A knowledge gap between brands and their target audiences is undermining marketing effectiveness. Deriving powerful insights from consumer data, rather than relying solely on surface-level information or personal intuition, is key. By bridging this gap through rigorous insight development and empathetic creative approaches, marketers can create campaigns that genuinely connect with audiences and drive better results.
Key takeaways:
1
Audience data is valuable, but the insights you derive from that data are even more powerful
2
Insights-driven campaigns are a valuable tool for powering creative that genuinely connects, and that connection can be a key driver of effectiveness
3
While intuition alone isn’t sufficient in today’s marketing environment, it still has a role to play alongside data and insights
Closing the audience knowledge gap: the real secret to marketing effectiveness
There is ongoing, never-ending debate in the advertising industry about the importance of “insights" to marketing effectiveness. The real conversation we should be having is about a fundamental challenge: a persistent knowledge gap between brands and the audiences they need to reach. True marketing effectiveness depends on deeply understanding your audience, yet many brand owners, marketers, and agencies don’t. This piece is a call to action to bridge that gap.
First, let’s align on what an “insight” truly is
At Effie, the global authority on marketing effectiveness, the definition is specific and rigorous. An insight is not just an observation.
It’s a discovery that can come from a product, category, competitor, or a consumer truth - often at the intersection of all four - that can create new value
It’s revealing, going beneath the surface to the underlying “why” to uncover a tension consumers face
It must be fresh – something not previously considered in the context of the challenge
Finally, it must be applicable, sparking the brand to action
It’s a discovery that can come from a product, category, competitor, or a consumer truth - often at the intersection of all four - that can create new value
It’s revealing, going beneath the surface to the underlying “why” to uncover a tension consumers face
It must be fresh – something not previously considered in the context of the challenge
Finally, it must be applicable, sparking the brand to action
This precise definition of insight is the key to bridging the audience knowledge gap.
Audience data is valuable, but the insights you derive are more powerful
In today’s world, it’s getting riskier than ever to rely on surface-level data or personal assumptions. In the United States, there are three major forces widening the gap between marketers and their audiences, making a true understanding more challenging – and more valuable – than ever.
Force #1: Your personal algorithm echo chamber
The content we see in our personal feeds shapes our worldview and due to personalization, has very little overlap with what even our next-door neighbors are seeing. This makes our jobs as marketers and creatives even more challenging.
The Ipsos Ethnography Center of Excellence is an award-winning team of anthropologists, ethnographers, and documentary filmmakers dedicated to the study of culture and human behavior to impact clients' businesses and transform the world around us. By immersing ourselves in participants' natural environments, we gain an unfiltered perspective into the unseen forces that shape routines, beliefs, behaviors, and unarticulated human needs.
In an age where social and video platform algorithms play a role in shaping the content we see, it's easy to fall into the trap of believing that intuition alone is enough. These sophisticated algorithms can help surface relevant information and ensure content is seen by the right audiences. However, beyond just being seen, the content must also connect with the audience in an authentic way to truly bring people and brands together.
Jessica Phan
Senior Vice President
Ipsos Tech & Media Practice
Jessica Phan
Senior Vice President
Ipsos Tech & Media Practice
Force #2: The splintering of U.S. society
It’s not hard to see that the U.S. is deeply divided in many ways. The 2024 presidential election was decided by just 1.5%... The good news is that there are many values that Americans still broadly share and one place to look for those is the ideals of freedom and fairness that underlie the American Dream...
Matt Carmichael
SVP Consumer Trends Thought Leadership
Force #3: Cultural Intelligence
The critical challenge is that intuition is based on personal experience and pattern recognition and U.S. advertising and marketing industry professionals are significantly less diverse than the U.S. population… This diversity is shaping and evolving both American culture and consumer expectations...
Janelle James
Head of Cultural Intelligence at Ipsos U.S.
Insights-driven campaigns power creative that genuinely connects
When brands successfully bridge the knowledge gap with a powerful insight, they unlock the ability to create work that connects. At Ipsos Creative Excellence, we know that while bold creative, a focus on distinctive assets, or emotional storytelling can be highly effective, these strategies are at their best when that creative is also forging a genuine connection with the audience.
