What if I told you that for every new dollar you’ve added to your marketing budget in the last two years, your actual impact on customers has gone down?
Agility requires moving beyond the muscle memory of simply increasing ad spend. It demands a continuous reassessment of what truly connects with customers and a willingness to pivot creative strategy based on real-time cultural and emotional insights.
Today, we’re going to talk about a paradox that’s likely keeping many marketing leaders up at night: the massive increase in global ad spend versus the startling drop in marketing impact. It’s what Shutterstock’s latest research calls the “impact gap,” and we’ll explore why the old playbook of just spending more is broken, and what the new drivers of success—like emotional connection, cultural relevance, and AI-powered personalization—actually look like in practice.
To help me discuss this topic, I’d like to welcome, Allison Sitzman, Vice President of Brand Strategy at Shutterstock.
About Allison Sitzman
Drawing on over 20 years of experience, Allison Sitzman is a strategic marketing leader who helps brands navigate inflection points, translating customer insight into growth and differentiation. Allison leads Shutterstock’s Brand Strategy organization, overseeing the global brand portfolio. She is responsible for defining and evolving Shutterstock’s positioning, audience strategy, and brand architecture. Allison’s leadership is focused on meaningful connection, business growth, and the consistent expression of the company’s purpose to fuel great work. Beyond her marketing leadership, Allison is deeply committed to building inclusive, high-performing teams. She previously co-chaired Cox Automotive’s women’s employee resource group and now serves as co-executive sponsor of Shutterstock’s LGBTQ+ employee resource group, advocating for belonging, empathy, and emotionally intelligent leadership across creative and marketing organizations.
Allison Sitzman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allisonsitzman/
Resources
Shutterstock: https://www.shutterstock.com
Read the Shutterstock report: The Impact Gap: Uncovering the Hidden Drivers That Make Creativity More Powerful
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Transcript
Greg Kihlstrom: What if I told you that for every new dollar you’ve added to your marketing budget in the last two years, your actual impact on customers has gone down? Agility requires moving beyond the muscle memory of simply increasing ad spend. It demands a continuous reassessment of what truly connects with customers and a willingness to pivot creative strategy based on real-time cultural and emotional insights. Today we’re going to talk about a paradox that’s likely keeping many marketing leaders up at night. The massive increase in global ad spend versus the startling drop in marketing impact. It’s what Shutterstock’s latest research calls the impact gap. And we’ll explore why the old playbook of just spending more is broken and what the new drivers of success like emotional connection, cultural relevance, and AI powered personalization actually look like in practice. To help me discuss this topic, I’d like to welcome Allison Sitzman, Vice President of Brand Strategy at Shutterstock. Allison, welcome to the show.
[ 1m50s151ms ] Allison Sitzman: Thank you, Greg, it’s great to be here.
[ 1m52s331ms ] Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah, looking forward to having this conversation with you. Before we dive in though, why don’t you give a little background on yourself and your role at Shutterstock?
[ 1m59s791ms ] Allison Sitzman: Oh, absolutely. Um, you know, as you mentioned, I lead brand strategy here at Shutterstock. Brand strategy and our organ encompasses brand marketing, creative, UX, and our external communications. Um I’ve been with Shutterstock about three years now, but my history in marketing spans two decades almost, which is crazy to say. But much of that time I’ve really been working with brands who have been at an inflection point much like Shutterstock in that they’ve outgrown what they were originally known for in their original identity. So my role at Shutterstock has really been around sharpening and reshaping Shutterstock’s positioning to our audiences, how we show up in the world, and really being that essential partner for impact as we have an expanded portfolio of creative content, custom production, and end-to-end AI model training services.
[ 2m49s731ms ] Greg Kihlstrom: Nice, nice. And yeah, we’re going to we’re going to talk about that that impact. And I want I want to start there and and start really from the strategic part of this. So I mentioned a a report from Shutterstock in the intro. Uh the report’s headline finding is this impact gap. Spend is up 33%, but impact is down 20%. So beyond simple content fatigue, what are the fundamental shifts in consumer behavior or the media landscape that you believe are the primary drivers of this disconnect?
