How consumer insight shapes creative at scale

Steve Phillips [00:00:00]:

Welcome to Inside Insight, where marketing strategy meets consumer truth with your host, Steve Phillips.

Steve Phillips [00:00:05]:

According to Canva's 2026 State of Marketing and AI report, 70% of consumers say AI generated advertising feels like it's missing its soul. Even as 99% of marketers plan to increase their AI investments this year. That's creating a new challenge for marketers because AI can help teams move faster than ever before, can generate ideas, build storyboards, accelerate production across markets almost overnight. But speed doesn't guarantee better creative and you need better creative for better results. When you're launching campaigns across multiple countries at once, how do you harness the power of AI and make sure consumer insights are helping to shape creative decisions and still ensure that human-driven, great creative comes through?

Steve Phillips [00:00:52]:

I'm Steve Phillips and today I'm joined by Matt Harris, research and insights lead for Europe at Canva, and Ollie Bussell, creative lead for Europe. Together, they recently helped launch five campaigns across four European markets, balancing different languages, cultures and creative expectations while moving at remarkable speed. Today we'll explore how consumer insights can help shape creativity across markets, why the best research doesn't replace creative instinct, and what happens when consumer insight and creative have to move together, but faster than either function is used to. Matt, Ollie, welcome to Inside Insights.

Steve Phillips [00:01:29]:

Matt, when you're developing campaigns across multiple markets at once, how do consumer insights shape creative decisions differently than they would if you were building, say, for a single audience in a single market?

Matt Harris [00:01:43]:

Yeah, it's great to be here, first of all, but I think more than anything, it's just the speed and the scale that we need to work at, right. So I think the same principles of consumer insight apply where we're always trying to make sure what we put out into the world is kind of sensitive to the personal and the cultural context for everyone. And there's always different, I guess, strategic challenges in each market.

Matt Harris [00:02:08]:

But if I think back to Q4 last year when we had these campaigns coming up, basically I think the thing I had to be really intentional about is, okay, how do we change the tooling that we use and put the processes in place and change how we work to really be able to deliver that at speed? So at the start, in terms of understanding different audiences, when we're at that planning stage, really lent into AI survey analysis to produce some of those insights. And then when we got to the actual creative process for each of the campaigns, it was, I think, about letting go of some of the crutches that maybe previously leant on as a kind of consumer insights person. So moving away from a half an hour debrief where you've got time to really polish the presentation and work everything out and really having to lean into fast communication, it might be Slack, it might be just talking through results, it might be a two by two from a zappy test and really just common facing at that speed.

Steve Phillips [00:03:05]:

Oli, you're the creative genius behind these campaigns. Tell us about how you're absorbing this insight and this understanding and how that enables you to make campaigns that work in different markets with different target audiences, whilst retaining some sense of central creative vision.

Oli Bussell [00:03:23]:

Yeah, I think it was particularly useful working across such different markets which all had such different, such different needs and wants. And,

Oli Bussell [00:03:32]:

I think the insights really helped to kind of steer those, those individual market decisions. And it's not something that I was particularly used to before working at Canva. We worked with local agencies, we worked with local directors, we tried to kind of ground everything within a core local insight. We also have kind of Canva local teams. So, like, we made sure to test those insights with our kind of local teams.

Oli Bussell [00:03:55]:

You know, it's not for me to say what is authentically Italian or what's authentically, authentically French. And I think the key, the key thing in it, I think across everything was like a super collaborative approach, right, where that kind of Canva core, that Canvaness that has to exist across everything while being very distinctly local. I think that only comes from being very collaborative, obviously with Matt and with Insights, but also very collaborative with the agencies, with the directors, making sure that we kind of instill Canva in everything we're putting across, no matter how distinctly local it is.

Steve Phillips [00:04:26]:

I mean, it's always an interesting tension, isn't it, because you're developing, you're trying to create something with a central idea whilst executing locally. And you could have turned that round and said, let's execute entirely locally and not even have a central idea other than Canva is a brand. Does that discussion happen a lot internally?

