In a world drowning in data, is the ‘big creative idea’ for a holiday campaign an endangered species, or is it more critical than ever?
Agility requires not just moving fast, but moving with confidence. It’s the ability to validate creative instincts with real-world data, ensuring that your biggest bets are also your smartest ones.
Today, we’re going to talk about the high-stakes world of holiday advertising and the delicate balance between creative magic and data-driven methodology. We’re going to talk about one such campaign for John Lewis, a popular British Department store whose holiday ads are a cultural event in the UK, where the stakes can be high.
And they aren’t alone. The holiday season is the equivalent of the Super Bowl for many brands, where a single campaign can define the entire year. Yet, for every heartwarming success story, there are countless others that miss the mark. So how do brands de-risk their biggest creative investments and ensure their message will actually resonate with consumers? Joining me to discuss is Nataly Kelly, Chief Marketing Officer at Zappi.
About Nataly Kelly
Nataly Kelly is Chief Marketing Officer at Zappi, based in Boston, MA. Previously she served at HubSpot as Vice President of Marketing, Vice President of International Operations and Strategy, and Vice President of Localization.
Nataly Kelly on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/natalykelly/
Resources
Zappi: https://www.zappi.io/
The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems. Learn more here: https://www.teksystems.com/versionnextnow
Catch the future of e-commerce at eTail Palm Springs, Feb 23-26 in Palm Springs, CA. Go here for more details: https://etailwest.wbresearch.com/
Watch the John Lewis “Where Love Lives” Ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1bRlnyQeDk
Zappi Report: Lessons in Advertising: Christmas 2025: https://email.zappistore.com/hubfs/Zappi%20Christmas%20Advertising%202025.pdf
Zappi Report: The Connected Insights Imperative: https://www.zappi.io/web/connected-insights-imperative-report/
Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstrom
Don’t miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter and more: https://www.theagilebrand.show
Check out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://www.agilebrandguide.com
The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. https://www.missinglink.company
Transcript
Greg Kihlstrom (00:00)
In a world drowning in data, is the big creative idea for holiday campaigns an endangered species or is it more critical than ever? Agility requires not just moving fast, but moving with confidence. It’s the ability to validate creative instincts with real world data, ensuring that your biggest bets are also your smartest ones. Today, we’re going to talk about the high stakes world of holiday advertising and the delicate balance between creative magic and data driven methodology.
We’re going to talk about one such campaign for John Lewis, a popular British department store whose holiday ads are a cultural event in the UK where the stakes can be high. And they aren’t alone. The holiday season is the equivalent of the Super Bowl for many brands where a single campaign can define the entire year. Yet for every heartwarming success story, there are countless others that miss the mark. So how do brands de-risk their biggest creative investments and ensure their message will actually resonate with consumers?
To help me discuss this topic, I’d like to welcome Natalie Kelly, CMO at Zappi. Natalie, welcome back to the show.
Nataly Kelly (00:58)
Thank you, Greg. I’m very happy to be here.
Greg Kihlstrom (00:59)
Yeah, great talking with you last time and always glad to have you back here. Before we dive in though, for those that didn’t catch you last time you were on the show, why don’t you give a little background on yourself and your role at Zappy.
Nataly Kelly (01:11)
Sure. So I’m the Chief Marketing Officer at Zappi. And Zappi is a consumer insights platform. And we help brands win with consumers through consumer data, fast, high quality data, and advertising innovation and brand tracking. So we do look at a lot of these ads day in, day out, like the one that we’re going to talk about today. Our technology is used by 350 global consumer brands, including PepsiCo, McDonald’s, Heineken, Wreck-It, many of those brands that are in every household to keep them connected to consumers so they can make data-driven decisions.
Greg Kihlstrom (01:41)
Well, yeah, let’s let’s dive in then and want to start with the the the strategic aspect of this and we’re gonna talk about one specific campaign but but also just more more broadly so for those of you in the audience less familiar, you know John Lewis as I mentioned a department store in the UK funny enough I know the show is audio only but I’m wearing I was in Edinburgh over the summer so I’m actually wearing something I got at John Lewis and
In honor of this episode, let’s just say their ads are a cultural event in the UK, and we’re going to put a link to the to one of the spots in the show notes as well. But this year’s Where Love Lives spot is being seen as a return to form where after a few years, their ads didn’t seem to resonate as well. So for those that haven’t seen it, can you maybe briefly describe it? And and, you know, as I said, we’ll put a link in the show notes as well.
Nataly Kelly (02:34)
Yes, well, I highly encourage everyone listening to watch this ad. It is a beautiful ad. It is, as you said, Greg, a return to classic John Lewis emotional storytelling. What I love about the UK Christmas ads is they do feel like a little bit like a mini movie. You you get such a storytelling arc and you get that satisfaction of resolution at the end. Basically, this ad is about a father and son who’ve grown distant as the son gets older. He looks like maybe he’s a teen or a young adult.
