Managing Creative: A Practical Framework for Founders & CEOs in Drinks Brands
In the drinks industry, creative work isn’t “nice to have.” It is the engine of brand distinctiveness, desirability, and growth. But as many founders discover, creative can also be a source of tension, especially when commercial realities collide with artistic ambition.
In my experience working with high-growth drinks businesses, the companies that win are the ones that balance creativity with commercial clarity. They build a system that enables original, distinctive creative work without losing sight of the numbers. This is the equilibrium that too few understand, but every brand should.
Below is the framework I recommend for CEOs and founders looking to structure their creative workflow in a way that’s both commercially smart and creatively ambitious.
The Creative–Commercial Gap: Why It Exists
Drinks brands rely heavily on distinctive visual and verbal identity. Creative is how you:
Generate impressions
Build awareness
Create mental availability
Signal who you are (and who you’re for)
But herein lies the friction point, Creative teams optimise for originality. Commercial teams optimise for reach and efficiency. Creative teams want ideas that will “stand out.” Commercial teams need assets that will “scale.”
This is where businesses get tangled, especially when someone in leadership insists on “making something go viral.” Virality isn’t a strategy; it’s a happy accident. Sustainable brand growth relies on producing a high volume of distinctive, well-targeted creative, not hoping the algorithm smiles at you and you will “get lucky”.
Why Distinctive Creative Matters
In a saturated industry like drinks, distinctiveness is the biggest competitive advantage you can create. Distinctive creative, makes your brand ownable, reduces your reliance on paid media efficiency, makes your product easier to recall in-store and online and gives consistency across touchpoints, from social media to shelf to trade.
Unfortunately, distinctiveness doesn’t appear by accident, it requires one clear creative brain and a good marketing strategy at the top of the process.
The Structure Every Growing Drinks Brand Needs
A. One Head Creative
He/she is the guardian of the brand. Their job is not to “design things.” Their job is to:
Hold the brand’s creative direction
Ensure consistency across channels
Protect the brand’s tone, look, and feel
Approve or reject creative assets
Work with commercial teams to understand strategic priorities
Think of them as your Creative CFO, they decide where “creative capital” gets invested.
B. A Small, Agile Design Team
These designers are execution specialists, not brand stewards.
Their tasks include, quick-turn graphics, artwork updates, trade marketing materials, POS adaptions, Social image edits and organic video edits. This team keeps the brand creative machine moving, fast and consistently.
C. Freelance Specialists for Paid Media Assets
Paid media creative is not “just another asset.” It requires strategy, message hierarchy, audience understanding, media placement logic, strong hooks and platform specific formatting.
For this reason, paid social and paid video, in my view, should be built by a performance-aligned creative strategist, specialist video producers, paid-first photographers and UGC creators who understand conversion. Paid media is where you cannot afford guesswork.
Every paid media asset should answer three questions:
1. What is the opportunity?
(E.g., new audience vertical, competitor weakness, seasonal moment, retailer listing)
2. What message do we need to land?
(E.g., flavour, ingredient story, functional benefit, award win, lifestyle aspiration)
3. Who are we buying against, and what do they care about?
(E.g., health-conscious 25–34s, cocktail enthusiasts, weekend travellers, festival goers)
When creative is built on this foundation, it becomes, more efficient, easier to test, easier to scale and optimise and commercially impactful. This is how to you ensure creative work drives commercial outcomes, not just “likes.”
Every founder has heard (or said) some version of “Let’s make something viral.” However, viral creative is unpredictable, it rarely converts and sadly, it’s not repeatable.
A better model for drinks brands is to focus on delivering low-risk, distinctive and high-volume and consistent creative outputs. Instead of swinging for viral hits, look to build distinctive brand assets, across multiple creative variations ensure you are constantly testing across platforms, and use UGC to mix in with polished campaign assets. It is good practice to develop a library of assets you can adapt quickly for trade, social, and paid placement. This will make your creative economically durable.
Finally, as a founder or CEO, your role is not to art-direct. Your role is to, set the commercial priorities, define the brand positioning, communicate the business objectives, ensure the creative team has clear constraints and approve the overall direction, not the pixel-level detail. Great CEOs shape the brief and great creative teams shape the work.
Final Thought: Creativity Becomes Powerful When It’s Managed
The goal is not to choose between creative ambition and commercial realism. It is to build a system where the two support each other.
When done well, you will achieve distinctive creative, and your brand becomes easier to recognise. Paid media will become more efficient and organic content more consistent. Trade teams get better assets and everyone functions with less chaos.
This is the model that unlocks real brand acceleration and at Spirited, we specialise in bringing order, structure and impact to the creative process. If your creative challenges are starting to overshadow your day-to-day, or you are struggling to balance big ideas with commercial focus, reach out. We’re here to help you get back on track.