Oli Bussell [00:04:43]:

I think everything we put out has to be Canva. Right. And has to feel like it's from Canva. And I think the distinct approach for these campaigns and particularly the way that we're moving as a business is to speak locally to the people.

Oli Bussell [00:04:58]:

We don't want to feel like we're turning up as like an Australian company telling you what it is to be Italian. So I think like inherently the Canvaness, the Canvass has to come across and I think like one, one key way that we sort of developed on these campaigns is the product always being core to the story. Right. So Canva always has to be the catalyst. It always has to be the thing that, you know, that launches this business.

Oli Bussell [00:05:21]:

The sudden tone change in the advert, like we were really keen across all of these. No matter what that kind of local insight was that, like, if you extract Canva from that, the advert kind of falls apart. It's not that you could just badge it with a competitor logo and it will work the same, you know, like, I think the most successful ads we launched really feel like Canva is so integral to the story. It's the only way we could have got from beginning, middle to end is having Canva. And I think as a result of that, everything ends up feeling very Canva, no matter how local and how hyper specific that celebrity or that insight is or that humor.

Steve Phillips [00:05:56]:

That's really interesting. So you've joked before about Insight professionals sometimes being the bearer of bad news. You know, we test ads and we say it might not work or it doesn't work or it scores badly, but you're delivering to a team that is trying to, you know, balance that localization, that internationalization. Also making sure that the work cuts through is developing a story, has a central Canva theme. How do you—those are complex issues, right—and you're feeding back from consumers. How are you helping those teams not say yes or no to an execution, but develop the idea? How are you making things better?

Matt Harris [00:06:36]:

Yeah, sure. I mean, you'll have to ask Ollie how well I manage that. But yeah, I think there's some practical things. Right. So. And I don't think it's just a challenge when working with the creative team.

Matt Harris [00:06:48]:

I think it's anyone that touches the campaign. The whole team are putting a lot of time, a lot of effort and a lot of love into this idea. Right. So it's entirely natural to sometimes find yourself in difficult conversations if the consumer testing comes back and it's quite a negative result. I think practical things that I've tried to do is first of all just bring the consumer voice into those conversations.

Matt Harris [00:07:09]:

I think there's something special about maybe seeing a video of a single consumer talking or reading through the verbatim comments that gets you beyond a statistic from a survey. So trying to bring that in. It's much harder to argue with it if there's a real person on the other end that you're hearing from. And then I also think part of the role as a consumer insights person is sort of speaking for or helping people understand what's behind the consumer response. So one of the common results for an ad that maybe isn't testing as well is quite rare.

Matt Harris [00:07:40]:

I think in my experience that you get consumers saying, oh, I really dislike this aspect or that aspect or I hate this. Right. Much more common is they just don't engage strongly with anything. Right. It's just kind of ambivalence.

Matt Harris [00:07:53]:

Right. So helping the team understand what that means. And these are consumers that are not thinking about Canva every day in the same way that we are and are going to be seeing our adverts in cluttered environments and just trying to help people interpret the data in that way. So I think there's sort of practical things and then the sort of overarching thing that I try to remember is just have a bit of humility about the data. Like research has certainly come on a long, long way in the past 15 or 20 years.

Matt Harris [00:08:21]:

I think there's much better recognition of the role of emotion, for example, in that. But it's an imperfect science still. And I think you see this particularly for earlier stage testing, for example. So quite often we'll test a storyboard and I'm so conscious of not wanting to kill an idea that is maybe a little bit different or a bit more challenging because often it can be hard to communicate that in a storyboard and there's a big gap between what you're able to put on paper and in front of consumers and what actually reaches the market. So I'll try to, yeah, I'll try not to kill a really interesting but unusual idea and just to kind of provide the context.

