The balloon pitch
Over a decade ago I was working in FMCG marketing within a large healthcare organisation. My role was in brand marketing and one of our products was a fertility gel we wanted to pitch to a major UK retailer. We needed to stand out in a way that felt relevant rather than gimmicky. I sent the buying team a box of “congratulations on your new baby” helium balloons, with the press release announcing the new product tied to the end of them. It was an unusual route into a serious commercial conversation, but the thinking was simple: get attention in a way that connected to the product and the person receiving the pitch, while keeping the business message right there with it.
Did it get us a foot in the door for a meeting with the buyer? Yes, it did. Did that creative approach make a meaningful difference to the business? Absolutely. The moment was more than ten years ago, and a lot has changed since then. The way we communicate has changed, customer expectations have changed and the tools available to us now would have seemed almost unbelievable at the time. The lesson is exactly the same: creative thinking still matters.
What AI means for franchising
The story has stayed with me because it is a clear reminder of what a human creative brain can do. It joins dots that are not immediately obvious, understands context and finds a way to make an idea land in a way that feels personal. If AI had been available to me then, it might have helped me write the follow up or structure the pitch, but the spark came from a human understanding of timing, relevance and opportunity.
Human creativity remains essential
There is a great deal of conversation around AI at the moment, and understandably some of it is making people feel vulnerable. People are seeing headlines about roles being replaced, teams being reduced and businesses restructuring. They are wondering what their future looks like. For people thinking about business ownership, AI can feel more like a threat than an opportunity. I see it differently and I know we cannot be passive about it. AI is not emerging in the distance any more. AI is here, and the question for franchising is not whether brands should use it, but whether they are using it in a way that genuinely strengthens the people inside the model.
Integrating AI with infrastructure
When I think back to that retail pitch, the balloons were the creative way in, but the press release tied to them was the business message. The idea opened the door, but I could not have delivered the end result without manufacturing, distribution, commercial readiness and people around me who could turn that opportunity into something real. Creativity created the moment, but infrastructure made it possible to do something with it.
That is exactly how I see AI in franchising now. AI can create speed, capacity and opportunity, but only when it sits inside a business model that knows how to use it properly. On its own, AI does not build a business. It can produce content, support planning, analyse data and speed up repetitive tasks. Without human judgement, education and a strong system around it, it can just as easily create more noise and generic output. At Activ Marketing we are exploring ways to embed AI tools within our existing processes while keeping the human element at the centre of decision making. The goal is to let AI handle the routine, freeing our people to focus on strategic creativity and relationship building. In that way the technology becomes a catalyst for growth rather than a replacement for talent.