Ads that are seen as highly creative AND empathetic deliver 30% greater effectiveness vs. ads that are highly creative, but lack empathy.
% Difference VS. Average Performance on Creative Effect Index
Source: Ipsos Global Ad Testing Meta-Analysis (n=1,734 cases)
So how good are advertisers at delivering empathy? Answer – not great.
Everyone sets out to be on that high green hill – highly creative and empathetic, but per an analysis of nearly 5,000 ads in the Ipsos US ad testing database, only 10% of ads make it into that bucket. This is a consistent challenge across B2C and B2B advertising.
For decades, B2B marketing was built on the myth that buyers are purely rational - immune to the emotional pull of advertising. But years of research at the LinkedIn B2B Institute tell a different story: B2B buyers are people first, professionals second. Like all humans, their decisions are shaped by memory, emotion, and empathy. Today, the most effective B2B brands are breaking with convention and tapping into more emotive, empathetic customer insights. We’re seeing a creative shift across the industry as marketers embrace empathetic insights in their work, not as a nice-to-have, but as a proven driver of long-term effectiveness.
Vita Molis
Head of NAMER
B2B Institute, LinkedIn
How true insights trigger connection & drive results – 2025 U.S. Effie winners that show the way!
Three of Effie’s 2025 U.S. award winners exemplify how a sharp insight can be the springboard for resonant work.
Sweethearts: ‘Situationships’
Gold for Small Budgets; Gold for Youth Marketing; Silver for Timely Opportunity - Products
Agency: Tombras
Sweethearts took inspiration from real-life cultural moments by aligning the brand with current dating trends. The term “situationship” describes that relationship many people know all too well, more than “friends,” but less than “committed relationship.”In 2023, it was the No. 1 relationship status Gen Z was using on Tinder. This fresh perspective applied the concept of undefined relationships to their candy product in a novel way, sparking Sweethearts to link their imperfect candy hearts to the imperfect nature of modern relationships. The campaign drove a 30% increase in Sweethearts revenue during Q1 2024.
Great ideas are born of truths. And we were lucky to have two great truths for this idea. 1: 40% of the Sweethearts candies that came down the factory line are either blurry or misprinted. 2. The number one relationship status on Tinder was “situationships” - undefined, blurry relationships. We took these two truths and celebrated them with Sweethearts Situationships - candy that was as blurry as your relationship.
Avinash Baliga
CCO at Tombras NY
Sweethearts: ‘Situationships’
Gold for Small Budgets; Gold for Youth Marketing; Silver for Timely Opportunity - Products
Agency: Tombras
Sweethearts took inspiration from real-life cultural moments by aligning the brand with current dating trends. The term “situationship” describes that relationship many people know all too well, more than “friends,” but less than “committed relationship.”In 2023, it was the No. 1 relationship status Gen Z was using on Tinder. This fresh perspective applied the concept of undefined relationships to their candy product in a novel way, sparking Sweethearts to link their imperfect candy hearts to the imperfect nature of modern relationships. The campaign drove a 30% increase in Sweethearts revenue during Q1 2024.
"Great ideas are born of truths. And we were lucky to have two great truths for this idea. 1: 40% of the Sweethearts candies that came down the factory line are either blurry or misprinted. 2. The number one relationship status on Tinder was “situationships” - undefined, blurry relationships. We took these two truths and celebrated them with Sweethearts Situationships - candy that was as blurry as your relationship."
Avinash Baliga
CCO at Tombras NY
Sandy Hook Promise: ‘Just Joking’
Gold for Small Budgets (Non-Profit), Gold for Non-Profit; Gold for Critical Response/Critical Pivot; Silver for Social Good – Non-Profit/Positive Change
Agency: BBDO New York
Sandy Hook Promise tackled the tension between awareness of potential threats and reluctance to act by highlighting how people often dismiss warning signs as "just jokes." Learning that 80% of school shooters revealed their plans in advance, the campaign had comedians incorporate real threats into stand-up routines. This approach starkly illustrated the absurdity of dismissing such statements, challenging people to reevaluate how they perceive and respond to warning signs. The campaign effectively bridged the gap between threat awareness and proactive response, preventing school shootings.