Matt Harris [00:08:56]:

And if the creative team have got a really strong conviction about this, we should, we should keep going.

Steve Phillips [00:09:03]:

Ollie, that's—it's really interesting the way Matt has also been talking about the delivery of insight, not just a presentation team. And I, we all know how political those can get, but delivering it through Slack, through an individual video, has this changed the way the teams, the teams navigate and utilize those insights?

Oli Bussell [00:09:24]:

Yeah, I think so. I think there's something in it being less of a kind of presentational tada moment or like you said, you know, this, this kind of block of bad news that everyone's dreading.

Oli Bussell [00:09:35]:

I think like the collaborative approach we have where Matt can just sort of ping across a little insight that can be like those early sort of ship steers before we have to do like a total course correction, I think are really good and I think have like helped us sort of integrate testing throughout the process. So it's not just, you know, it's not just these kind of big signature make or break moments. It's, you know, it's in these, these little things along the way that we can kind of learn and develop and adapt as we go.

Steve Phillips [00:09:59]:

And Ali, I have to ask you, you've spent time in creative agencies and note creative agencies are often quite less enthusiastic about consumer insight as some people in the business community are. You're now on the marketing side or you're on client side. How has your view and understanding of insight changed over that?

Oli Bussell [00:10:22]:

Yeah, it's changed a lot. Partly out of necessity, but I think it has been.

Matt Harris [00:10:26]:

And Matt's brilliance too.

Oli Bussell [00:10:27]:

And Matt's brilliance, of course. No, I'm definitely, I'm coming around to the idea of testing. No, I think it's, I think it's interesting with creative agency side because it is very sort of like, it feels like there's a lot of kind of gut instinct which I think is quite interesting in like the field of advertising for example, which is so tied to like how a consumer reacts to it. So I think it's now I'm, now I'm on the other side. I'm almost more surprised that I wasn't exposed to more of it before.

Oli Bussell [00:10:56]:

And I do, yeah, I think it's interesting. I think a lot of, you know, having been creative side, there's a lot of like great ideas that get lost along the way or get kind of crushed or diluted or you know, you start somewhere really strong and by the end, by the time you get to the end of the process, it just kind of feels watered down and lost. And I think part of the reason for that is sometimes it's kind of creatives communicating with non creators, right? You're asking the client to make a real creative leap. You're like, trust me, this is brilliant.

Oli Bussell [00:11:22]:

And I think what I've found is when we use testing at its best, it can kind of give a weight to those arguments. It's giving, it's giving a number to that where. And I think like the best, my favorite example of that is like the, is the Italy campaign. So we did a full stop motion ad, right? And that was when that was proposed.

Oli Bussell [00:11:44]:

Even internally, that was something like I was really fighting for. And I was like, this is amazing, we have to do this, we have to do this.

Oli Bussell [00:11:50]:

But it was a big leap, right? To tell you something like that. Such a time consuming process that you know, could take God knows how much budget and time and money and whatever to actually do this well and bring it to life. But I think the minute we'd, like, tested it and got the numbers and it sort of passed with flying colors, that kind of resistance falls away because it's like, you know, we've got the data to back it up. So I think that's.

Oli Bussell [00:12:13]:

That's insight, which has really sort of aided the creative, I guess.

Steve Phillips [00:12:16]:

And Matt, how have you tried to work particularly with the creative teams? Obviously, most of the time we're working with marketing teams, but particularly with the creative teams to help them benefit from the consumer insight rather than get turned off by it.

Matt Harris [00:12:31]:

Yeah, I think it's certainly what Ollie spoke to there. Right. Being able to give people just sort of confidence and provide a little bit of objectivity in a way, just from—we're speaking to 400 consumers or whatever it might be about something that can otherwise be a heated kind of argument internally. So I think that's a big part of it. And I think obviously not every advert tests well straight away. And so I think it's also about trying to find the places where the insight can give a bit more kind of constructive direction, but then trying to do that without trying to give the answer. Right.