[ 3m21s911ms ] Allison Sitzman: It’s a great question, and I think if I ask any marketer, hey, do they feel like you’re spending more and constantly getting less? I think everyone would say yes, I certainly do. Part of our, the creative impact report that Shutterstock created was around being able to quantify the value and impact that creative and creativity have on the business. And so the report findings show that from the years 2023 to 2024, media spend was up 33%, but purchase intent only rose 17%. And so that presents a 12% gap, which if we then fast forward to 2025 has even widened further to make a 20% gap between media spend and then purchase intent driven as a result. So if I kind of do the TLDR there, it’s really spend is outpacing purchase intent and the gap in problem is getting wider. And so I think when I think about what’s driving this gap, there’s a few things. I think first, you know, is the obvious one of we’ve never lived in a noisier time. There’s fragmentation of consumer attention. I think there’s a lot of brands and companies vying for messages and you know, highly competitive saturated spaces. And I think this has been all the more heightened likely by the recent proliferation of AI, um, really AI generated content that can also be when not done well, can be seen as generic and kind of adding to the noise.
[ 4m51s671ms ] Allison Sitzman: I think the second thing then is, you know, it’s a no-brainer then we’ve got this uh age of, you know, consumer skepticism against, I would say brands and messaging and content that has never been higher, as you can imagine really, we as humans are looking for, is it real, is it authentic? And our radars are up against anything that comes across in any way. We’re hypersensitive about things that don’t come across authentically. And then I think as you know, when we look at brands, you know, it goes back to fundamentals. Um, you know, I think some brands probably aren’t truly taking the time to fully understand their audiences and ensuring they’re connecting with them. And then I think in some cases we’ve also seen really I think over the past couple of years, typically I’ve seen a trend toward more, we’ll call it low funnel direct response media, you know, performance marketing at the expense of brand building and things that are really going to create that more well-rounded brand experience for our customers and putting that together and kind of your good full funnel approach.
[ 5m54s341ms ] Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah, yeah. You know, the the research also different kind of paradox than the the the impact gap, but you know, another thing, uh the research also points out that cultural relevance is a key driver and yet 66% of businesses have faced boycotts. So what does a leader do? You know, how do you balance the high reward of of taking a culturally relevant stance with the very real risk that that again, many businesses have faced of getting it wrong and and facing that backlash?
[ 6m27s211ms ] Allison Sitzman: Oh, it’s such an important question and uh and it’s a challenge, you know, not just for marketers, but for businesses on the whole.
[ 6m34s541ms ] Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah.
[ 6m35s361ms ] Allison Sitzman: And I think how I would first answer that is, uh, you know, I I I’ll key in on the word stance, which is I think there there’s not necessarily an obligation for brands in all cases to take a stance against a culturally relevant moment, but I think the the intelligence, the cultural intelligence, kind of EQ and then CQ as you will. I think it’s important for all brands to remember, they really, really need to hyper focus on what their audiences care about and are focused on. I would love to think everyone’s focused on Shutterstock every day, but I’m not even focused on Shutterstock every minute of every day. Right. And so I think like the the the larger perspective of the environment that we live in, right, we were reminded that our our customers and our audiences live there too. And so when I think about, you know, when I think about cultural relevance, it’s really pairing, you’ve got two lenses to look through now. You say, who is my brand and what do I do? How do I put that through the lens of my audience and my customer so I can resonate with them? But then how do I also then put that through the lens of the larger world around us? And when you do that right, it can be really powerful. But I think when you do that in a little bit of a way that can come off as inauthentic because you’re disconnected from what your customers care about, or worse tone deaf because you’re myopically focused on what your brand wants to communicate. That’s when you’re seeing that you’ve got the, you know, the 65.5% of brands saying they faced a backlash and 49% of brands are admitting they even struggle to diagnose why they face that cultural backlash.
[ 8m16s861ms ] Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah, yeah. Well, and from the creative standpoint in this, you know, you mentioned, you know, one of the downsides is is creating something that feels either, you know, false or flat, you know, is is almost as, you know, can can be almost as negative. So, you know, the goal would be to create emotionally resonant creative and and certainly the the research points to that as well. So, you know, the data on emotions is is particularly fascinating. Uh pride and belonging drive believability while anger drives virality. For a marketing leader, how do you translate this data into a creative brief, you know, make it something concrete without that feeling formulaic? You know, is the goal now to explicitly ask for a campaign that evokes belonging, for instance?