And it’s capturing on those small familiar moments where they’re trying to reconnect. And I really love the fact that it’s built on a powerful insight, which is as kids grow up, families often struggle to find the right words. You know, in the moment, how do they connect and how do they communicate? And they have this line in the ad at the end that says, if you can’t find the words, find the gift. And I think it’s really a great
line because it reflects something that is something that a lot of people feel but might not be able to articulate. You family relationships are tricky and, you know, it’s hard sometimes to know exactly what to say, but it just hits on so many relatable notes for parents and for family relationships that I think it’s a really strong, powerful ad.
Greg Kihlstrom (03:49)
Yeah, yeah, I consider myself a relatively jaded ad marketing person and I saw it. I was not expecting to feel anything to be honest, but yeah, there was, you know, definitely definitely an emotional spot in the in the right in the right kind of way as well. So definitely at least resonated with myself and it sounds like several other people as well. So.
Nataly Kelly (04:12)
Sure. And you know, it’s interesting because when I first lived in Ireland, you mentioned you were just traveling in Scotland and got your John Lewis shirt that you’re wearing right now. When I lived in Ireland, I was there for Christmas seasons and I always was surprised by how emotional the ads are. They really do touch you and like move you in a way that I’ve never seen in the US market. And it’s not just that emotional part, but the data actually validates. And so when Zappi tested this John Lewis ad, we tested it with 400 consumers on our Amplify ad system. It ranked in the 93rd percentile when we looked at 1,100 UK ads tested. So that’s really, really scoring a very high. And the distinctiveness norm is about 3.7. This scored at 4.1 because of the storytelling. And the emotional impact, know, love is one of the emotions that we looked at. And the norm for love is 22%.
It was reported by 44 % of viewers. So that’s double the typical response. So you can see in the data how it’s resonating with consumers emotionally, which is really, cool.
Greg Kihlstrom (05:15)
Yeah, yeah. And you mentioned the more emotional aspect maybe of some of these UK ads versus, how does that compare to US holiday ad approaches?
Nataly Kelly (05:26)
Well, I would say US advertising in general is just very different from UK advertising. The culture is reflected in the advertising, essentially. It’s reflected in the creative. our culture tends to be much more transactional and fast-paced. And a lot of these strong emotional ads you don’t often see in the US. But some of those are actually the ones that perform the best. And in the Super Bowl, we saw the Budweiser ad that was very emotional, had a family element, had some of the same notes that this ad does and it performed well too. Surprise, humans like to feel positive emotions, know, so, you know, like it’s not, it’s not really that, shouldn’t be that shocking, but what is happening in the U.S. is often, because it is such a big market and there are so many competitors. And when you go to a U.S., like a supermarket in the U.S., you see so many more products on the shelves than you do in a typical UK grocery store. It does take more to stand out and, you know, maybe
stand out apart from the noise. So there’s that cultural element, but I think they’re also just different economies. And so that’s maybe why we see some of these things. The US tends to focus more on short-term activation and sales. Sometimes they mix those with holiday tradition ads, but the UK is really more focused on brand building and those heartfelt stories that reflect the culture at the time of recording. I do tend to think holiday ads in the UK are like the version of the Super Bowl in the US.
Those are the two big moments in each country.
Greg Kihlstrom (06:50)
Yeah
And so, you know, there’s no one right answer for any of this, you whether relying on creative instinct or relying on data. But, you know, beyond a single ad, you know, what’s what do you see as maybe the biggest strategic mistake when brands are maybe relying purely on creative instinct or, you know, too far on the other side, relying too much on on data to make sure that they kind of cut through the noise in this campaign season.
Nataly Kelly (07:18)
Yeah, I think that’s a good question, Greg. There’s a few things that come to mind. You know, if brands are chasing trends, that tends to not work very well. Especially when you consider the lead time that you need to build a good ad. You know, often if you try to incorporate a trend, it might not even be relevant by the time the ad comes to life and airs. know, so those types of little trends and jokes, they might get a quick laugh, but they usually don’t build long-term brand meaning.
and keep your brand top of mind for consumers. You don’t want to be a flash in the pan. You want to be there consistently in their heads. So the other thing we notice is when we look at all these ads, under investing in brand characters and brand assets is something that we’ve noticed a lot of brands make mistakes with. And the holidays are a prime moment when you can reinforce those distinctive brand assets like the Hershey Bells or Coca-Cola with Santa and like those associations that we have with an ad that instantly make that brand come to mind. Another thing is you don’t want to take the data too literally. I shared some data points before, but you don’t want to necessarily use those to drive all of your creative choices. It’s a little bit of art and science. You need to understand the insights and the data, but the magic comes from combining that with creative instinct to really amplify what works and fix the things that don’t work. And that’s not easy.