Matt Harris [00:13:03]:

So I'm a big believer in research is a fantastic unlock for identifying. Or maybe this part of the ad isn't quite landing as we thought, or maybe we thought this currency was going to be really well received and not. Or the emotion isn't coming through in this part for whatever reason. And research can tell you that, and maybe it can tell you what consumers do take out of the ad. But what it can't do is tell you what the answer is, or at least you shouldn't be using research in that way.

Matt Harris [00:13:26]:

So I think it gives you the kind of creative challenge to solve, but then it's over to Ollie and team to work out. Okay, we know we need to increase branding for this ad. Let's think of some really creative solutions to do that.

Steve Phillips [00:13:34]:

Let's talk about creative a bit, Ollie. So Canva's mission is to make design accessible to everyone, and AI accelerates that in a real way. We all know that. But your own research shows consumers increasingly feel AI generated advertising is missing its soul. How does a company build on democratizing creativity, thinking about that tension? And does it change how you use AI in your own work?

Oli Bussell [00:13:56]:

Canva ultimately is an AI design tool, and that's not something we can shy away from.

Oli Bussell [00:13:59]:

But I think it does carry a lot of, you know, AI at the moment does carry a lot of baggage, particularly in, like, the creative space. A lot of negative baggage. And yeah, I think it's a tension we're very aware of. And I think like again, using the Italy campaign as an example, I think the way we navigated that is we kind of lent into that tension. Right.

Oli Bussell [00:14:22]:

It's like there was something really interesting in essentially marketing an AI design tool with a stop motion approach, which is like the most lo fi, unautomated, painstakingly slow process you can imagine. But there's a real sort of craft and a beauty to it. And I think like in doing that it's sort of like it humanized—it humanized the product and showed the sort of emotional impact rather than this sort of like blanket slick AI ad. And I think it's important for us to like, we're, we're not, you know, at the moment we're not using AI in our ads, but we are ultimately advertising AI. And I think kind of being aware of that and being aware of that tension does actually create some really interesting ads and creative.

Oli Bussell [00:14:59]:

I mean, I think in terms of like how we're, how we use it internally, like one of the biggest shifts for me is around—you touched on it at the up top. But like storyboards has been like a huge thing for me that even in the last year, like the development with that has been insane. Like the fact that we can now within a number of days or a day even like produce storyboards that are so close to how well we imagine the ad going. Right. And there's still, there's still a big process beyond that.

Oli Bussell [00:15:25]:

They continue to develop, directors have their take on it, you know, but I think we can, what's great now is we can really like narrow the gap between what the creatives want to put across and what the consumers see. You know, we're not asking anyone to take a creative leap, which I think is often where, you know, some of the feedback can just fall flat because you're, you know, you're, you're saying, hey, trust me, this is going to be, this is going to be super cool. You know, I think AI in that sense as a tool has been really useful because we can just literally put in front of the consumer exactly what at that stage we see this story being and getting as close to that end creative as possible. So that for us, I think has been a real game changer just in like getting some of the more kind of left field ideas across the line because you no longer have to have a creative leap. Yeah, I think we've talked about it before.

Steve Phillips [00:16:09]:

The core of the creative idea can be particularly let down in the execution, and obviously the consumers are judging the execution. And so if you can have multiple executions, that allows the idea at the top more opportunity to shine, then, then that becomes a really interesting way of advancing. We were at Cannes. I was at the Canva beach, beach hut at Cannes a few weeks ago. And I think there was a lot of talk.

Steve Phillips [00:16:30]:

There's a lot more, less nervousness this year about AI than there was say, a year or so ago. It felt more like people were seeing it as a tool and utilizing a tool. And I thought the work this year was really interesting. It was very human. A lot of the campaign leading work was about communities and, and, and localization and, and working with influencers.

