Creativity and selling have always had tension. But the marketing industry has always found ways to channel this tension and make these two disciplines fire.
Now, new data-driven solutions help brands and agencies forge a more aligned relationship between creative and selling. Campaign has partnered with Gain Theory and brought together a panel of thought leaders to establish five steps to help brands develop creative that sells.
1 Peel the onion until you get to the real insight
Insight is the fuel that can inspire creativity, and the good news is that it's never been easier to extract insight. But, as with most things in life, it's all about quality over quanity.
“You have to do the work on insights,” says Phoebe Barter, group brand director at Aviva. “So often, we see insights that are just data points rather than actual insights. So you really have to keep getting into the ‘but why’.”
Kathleen Hall (left), chief of brand at Microsoft, had a real-world example of the ‘but why’: “When we did our ‘Girls In STEM’ work, our first ‘insight’ was that there are not enough girls working in technology. Well, no kidding! The second ‘insight’ was that they were not graduating with the right degrees. Well, again, no kidding!
“What we really wanted to know was why are they not graduating with the right degrees? And we found that girls get stigmatised around the fourth grade in the US if they stay in maths or science – and there’s your insight. It’s all about peeling the onion until you get insight that can inspire your creative.”
2 Evidence can sway leadership, but sometimes you need to be bold
Extracting a golden bit of insight that inspires creative is just the start. You also have to gain the trust of the c-suite. Michele Rousseau, senior VP (right), global brand at Expedia, oversaw a campaign that told the story of three friends in Japan who have a passion for line dancing and book flights to Nashville. Insight showed that Japanese people live exceptionally deep in their hobbies – they always go the extra distance.
“We would never have got it past the sales team without that insight,” says Rousseau. “When we showed them the film for the first time, the sales team came over and said, now we get it!”
Alignment on metrics is critical. “Our research and analysis show that it’s easier for marketing to demonstrate growth when a business aligns on the metrics that matter. Demonstrating that trust is low and low trust is impacting sales, allows everyone to focus on using creative to raise trust,” says Matthew Chappell, global client success officer at Gain Theory.
Sometimes, it comes down to not taking no for an answer. “We have to hold our ground when you find that nugget and you know it’s going to work,” says Barter. “There can be lots of yeses, but just one powerful NO kills a great idea. So you have to be able to hold your line when you know it’s right.”
3 Find the love to unlock the growth
Brands often use insights to locate problems and pain points, but the panel spoke passionately about flipping that on its head. Instead, brands should use insights to find where there is love to drive creative.
When Hall joined Microsoft, the first thing her team did was start talking to people who loved the brand. “The minute we started talking to these people we found out that people thought of us as giving them access to success, that people associate quality with us. That’s the kind of insight that really informs good creative.”
Alfonso Fernandez Iglesias (left), CMO & head of e-commerce – direct to consumer at Samsung España, believes that leaning into what people love builds trust: “This helps us to convert them into brand lovers, and brand lovers become influencers for us. They create word of mouth and advocacy for the brand.”
4 Build relationships at the right time, in the right way
Insights drive personalisation, which drives creative. But just how personal do customers want brands to be?
Manjiry Tamhane, global CEO at Gain Theory, (pictured above left) believes brands can fall into the trap of getting personal at the wrong time: “Where personalisation should come in is at the customer experience level, as opposed to the brand level. At a brand level, you want a communal experience and a sense of belonging.”
Personalisation should have a clear role. For Eva Fishner (right), VP global brand content and platforms at American Express, it is to make customers feel more comfortable when asked to take action: “If we haven’t spent time building up the story about what it means to be a member at American Express, they are less likely to engage or take action when we ask them.”
For Tomasz Dębowski, Deutschland chief marketing officer at McDonald’s (pictured above right), personalisation gives customers “a reason to keep coming back to us”. He says: “Everyone’s curating their own content and we’re also competing with every piece of content that’s ever been created, so data-driven personalisation can build meaningful relationships.”
5 Experiment with AI – it can help boost creativity
How brands use artificial intelligence (AI) remains a contentious topic. Will it replace human creativity? How can it best be used in campaigns?
The panel advised taking baby steps, and first exploring how it can be used to boost efficiency. “The focus right now for us is on piloting AI on jobs which take up marketing resources, such as creating email subject lines,” says Fishner. Barter says “We can do richer thinking” by using AI to carry out mundane tasks.
Tamhane calls AI “the co-pilot’, supporting the creative process. “For example,” says Hall, “in the world of film, you might have a script in English but you want to sell it into a Spanish market. Well, AI will convert the script in seconds, which saves a lot of cost, time, and resource.”
Bridging the gap between creativity and sales requires a multi-faceted approach. Brands must delve deep to uncover genuine insights that resonate with consumers, using data not just as numbers but as stories waiting to be told. While evidence is crucial for leadership buy-in, sometimes bold conviction is necessary to champion truly innovative ideas. Focusing on consumer love, rather than pain points, fuels creative campaigns that foster authentic connections. Personalisation, strategically deployed, strengthens these bonds and encourages engagement, and when it comes to AI, embracing it not as a replacement but as a powerful tool for efficiency, allows creative teams to focus on the bigger picture.
With these five steps, brands can unlock the true potential of data-informed creativity to drive sales and build lasting relationships with their audiences.
Roundtable attendees Nicola Merrifield, premium content editor, Campaign; Phoebe Barter, group brand director, Aviva; Matthew Chappell, global client success officer, Gain Theory; Tomasz Dębowski, Deutschland chief marketing officer, McDonald’s; Laura Downey, head of brand, Amazon; Eva Fishner, VP, global brand content and platforms, American Express; Alfonso Fernandez Iglesias, CMO & head of e-commerce - direct to consumer, Samsung España; Kathleen Hall, chief of brand, Microsoft; Michele Rousseau, senior VP, global brand, Expedia; Manjiry Tamhane, global CEO, Gain Theory