Greg Kihlstrom (08:41)
Right, right. Well, yeah, and speaking of that from the planning stage, what are some signals that tell you that a creative concept may have lags versus one that’s likely to fall? How do you predict the stuff? Nothing’s perfect, I’m sure, but are there common themes or creative trends that are shaping what resonates with audiences this year?
Nataly Kelly (09:05)
Yeah, well, there is no one size fits all metric. And this is where the science of advertising and marketing and looking at these things in detail is really complex. Our most sophisticated ad development system, Amplify, breaks down key metrics like purchase uplift and brand recall, messaging penetration, emotional relevance, resonance, should say, and then relevance and uniqueness, all those different factors and more. And that enables marketers
figure out, what’s the most important metric that I want to influence with this ad? You can’t hit all of them. know, there are some ads that do a decent job on many, but you have to make choices. So, you know, if you are trying to drive short-term sales, for example, then you probably want to over-index on purchase uplift and sales impact scores. If you want to build your brand over time, then you’re going to dig deeper into uniqueness and relevance and brand impact. And that’s what we see more in those UK ads, especially around Christmas time. So, you know, we do a lot of testing and our customers do. We generate thousands of data points in one test. When you take that times all the tests and you think those data assets that you’re building over time give you like really valuable insights into, it looks like here’s a trend, you know, maybe.
When we do this, the sales impact score goes up. Or maybe when we do this, the long-term brand building component is even stronger. And that’s where building a data asset really helps any marketer to just learn from what’s special about their brand and learn how consumers are relating to that over time.
Greg Kihlstrom (10:33)
Yeah. And what you’re talking about there too, not only does it require having access to the data and being, you know, being able to analyze the data, but also having an agile process to modify the creative. You know, a lot of these campaigns are at least traditionally planned months in advance and there’s there’s costs associated versus being nimble and able to adjust and respond and react to some of these things. How does a brand do that? You know, how did
Is it about trying to get rid of the bad ideas as early as possible or is it refining good ideas to be great or all of the above maybe?
Nataly Kelly (11:11)
Yeah, it’s a bit of all those things, Greg. And one of the reasons I love this podcast is the Agile brand. It is about being agile. It is about learning. often when I share some of this data, people say, oh, I don’t believe in testing ads. And I often say, well, Zappi doesn’t believe in that either. believe in learning. So you build better advertising. It’s not about one ad. It’s about your advertising program over time. That’s how you build.
a brand. And so it’s about that over time. But I would say pre-testing early stage, like you mentioned, you know, killing bad ideas early, that is really impactful. But I would say it’s less about killing the bad ideas, more about uncovering the good ones, bringing those good ideas to the forefront so that you can build on them even further and take the best ideas that have the highest potential and then explore those further. And then for later stage testing,
You can use key metrics like brand recall and purchase uplift to really nail your messaging and some of the finer details that will stand out for consumers. So I think there’s a place for testing at every stage, and you’re looking probably at different metrics in each stage.
Greg Kihlstrom (12:15)
Yeah, yeah. And to talk a little bit more about the emotional part of this, know, certainly there’s there’s lots of ways to measure to measure success. Holiday ads, as we’ve talked about, particularly the UK ones. But, you know, holiday ads in general are often designed to evoke emotion, build long term brand affinity, not just the the immediate sales, although certainly that’s that’s a focus. How do you advise brands to measure the ROI of this emotional resonance and connect it to the long term value.
Nataly Kelly (12:46)
Yeah, I mean, you if you’re going to grow brand affinity, that is a long term initiative. It takes time and you have to show up for consumers in a unique way when it counts. what we often see is, you know, brand is really the key to long term growth. You know, that phrase market share follows mind share. Yeah. So while teams can look at short term lift, they really need to think about the long term if they really want to grow their brands and be top of mind for consumers. So
One of the things that we often recommend is brand tracking because with brand tracking, has historically been difficult to measure because brand tracking has been prohibitively expensive. And that cost means that even for the brands with the biggest budget, it’s limited to just a few points in time when you measure the impact. I firmly believe, Zappi believes, that marketers need a more continuous connection to consumers, an ongoing way of tracking how is the brand being perceived at more moments? That’s why we’ve developed an agile brand tracker. So you’ve got monthly consumer pulses, so you can really zoom in to see what influenced the brand that month. And you can double down on what really works because you’re getting more frequent data to inform those decisions, make better ads, make better investments.
Greg Kihlstrom (14:02)
Yeah, so it sounds like then in addition to the performance related data, the brand and, you know, sentiment related data, they kind of go in hand in hand, right? And that’s kind of going back to the earlier point. Those things together really make the agile and iterative improvement, right? It’s not just one or the other.