The team found that in 80% of school shootings, someone else knew about the attacker’s plans. So, our strategy was to expose how these warning signs are too often dismissed as jokes. By having comedians deliver real threats word-for-word, we highlighted the tension between humor and the seriousness of missed warning signs.
Chris Beresford-Hill
Worldwide Chief Creative Officer at BBDO
Sandy Hook Promise: ‘Just Joking’
Gold for Small Budgets (Non-Profit), Gold for Non-Profit; Gold for Critical Response/Critical Pivot; Silver for Social Good – Non-Profit/Positive Change
Agency: BBDO New York
Sandy Hook Promise tackled the tension between awareness of potential threats and reluctance to act by highlighting how people often dismiss warning signs as "just jokes." Learning that 80% of school shooters revealed their plans in advance, the campaign had comedians incorporate real threats into stand-up routines. This approach starkly illustrated the absurdity of dismissing such statements, challenging people to reevaluate how they perceive and respond to warning signs. The campaign effectively bridged the gap between threat awareness and proactive response, preventing school shootings.
The team found that in 80% of school shootings, someone else knew about the attacker’s plans. So, our strategy was to expose how these warning signs are too often dismissed as jokes. By having comedians deliver real threats word-for-word, we highlighted the tension between humor and the seriousness of missed warning signs.
Chris Beresford-Hill
Worldwide Chief Creative Officer at BBDO
PNC Bank: ‘The Brilliance of Boring’
Gold for Finance; Silver for David vs. Goliath - Situational: Services
Agency: Arnold Worldwide
Brands in “boring” categories are often reminded that it doesn’t mean their advertising has to be boring. PNC and Arnold played into this expectation and went all in on a truth about the brand – it’s just plain boring. The team delivered a refreshingly self-aware, un-bank-like brand platform, which leaned into the insight that “boring” is brilliant and encouraged Americans to make smarter moves with their money. This bridged the gap between consumer expectations and needs, doubling industry benchmarks for consideration and favorability, and significantly growing new accounts.
Sometimes the sharpest insights hide in plain sight. In this case, PNC’s longstanding internal culture and approach to banking — steadfast, meticulous, reliable folks forming trustworthy relationships with their customers — is boring! It took a strategic and creative leap to recognize that boring is exactly what people want from their bank amidst a highly fragmented and volatile financial landscape, and to make an authentic truth of the brand wildly interesting in execution.
Marissa Kelley
EVP, Head of Strategy at Arnold Worldwide
PNC Bank: ‘The Brilliance of Boring’
Gold for Finance; Silver for David vs. Goliath - Situational: Services
Agency: Arnold Worldwide
Brands in “boring” categories are often reminded that it doesn’t mean their advertising has to be boring. PNC and Arnold played into this expectation and went all in on a truth about the brand – it’s just plain boring. The team delivered a refreshingly self-aware, un-bank-like brand platform, which leaned into the insight that “boring” is brilliant and encouraged Americans to make smarter moves with their money. This bridged the gap between consumer expectations and needs, doubling industry benchmarks for consideration and favorability, and significantly growing new accounts.
Sometimes the sharpest insights hide in plain sight. In this case, PNC’s longstanding internal culture and approach to banking — steadfast, meticulous, reliable folks forming trustworthy relationships with their customers — is boring! It took a strategic and creative leap to recognize that boring is exactly what people want from their bank amidst a highly fragmented and volatile financial landscape, and to make an authentic truth of the brand wildly interesting in execution.
Marissa Kelley
EVP, Head of Strategy at Arnold Worldwide
Intuition isn’t enough, but it still has a role to play
A key reason the audience knowledge gap persists is a natural inclination to over-rely on personal intuition. In a May 2025 Ipsos study of brand marketers, insights, and ad agency professionals, nearly half claimed they frequently leverage their intuition in preparing creative briefs. Intuition can be a powerful skill, but the challenge comes in when we rely exclusively on intuition as “enough” and stop there. Think about how narrow one person’s experience is – especially someone who thinks about advertising all day.
