Sincerity: The Creative Currency That Cuts Through the Noise

Every year, the Creative Circle gathers the industry’s sharpest minds, brightest talents, and boldest ideas into one room. It is part celebration and part mirror. It is a moment where we hold our craft up to the light and ask: Are we making work that matters?

This year’s late-July Full Circle event was no different. Between the stats, the showreels, and the global standouts, one truth kept surfacing: in a world saturated with content, sincerity might just be the rarest and most valuable creative currency we have. Walk with me.

The power of memory

We were reminded that 65% of purchasing decisions are made before a shopper even steps into a store. That is not just a challenge to be more visible, it is a challenge to be more meaningful. To live in someone’s memory bank, the work has to matter to them on a human level. Sincere work sticks because it feels like it was made for you, not just aimed at you.

Consistency is a creative tool

Consistency and repetition are often framed as discipline, but they are also acts of sincerity. A brand that shows up the same way over time is a brand that keeps its promises. People recognise that and trust it. Inconsistency can feel like you are pretending to be someone different each time, and sincerity struggles to survive in that kind of shape-shifting. This is true in our own personal relationships too. No one wants to be friends with someone who constantly changes their personality.

Influencers and creators

In today’s creator economy, now the single biggest investment area for companies, sincerity is the difference between a one-off post and a partnership that builds equity for both sides. The most powerful influencer relationships are not transactional. They grow because the brand genuinely values the creator’s voice, and the creator genuinely believes in the brand. Without sincerity, audiences can spot the disconnect instantly.

Are you starting to see it? 

The seven sins of marketing

The seven sins (vanity, sloth, gluttony, greed, envy, pride and wrath) are not just creative pitfalls. They are warning signs that sincerity has been lost somewhere along the way. Vanity tells us we know better than our audience. Greed pushes us toward quick wins instead of long-term value. Wrath damages the relationships our work depends on. The real test is this: are you creating with your audience in mind or simply for the approval of other marketers? Does your work evoke envy?

Lessons from the global stage

Many of this year’s most awarded campaigns came from Brazil, Puerto Rico, India and across Asia and South America. They stood out because they felt alive, rooted in cultural specificity, but also in a sense of genuine intent. These were campaigns that could only have come from the people who made them. You could feel that they wanted these ideas to exist.

And it’s no surprise that humour and fun are on the rise. The world’s problems keep getting heavier, and sometimes the most sincere thing an ad can do is give people a reason to smile.

Specificity

One of the most powerful truths about creativity is that the more specific you are (in an ad, in storytelling, in a point of view), the more universal it becomes. The irony is that specificity is often mistaken for exclusivity. 

A single, sharp idea gets passed around in boardrooms, each hand adding “just one more” element to make it feel more inclusive, to appeal to everyone. But in that well-intentioned process, the edges get softened, the colours fade, and the magic that made the idea remarkable in the first place disappears. Sincerity means having the courage to protect that original spark, to let it stay focused, authentic and intact, so it can connect more deeply.

Back to simple

And that is where the conversation always seemed to land. The work that resonates is not just authentic in the buzzword sense. It is sincere in its intent, made by people who genuinely cared enough to bring it into the world.

That is why over-engineered, hyper-branded ads, where even the taxi, the gogo’s plastic bag and the boy’s skateboard all match the brand colour, often miss the mark. They may look tidy in a brand book, but they do not look like life. And real people connect with real life.

The Creative Circle reminded us that great creativity is not about controlling every frame. It is about making work that breathes, work that feels wanted by those who make it and trusted by those who see it. In the end, sincerity is what cuts through.

Yours sincerely,

Creativity.

Flume is an independent, full-service digital marketing agency providing services that include SEO, web design and development, public relations, media buying, client service, UX/UI, and creative production. For more information visit www.flume.co.za or email us at [email protected] to say, well, “hello”.