Nataly Kelly (14:23)
That’s absolutely right. That’s why we often talk about connected insights because it’s connecting the insights from the advertising that you’re developing, from the products that you’re developing, the innovations, and how your brand is performing over time. It’s not, know, traditionally companies did this in silos. You know, they have one team over here using one tool to test ads. They have another team testing the packaging and the concepts and, you know, all these different stages of development.
But if you connect them into a single place where you can see everything and get all the data, you can connect it all and understand more about what the consumer actually cares about. There’s a lot of great insights that like, that package actually, people like that aspect of the packaging. How do you feed that into the ad if you can’t connect the data? If you know that they love the way you twist that off and they like the sound of it or whatever, you could incorporate that into your TV ad But not if you didn’t connect those learnings from one to the other.
Greg Kihlstrom (15:21)
Yeah, yeah. And so, you know, we can’t complete a conversation like this without bringing in AI to some degree. So let’s go there for a minute and talk about what role is AI having in this process? How is it changing the creative development, the testing landscape? And where do you see that going over the next 18 to 24 months?
Nataly Kelly (15:42)
Well, if you look at the recent Coca-Cola ad, one of the things you can learn from that ad is to use established brand assets to develop unique creative with a fun twist each year, so long as you have the right brand guardrails. So the Coca-Cola ad this year, we tested it in our Zappi Amplify system, and the ad scored 94 out of 100 on sales and brand impact. So really high-scoring ad.
And love was reported by 55 % of viewers. And that’s the UK norm I mentioned was 22%. And the John Lewis ad performed 44%. In the US, it’s 27 % is the norm. And this Coca-Cola ad was reported at 55 % of viewers. Love was reported by 55%. So that’s really great. It’s great performance. The unaided brand Recall hit 83%.
The AI execution on that ad did not dilute the original Coca-Cola iconic branding, which is really interesting because I think a lot of people think if you use AI to any degree, it might dilute the brand. But I think it’s how you use AI that really matters. One thing that we noticed in that ad also was that viewers focused on Santa and the trucks and the animals and the festive music and the emotions like the joy, the magic, the nostalgia were really dominating in that ad. And the AI element was mostly invisible. You couldn’t really tell that AI was used. it’s really highlighting that meaningful creative ideas are still the driver behind a great ad.
Greg Kihlstrom (17:14)
Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, and AI is a supporting function in that case, right? Yeah.
Nataly Kelly (17:21)
Yeah. And I mean, I recently was talking to Chris Bellinger, who’s the chief creative officer at PepsiCo, one of our customers at Zappi, and on our podcast. And he mentioned this idea of minimum viable ideas or MVIs and talking about how you can test those with consumers to gauge their potential at a high level. And I think that’s really where AI can make a big difference is AI can help you track those trends. AI can help you spot what are those minimum viable ideas that you can really bring further along in the creative process.
Greg Kihlstrom (17:50)
Yeah, yeah. And so for for the leaders out there listening and planning ahead for for next year, you know, what do you see as as the the single most important capability or maybe even mindset shift as we’re talking about, you know, all the changes that are happening with AI adoption and all that? What’s the biggest thing they need to adopt to ensure that creative not only connects, but also drives business growth?
Nataly Kelly (18:14)
Yeah, I think the number one thing that we’ve heard surveying and doing some research on our side in a report that we put out ⁓ recently called the Connected Insights Imperative, we learned that data fragmentation is currently the biggest blocker reported by marketing teams and consumer insights teams to moving things along and getting closer to the consumer and winning with consumers. so
I would say data fragmentation is the number one thing to tackle for marketing leaders as they plan for next year. The reason I think that’s happening is because more and more marketing leaders have been pressured by their boards and their CEOs to really lean into AI. And when they’re trying, they’re realizing, ⁓ our data is what’s blocking us. We can’t actually leverage AI to the degree we thought because our data is in all these silos. It’s inconsistently structured. We can’t make great use of it. So I think that is the number one that everyone should be thinking about is data fragmentation. How do we solve that? How do we connect our data and get it more aligned and get it, you know, so that we can leverage it and use AI to derive more value from it?
Greg Kihlstrom (19:17)
Yeah, yeah, completely agree. Well, Natalie, always great to talk with you. Thanks for sharing all your ideas and insights here. One last question for you before we wrap up. What do you do to stay agile in your role, and how do you find a way to do it consistently?
Nataly Kelly (19:30)
I love this question, Greg. Well, I work at a company that invented agile consumer insights. So working at Zappi keeps me agile because we’re constantly releasing the latest software to help our customers get that data from consumers and use it, build a data asset and use AI and get the most out of it so that they can stay connected to consumers. So that’s what I do. I listen to customers and I listen to the challenges they face and the struggles of their end customers who are consumers.