[ 9m8s411ms ] Allison Sitzman: Uh it’s a good yeah, another another really great question and a hard a hard nut to crack. And what I would say is, you know, as a brand or as a marketer, you know, if you can put something out there and get at someone to feel something. I think that that’s really a standout effort, especially in today’s market. And and why doesn’t that happen more? I mean, really I think when you are behind the curtain, there’s quite frankly a lot of also risk involved in evoking emotions because as you point out, when you evoke the wrong emotion, then we go back into the kind of the case of the disconnect from your audience or in worst case scenarios to in the backlash. But when I think about, you know, our creative impact report was really bringing forth this, you know, we should not shy away from trying to evoke emotions with our audiences because we’re all humans and we feel things.
[ 10m0s921ms ] Greg Kihlstrom: Right.
[ 10m1s161ms ] Allison Sitzman: And when someone feels something for your brand and with your brand, then of course that’s really what helps us promote the sense of of deep loyalty. Um and so as we look at kind of the, you know, you look at the things of pride and belonging, I mean, those are going back to I think just like universal and fundamental human needs around, you know, my sense of self, you know, my pride and my status and where I’m in the world. And then, you know, belonging is, you know, about the community that we tend to all crave as humans. And so that’s that’s those are I you know, again, they I think fundamental kind of basic uh psychological concepts and human needs. So I think the interesting element is then how brands translate that, put those again through the lens of their audience and what they care about and the world around them to translate then, how do they create that sense with their community? How do they evoke that sense in all of the not just advertising they put out, but kind of the entire brand experience. Um, and how are they doing that intentionally so they really, really flex that muscle when it’s needed and when it’s going to be very impactful.
[ 11m6s471ms ] Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah, yeah. Well, and to that point, you know, another thing that I found interesting was, you know, a lot of a lot of the focus on AI is around things like efficiency, scalability, all those things and and, you know, definitely they they play a role there. We talk a lot about that on this on this show quite a bit. But the report says that, uh, you know, 59% of of the creative surveyed see it’s AI’s greatest value in making choices bolder. So, can you, uh, you know, maybe share an example of how how can a brand use AI not just to to scale and and do all those things that that AI does well, um also, but also to arrive at a more daring or maybe, you know, to our earlier point, more emotionally relevant creative concept that a human team might have overlooked.
[ 11m59s331ms ] Allison Sitzman: Yeah, I love this insight because I think there’s an insight, actually an insight behind the insight. And when we see that 59% of creatives, um, are hoping that AI is going to help make creative bolder. I have to imagine some of that insight is they’re hoping that the boldness that they are bringing to life through their creative is approved to go out the door by the powers that be that are saying, yes, this is on strategy and yes, we’re comfortable sending it out the door. And I know from firsthand experience, oftentimes there’s, you know, risk aversion and things like that that come into play where then, um, you know, creative approaches that originally started probably a little bit more bold then maybe get a little bit, you know, watered down or tamped, you know, tamped down along the way. And so I think, you know, when we look at AI tools out there, there’s, you know, we’re still in as you as you know, I think it’s a really exciting time, but a time where we’re still all learning, I think around how to implement these tools uh to, you know, to be most effective for the impact of our our campaigns and the work that we’re doing. But really I think if you look at AI technology that can help us monitor what’s going out there in the social sphere, AI can help us get a gut check on what kind of emotions may be coming through or resonating. We can tell it, you know, hey, my audience is XYZ, let me just define this persona or this ICP and then react to this kind of creative or messaging as if you are that type of a person. And it shouldn’t, I don’t think it should ever, you know, replace necessarily the idea of, you know, testing or iterating amongst the, you know, human audiences, but I do think it’s a real time kind of a real time feedback and gut check that you can implement and use along the way that then can at least tell you as an early indicator or gauge how bold is this creative, is the emotion coming through, is it coming through strongly enough?
[ 14m5s606ms ] Greg Kihlstrom: I want to talk about measurement in in general. And and another interesting thing in the report, uh, you know, it introduces a a creative impact score to quantify creative creativity’s influence on purchase intent. So, you know, for the CMOs listening out there who, you know, they need to justify their budgets to a CFO. How do you explain the methodology behind a score like this and and connect something which, you know, creativity, you know, kind of a soft concept, let’s say like creative quality to a hard metric like revenue? [ 14m43s216ms ] Allison Sitzman: Great question. And I will say that that’s part of the part of why part of why we developed the creative impact report was not just for creative and marketing leaders, but also really for business leaders, CFOs, CEOs to understand that there’s a tangible connection between creative and revenue, and those two things are intrinsically tied. And so I kind of I smile because I think that CFOs and CMOs were not on different sides of the team.