Steve Phillips [00:16:50]:

It, it, it felt like the community, the creative community had saw where their, their potential was and didn't see the threat of some of the execution elements as badly. Do you, did you pick that up?

Oli Bussell [00:17:03]:

Yeah, I wasn't at Cannes this year, but I definitely get a sense of that generally in the industry. I mean, I personally was like a late adopter of AI in terms of the initial thing was like, oh my God, this thing's gonna steal my job.

Oli Bussell [00:17:14]:

And you jump on the negative. So you jump into the company.

Oli Bussell [00:17:16]:

Yeah, exactly. You get on the inside and batten down the hatches.

Oli Bussell [00:17:19]:

No, but I think it's like you said, I think using it as a tool to kind of supercharge that creativity is personally where I see it at its most valuable. I think we're still at a point where just AI, AI generated ideas that then go into AI generated visuals that then become AI generated—we get a sense there's something lost, there's a humanness lost. I think for me, where it's most interesting is exactly that as a tool where it's kind of, you know, taking my idea and bringing it to life so I can get it across the line with consumers or, you know, or pushing me in interesting directions. But it's, it's a partner, it's not a, it's not replacement.

Oli Bussell [00:17:53]:

And I think as—I think that's kind of where we need to head with it. You know, it needs to be a creative partner. It's, it's a way to kind of empower us to do even more human, incredible creative work. Hopefully, you know, we can stay on that, on the right side of the line, you know, but absolutely, I'm battened in.

Steve Phillips [00:18:12]:

So, I mean, obviously the same is happening with research AI. You know, there has been talk about AI taking over research and just using synthetic audiences for everything. But I think increasingly we're just seeing it's an extension, looking, looking forward. Consumer insights are becoming faster, creative tools are becoming more powerful.

Steve Phillips [00:18:31]:

Campaigns are moving more quickly than ever before. I'd love both of your perspectives. What do the best partnerships look like between AI insight and creative and what do organizations still need to get right to make that work?

Matt Harris [00:18:47]:

Yeah, I mean obviously if you mentioned there like use of AI in research, which is increasingly an interesting area. Right. I think it's like Ollie was saying, with AI in general as a tool, it's got a lot of potential and I think it can help us meet some of those challenges that I talked about at the start in terms of just working at pace and being able to basically get more consumer centric at scale and quickly.

Matt Harris [00:19:06]:

I do think there's certainly something special about creating advertising that I think AI can't get at and the. I'm generally very bullish on the role for synthetic sample supplying research. But these are all large language models and even if there's some degree of an inner voice or inner thought to them to some extent, it's still language. And we don't react to advertising in a purely kind of linguistic way.

Matt Harris [00:19:27]:

When we hear a piece of music or watch a great ad, it makes us feel away. And large language models aren't trying to, or fundamentally capable of filling that gap. So I think there's always going to be this role for the consumer and also for just great creatives coming up with just really interesting ideas because they understand those feelings, they understand how it relates and how it makes you feel something. So yeah, I mean as a tool I think it can help us all move much quicker, but we just need to, we need to hold on to that kind of human truth. Incentive.

Oli Bussell [00:19:57]:

Yeah, definitely.

Steve Phillips [00:19:59]:

Ollie. I mean, so both consumer insight and creative production have just revolutionized in the last few years on the back of AI. How do you see that changing the creative process and particularly how is it best to get that right? What's a different way of working in this new world?

Oli Bussell [00:20:19]:

The way that kind of Matt works is key. I think what's been great about working with Matt is like in that kind of insight space there's a trust for the data and there's a trust for the creativity. Right. So I think it's like we can, we can use these, you know, AI tools to like quickly test ideas and get, and get samples and stuff, but I think that we can't look at creative like creativity and great creative is not a binary thing. There's not a right and a wrong. It's very subjective.

