Knowledge
The Benefits of Human-First Marketing Pt 3: Creative
5 November 2026
Alisdair Straughan
This series looks at what brands gain from an audience-first approach. Each piece takes one area of marketing and sets out the practical benefits, all learned from running Edge for real clients.
Nearly half of the sales lift from advertising comes down to the creative. In a 2017 study of nearly 500 consumer goods campaigns, Nielsen and Nielsen Catalina Solutions found that creative quality and messaging accounted for 47% of a brand’s sales lift from advertising, a long way ahead of reach, which came next at 22%.
That makes what the creative says and who it says it to, the most valuable decision in the plan. People are unlikely to stop scrolling for a message that was not written for them and we all know that one of the strongest ways to speak to someone is on an emotional level, by showing that you understand what they worry about, hope for or are put off by.
Work that does this resonates and work that resonates is more memorable. Les Binet and Peter Field’s analysis of the IPA Effectiveness Databank found that emotional campaigns’ effects last longer than rational ones and build more strongly over time, and that emotional campaigns produce more business effects than rational ones, with the longer-term result almost twice as likely to be top-box profit growth. Rational messages still matter, because they tend to produce stronger short-term sales effects, but the emotional connection is what builds the longer-term result.
Reaching someone emotionally depends on knowing what matters to them, which is where audience understanding pays off. Here are three practical steps.
Test the work against the buyer, not the room
Many creative reviews reach the point where the work looks good, everyone agrees it is well made and somebody says it is not quite right without being able to say why. Audience and other clear insight gives everyone something to measure the work against. We found these four questions are a useful place to begin:
- Does the work address a question we know buyers have at this point in their journey?
- Does the language reflect the language a buyer would use?
- Does the tone suit where they are in their decision?
- Does the call to action suit how ready the buyer is?
Feedback tends to become more specific and quicker to act on, because each comment can be traced back to one of those questions.
Once the copy is agreed it can also feed many creative routes, since it can be expressed as a social post, an article, an email and even OOH ads, each will still be recognisably about the same thing.
But – as we covered here – the message doesn’t necessarily have to be used across all channels, just the ones that fit that buyer at the stage of the journey. Â
Key takeaway
Creative decides nearly half of what advertising delivers, and it works hardest when it speaks to the audience on an emotional level. That starts with evidence of what the audience cares about. The next time the room says the work is good but not quite right, there will be something to point at.
Next step: a conversation about Edge
This is what Edge is built to produce. It draws on search behaviour, social listening, customer reviews, competitor data and advertising performance to build a series of buyer types, their mapped journeys and what is holding each of them back from buying form you at every stage, which gives the creative team the same evidence-based starting point.
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