From Laughs to Lasting Sales: An Interview with Orlando Wood on Creative Ads That Drive Results

This article presents an interview with Orlando Wood, an accomplished author and speaker and chief creative officer at System1, a behavioral science-based creative partner for marketers, in London, UK. The conversation explores how creative style shapes advertising effectiveness and how brands must rebalance toward emotionally rich “showmanship” alongside more targeted “salesmanship.” Wood traces the historical roots of advertising from nineteenth-century theatrical traditions to today’s data-driven, highly targeted campaigns. He connects showmanship to “right-brain” styles of attention earning that build trust, fame, memory, and pricing power, while positioning salesmanship as a “left-brain” focused mode that nudges the sale for a short-term response. Across the conversations, Wood critiques the decline of humor, warns against cutting advertising spend in recessions, and expresses concerns about pre-testing geared towards salesmanship and generative AI, which are pushing brands into fragmented, literal work. He highlights exemplary campaigns, such as Yorkshire Tea’s, to show how consistent, playful, emotionally-led advertising drives growth.