Just like our bodies are built to conserve physical energy, our brains are wired to conserve mental energy. This means we use intuition—our gut feelings—to make many decisions. While our intuition can get us close a lot of the time, it also falls victim to predictable biases—errors that we almost always are not aware of. As Daniel Kahneman best put it: ‘Nobody would say, 'I'm voting for this guy because he's got the stronger chin,' but that, in fact, is partly what happens.
Luke Nowlan
Ipsos Behavioral Scientist
If you really believe in your intuition, you shouldn’t be afraid to validate it.
One of the justifications used for stopping at intuition as “good enough” is the belief that market research doesn’t yield great advertising insights. We’ve all heard the talk track that research “kills ideas,” that we should “ignore consumers in focus groups,” that it only adds time and costs to the creative process. Dismissing market research as a source of human insights is not only shortsighted, but also demonstrably false.
At Ipsos, we’ve observed a nearly 50% lift in creative effectiveness when brands invest in our research processes at the insight/strategy phase vs. ads born out of a process that lacks direct consumer input.
At Ipsos, we’ve observed a nearly 50% lift in creative effectiveness when brands invest in our research processes at the insight/strategy phase vs. ads born out of a process that lacks direct consumer input.
Source: Difference in Creative Effect Index of +500 cases pre-tested with Ipsos. Based on cases benefitting from early creative research compared to pre-tested cases without any Ipsos early research.
That’s because, done the right way, research empowers teams with the confidence that they are building on a foundation of truth, not conjecture. It can help identify the meaty areas relevant to both the brand and consumers’ lives. This involves going beyond desk research or a one number stat on a dashboard or a lifeless chat with your latest AI companion. Research approaches like ethnography and deep live exploration on insight territories put stakeholders directly in touch with their audience, transforming a hunch into a powerful, actionable insight.
Ditch the guesswork and bridge the gap
Bottom line, your intuition isn’t always right. For every example of a successful campaign built on “vibes”, the data show there are many more vibes-based campaigns that miss the mark in a big way. The path to more effective work lies in closing the audience knowledge gap. It requires moving beyond surface-level data to unearth powerful, fresh, and applicable insights. It means using those insights to fuel creative that connects.
And it involves treating your intuition not as a final answer, but as a starting point to be explored. The only intuition that truly matters is your audience’s, and the only way to understand it is to get to know them. Ditch the guesswork and connect authentically.
About Ipsos
Ipsos is one of the largest market research and polling companies globally, operating in 90 markets and employing nearly 20,000 people. Our Ipsos Creative Excellence team expertly partners with our clients through the creative development journey – from upstream insight generation that fuels creative briefs to optimization and post-launch learnings that drive future impact.
Our focus is on guidance that nurtures and optimizes the creativity that is essential to success. We work with 75% of the top 200 national advertisers and we are proud to closely partner with Effie in our shared commitment to drive marketing effectiveness through insights. For more details, visit Ipsos.com
About Effie
Effie leads, inspires and champions the practice and practitioners of marketing effectiveness globally. We work across 125 markets to deliver smart leadership, applicable insights, and the largest, most prestigious marketing effectiveness awards in the world. Winning an Effie has been a globally recognized symbol of outstanding achievement for over 50 years.
We recognize the most effective brands, marketers, and agencies globally, regionally, and locally through our coveted effectiveness rankings, the Effie Index. Our ambition is to equip marketers everywhere with the tools, knowledge, and inspiration they need to succeed. For more details, visit Effie.org
Get in Touch
Lisa Zielinski
SVP, US Creative Excellence Lisa.Zielinski@ipsos.com
Lisa Zielinski heads up thought leadership and partnerships for Ipsos Creative Excellence in the US. She has spent 17 awesome years immersed in the world of advertising and brand research, analyzing data on thousands of ads, tracking the health of hundreds of brands, and helping to shape many long-running, award-winning campaigns. Lisa has experienced firsthand the impact that can be had when audience insights are delivered at the right time and in the right way. She has seen how these insights can spark creative inspiration and build confidence in pursuing bolder work. Lisa is a firm believer that human empathy is the North Star for anyone trying to stay optimistic and navigate how to succeed in an environment where everything is being constantly disrupted by technology, politics, and societal changes.