[ 15m13s526ms ] Greg Kihlstrom: Right.
[ 15m13s836ms ] Allison Sitzman: Uh we just sometimes speak different languages. And so I think, you know, it’s I I think it’s a pretty straightforward translation of creative as a strategic growth lever for businesses. And really three, ideally fun three fundamental areas where if your creative impact is strong, you’re in theory, you know, increasing your demand, you’re increasing, you know, creating higher intent to purchase your products. Um that in turn is going to help lead to things like lower acquisition costs, which drive higher revenue efficiency or higher, um retention, which of course is going to drive revenue in the form of lifetime value. But then I guess you can also look at it from the standpoint of maybe cost avoidance and margin as well as another avenue and as it, you know, in addition to CAC and LTV, you know, if we’re really conscious of what’s going on culturally around us, you know, we lessen our our risk of facing backlash. If we are producing creative that is more effective at the get-go, we can use it more often, we’re producing less and it’s going farther for us, we’re concentrating on fewer things as opposed to more things. And that can really help drive the the cost in the in the um vein of efficiency.
[ 16m36s616ms ] Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah, yeah. And looking across sectors and, you know, creative impact across sectors, uh, you know, the the consumer sector scored the lowest in in creative impact. Um a little bit of a surprise to me actually, but, you know, down down 24%, while aerospace and energy were highest at at 45%, you know, plus 45%. What can a struggling CPG or retail brand learn from a high performing and seemingly very different sector like aerospace, you know, are there universal principles of creative impact that can kind of, you know, transcend industries?
[ 17m17s36ms ] Allison Sitzman: It’s a fascinating comparison and I think agree with you. I was a bit surprised by the data myself. I think not having, you know, some a couple of those industries be necessarily my specialty. I would say that I think what you’re speaking to around the the fund some of the fundamentals coming through, it feels like is will be really important. And again, our our our report was amongst 27 businesses that spanned a number of industries and so obviously we extrapolate that to look at the impact between those sectors. I really think that, you know, we look at going back to the focusing on customer needs. Um I would say probably aerospace and and energy likely, you know, being a little bit more B2B centric. I think I would imagine probably have focuses on connecting with their audiences outside of maybe as we would think about traditional media purchasing. Um whereas CPG is probably leaning into that a little bit more heavily. Um but also just the CPG is also just such a very, you know, generically, I would say just a very, very um busy space. There’s a lot of competitors and brands out there. And so I think, you know, you’ve got B2B buyers that are, you know, really I think going through tend to be very large purchase decisions that they’re going to spend a lot of time and energy on versus again CPG, not isolated, but I think CPG often times gets to be a little bit more of an emotion forward. I’m, you know, addressing a a purchase at at in a moment in time.
[ 18m55s536ms ] Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, I mean, not to but yeah, buying a rocket is is different than buying a bottle of shampoo or what, you know, so, you know, it could be I I I you know, it could be a little hard to to compare. But I I do I do think the there’s always something having worked in a few different industries myself, I, you know, I think it’s always interesting to see what you can apply, you know, from one thing to another where where you can.
[ 19m19s526ms ] Allison Sitzman: And I do think that those that the tenets around emotional emotional resonance, cultural intelligence, and then really staying, you know, utilizing the tools that you have to make sure that you’re showing up authentically to your customers and telling them your story in the best ways. I mean, that transcends industries.
[ 19m37s26ms ] Greg Kihlstrom: Absolutely. Yeah. So looking looking ahead a little bit and, you know, looking 2026 right around the corner here with uh Olympics and World Cup, you know, lot lots of stuff going on as and and plenty more, of course. You know, a lot of brands are going to default to bigger budgets, celebrity endorsements, you know, kind of the the go-to playbook, so to speak. Based on your finding, uh what’s the smarter, more agile play for a brand that simply can’t outspend the competition?
