Tension.” AI can augment our process, yet it’s unlikely to ever replace the nuanced craftsmanship born of iterative human insight. Just as muscles only grow when they are challenged through deliberate, sustained tension, our campaigns only reach their full potential when every brief and every idea is approached with intention and discipline.
To me, the over-reliance on AI in creative evokes images of a somewhat misguided gym-goer, strapped-up to their eyeballs with the latest kit, swinging chains and barbells around like they’re trying to hurt themselves. You and I know they would be better off simply picking up a dumbbell and adding together time and tension.
When implementing AI, talk to your creatives and your strategists, trust them, discover how and where AI can help them. Build with them a reliable creative process to fall back on and ensure a clear, value-oriented approach to both tactical and conceptual jobs. AI can fit here, it can become a catalyst for efficacy and innovation, it can accelerate research and scamping phases and helps us uncover insights we might otherwise have missed. It can enhance human work rather than shortcutting or replacing it.
Regardless, the fundamental rule persists: every idea and every execution must be rigorously developed and refined. AI might help show us the way, but the creative journey is still ours to push, rep by human rep.
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