When Luc de Brabandere stepped onto the stage at Innovation Day 2025, he didn’t open with a bold prediction or a flashy trend. He closed the day with a talk about how we think, how we simplify the world to make sense of it, and how those simplifications, those mental models, can either trap us or set us free. What followed was a 30-minute masterclass in how to think differently, delivered with the clarity of a philosopher and the precision of a strategist.
For CMOs navigating the complexity of digital transformation, his message was clear: creativity isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s a survival skill.
Thinking, simplified
Luc began by breaking down the act of thinking itself. We don’t think with reality, we think with representations of reality. Our brains simplify the world so we can function in it. This process of simplification is called induction. Acting on those simplifications is deduction.
In marketing, this shows up in familiar ways. We segment audiences. We build personas. We create frameworks. These are all forms of induction. But once we’ve built them, we tend to treat them as fixed. We operate within them. That’s deduction. And while deduction is useful, it’s also limiting. It can become a prison.
The real opportunity lies in returning to induction. Not to repeat it, but to do it differently. To see the same world through a new lens.
“Creativity isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s a survival skill.”
Luc de Brabandere
Creativity as a shift in perception
To illustrate this, Luc told the story of BIC. Originally a manufacturer of writing tools, BIC made a creative leap when it redefined itself as a maker of disposable products. That shift, from ‘writing’ to ‘disposable’, unlocked entirely new product lines: razors, lighters and more. The company didn’t change what it was good at. It changed how it saw itself.
This is the essence of creativity: rediscovering the freedom to induce differently. It’s not so much about brainstorming or blue-sky thinking. It’s about shifting perception. And it’s something machines can’t do. Innovation can be automated. Creativity can’t.
Bold question: When was the last time you gave your team permission to truly think outside the box?
Ask them this: If our competitors were to overtake us, how would they do it? And more importantly: What would make us irrelevant?
Technology needs new mental models
The topic then shifted to technology, exploring the hidden assumptions that shape how we adopt and interpret it. New technologies often get absorbed into old ways of thinking. The first trains looked like stagecoaches. The first bicycles were designed to improve walking. The first films were just recordings of factory workers coming out of their workplace.
Real transformation happens when we pair new technologies with new mental models. When we stop seeing a boat with a motor as a sailboat with an engine, and start seeing it as a steamboat. When we stop digitizing hospitals and start reimagining healthcare. When we stop automating marketing and start redefining what it means to be a marketer.
The CMO in a digital world
For CMOs, this means more than adopting new tools. It means rethinking the role entirely. Luc challenged the audience to stop seeing their companies as product companies and start seeing them as information companies. He used the example of San Pellegrino: a water brand that should rethink itself into a data-rich platform in the soft drinks space.
This reframing doesn’t change the product. It changes the possibilities. It opens up new ways to create value, connect with customers, and compete in a digital economy.
From oil to explosion
Luc closed with a powerful metaphor. Information, he said, is the new oil. But oil only became transformative when we learned how to make it explode. Data, like oil, is inert until it’s activated by new thinking. Until it’s paired with creativity.
This idea is explored in more depth in Luc’s latest book, The Art of Thinking in a Digital World – Be Logical – Be Creative – Be Critical, co-authored with Lina Benmehrez (Peter Lang, 2025). The book offers a framework for navigating complexity through three modes of thinking and makes a compelling case for why creativity is the most underused asset in business today.
A talk that resonated
Luc’s keynote landed at just the right moment in the Innovation Day program. It followed a series of data-driven talks and preceded a cocktail reception – two perfect bookends for a message about perception, reinvention, and the human side of digital transformation.
It also echoed and expanded on themes from David Billings’ earlier session on the CMO as growth architect (stay tuned for the recap article). Where David focused on the operational pressures facing marketing leaders, Luc offered a philosophical counterpoint: a reminder that growth starts not with strategy, but with how we see the world.
And sometimes, seeing differently is the most strategic move of all.
How to flip your mental model
Want to disrupt your own thinking to unlock something new? A product, a process, a perspective? Here’s how to get started:
- List your assumptions: Write down what your team takes for granted: about your product, your customers, your market.
- Invert one of them: Ask what if the opposite were true? (We’re not a product company, we’re a data company. We’re not selling features, we’re selling confidence).
- Map the implications: How would that shift change your priorities, your messaging, your business model
- Prototype the mindset: Test the new lens with one campaign, one process, one team meeting.
Need a hand turning these steps into action? Let’s talk.
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