[ 20m10s986ms ] Allison Sitzman: Mm. This really resonates I think across, I mean, this would this resonates with small companies and large companies alike. I think even companies with large budgets are always looking for how can we be more effective and efficient in this, you know, our impact gap is proving all the more reason why. Um so, you know, I think as we look at the marketing gauntlet if you will of 2026, you know, Olympics and World Cup and, you know, mid-term elections in the US. I think the concept of less can be more when done right. I think really, really applies here. An insight that came out of our creative impact report showed that focusing on delivering two to three high impact, emotionally resonant messages was was high more highly performant than volume or mass at scale for repetition, which actually as a marketer goes a little bit against I think what we’ve probably learned back in school, which is like seven times before they remember it. Say it, say it again and say it again, right? Um but I think what that’s really trying I think part of what this is really trying to say is we as marketers tend to want to say a lot because we have such a good story to tell and of course you should care about every aspect of our brand. Um but really honing in on focusing the message, focusing in on those really two to three high impact uh messages and pieces of creative that are really pushing the boldness as we talked about before with the emotional resonance. I think that that one, I think angling that can be a way to stand out. Less is more. And then I think adapting probably the way that your brand shows up within those environments of sometimes there’s a scale play of course with purchasing types of scale media, but are there interesting ways that you can figure out how your brand shows up in ways that don’t have as much maybe noise concentration? Um as other brands can zig where other brands are zagging if you if you will. And so I think that there is this kind of the, I think there is an opportunity then to look at those spaces and uh kind of carve out new and different ways that your brand can come to life when it’s particularly noisy in a specific space like specifically media attention.
[ 22m32s836ms ] Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah, yeah. So, one one last thing from the from the research, the the data also shows that immersive formats like augmented reality can boost uh believability by 61%, yet adoption is still relative uh relatively niche. Looking out, you know, is several years from now, you know, do you think that these formats are going to be, you know, table stakes for campaigns or is it still going to remain, you know, kind of reserved for specific or very high impact moments?
[ 23m5s736ms ] Allison Sitzman: Well, I’m a big proponent of not never a tactic for tactics sake. Never a format for format sake. But, you know, I think with our report showing that formats, you know, like AR and VR boost the believability and shareability by 61%. I think that what that’s really telling us is we’re in an age where we’ve never been more connected but disconnected. I mean, even here, right, we’re doing this in a virtual environment. And so I think as a brand, we’re always thinking about how do we create a what feels like a real and authentic, right, connection with our customers? And oftentimes, we never get the chance to do that in real life, unless, you know, you have a bit of a, you know, brick and mortar, some type of experience. And so I think that that’s where formats like AR and VR probably have a lot of interesting potential as we continue to see their potentially growth in adoption over the next three, you know, the next few years. Um but it’s really about how do you give, you know, your audience more of that immersion into what it feels like to be in your brand? And I mean, I, who knows what the, you know, who knows what the future is going to hold, but I would expect, I would expect that experiences like that will continue to grow in popularity as we as we look to the next few years.
[ 24m23s216ms ] Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah, yeah. Well, uh as we wrap up here, a couple last things for you. Looking uh looking one year out, uh you know, if we’re having this interview one year from now, what is one thing that we would definitely be talking about?
[ 24m37s206ms ] Allison Sitzman: Oh, uh, you know, I would say the impact gap that we’ve been discussing today, that 20% gap. It’s a multi-billion dollar problem. And so I think, uh, you know, it’s a I the companies that we surveyed alone, $19 billion problem in the US. I think if we’re talking about this a year from now, I think there is definitely the risk that that becomes an even larger gap and a bigger problem and issue. And I think that what we would likely be talking about is a continuation of the role of human creativity, human cultural intelligence, to direct and to lay the strategy for teams and AI tools and frankly agents, that probably as we get into that space. And the pairing, I think pairing the two together to really be producing effective marketing that is smart, that is agile and emotionally resonant and culturally aware.
[ 25m42s916ms ] Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah, absolutely. Well, um, would love to invite you back next year. Let’s let’s talk about both of those things for sure. Well, Allison, thanks so much for for joining today. Uh one last question before we wrap up here, what do you do to stay agile in your role and how do you find a way to do it consistently?
[ 26m0s36ms ] Allison Sitzman: Well, thank you for having me, Greg. It’s really been a fun discussion. Um and there’s a definitely a lot changing around us at all times. You know, I think staying agile means staying curious. So I think if I’m I think staying agile for me, it’s listening, really, uh staying curious about what’s going on in the world around us. Hearing really firsthand what our customers think and feel, how it’s changing over time. Experimenting and maybe failing, which is bold. Would love to do more failing because then we’re learning. But be, you know, just be iterative, rapid iteration, try things, see what’s going to work. But ultimately at the end of the day, I think really it’s important to trust your team. Trust your team, trust your creative team, trust your marketers and understand that they’re the really the professionals there that are helping ensure that your brand is being carried forward in an authentic way to your audiences and will help you lean in to the effective ways to bring that to life.