Oli Bussell [00:20:44]:

There's a big gray area and I think the future in the most positive way is kind of using those tools as like miniature spheres or ways that we can guide creative in certain ways without it being the kind of defining thing. I think where everything falls apart is when we just rely on that and that becomes the answer. And I think there needs to be space for creatives to trust the data, but also for the data side to trust the creatives. And I think that's where Matt's great is. He straddles those lines of he knows when that creative leap still needs to happen.

Oli Bussell [00:21:13]:

But if it's driven by data and insights, all the better, right? And I think that's when we land at the most exciting creative.

Steve Phillips [00:21:20]:

So it sounds like we're coming back to human all the time, which is a very nice thing for all of us, but particularly seeing as we're all sort of AI advocates and work in AI driven companies. So that's very interesting. Now onto our first final lightning round segment.

Steve Phillips [00:21:36]:

I'm going to ask each of you a few quick hitting customer insight related questions. So you're ready, Matt, firstly for you, what's one consumer insight that's completely changed the way you approach your work?

Matt Harris [00:21:52]:

I don't know if it's like a, you know, project specific insight, but I think one of the things that probably influenced me quite early on in my career was not treating what consumers say as the answer. And I think if you treat it as like any question is a stimulus and you get a response and then interpret it. And I think I learned this pretty early on doing a lot of ad testing actually and I think that's probably guided how I've thought about research since then.

Steve Phillips [00:22:16]:

Yeah, no, very good, Ollie. What's one creative idea that became stronger because of consumer feedback?

Oli Bussell [00:22:23]:

I think the most obvious example of this would be the... On the UK campaign we had this, we had this idea about like rival, rival nail bars, right? Two rival nail bars that are across the street from each other which felt like really very British and we were all totally behind the idea and took it to, you know, its logical conclusion. Really cool ad, but there's something that just wasn't landing with consumers and I think what we worked out was that like this rivalry to us was so we'd been living it with it so long that we just kind of assumed everyone knew about it and we kind of hadn't laid the foundations for it. So I think we landed on that campaign with like, it was a very sort of western style ad and we landed on this sort of cowboy esque female voiceover that really just landed the point.

Oli Bussell [00:23:00]:

Right. It was like it opened with like two rival nail salons and you're in. And it was amazing how that immediately shifted the numbers. And it was because we'd been living with it so long, we're like, well, of course, you know, they're two rival nail salons. But yeah, that was very driven by insight.

Steve Phillips [00:23:17]:

So Excellent, excellent. Matt, what's one mistake organizations still make when using consumer insights to evaluate or work on creative?

Matt Harris [00:23:26]:

I think going back to something that Ollie was talking about or touched on, I think it's a mistake if you're only doing testing towards the end of the process because there's so much you can learn early on. There might be some insight into how the storyboard was resonating that you find yourself going back to and pulling on when you're doing the final edits or all these just small steers about this aspect of the ad. Didn't quite work.

Matt Harris [00:23:48]:

I think you're missing an opportunity. If you leave it to the end, it should be part of the process.

Steve Phillips [00:23:54]:

Great. And Ollie, a very simple one for you. What's one thing AI will never replace in the creative process?

Oli Bussell [00:24:02]:

The unexpected. I think, I think AI is very good at building on what we've already done and I think it's, you know, I think if we think of like some of the best ads, some of the things over the past like 30 years, the ads that really stick with us, they are mad and unlike anything we've seen. And you can't quite put a, you know, can't quite put your finger on why they work, but they do. And I think that's for now still needs that kind of human touch and AI can't, can't quite nail it, hopefully.

Oli Bussell [00:24:27]:

But not going to put a gorilla playing drums.

Steve Phillips [00:24:29]:

Exactly. That's the first thing that comes to mind. Right. Or two kids wiggling their eyebrows, you know.

Steve Phillips [00:24:35]:

Okay. And then for both of you, starting with Matt, what's one habit consumer insights and creative teams should adopt if they want to build a better working relationship.

Matt Harris [00:24:45]:

I think one of the benefits of just like the volume and speed of brand campaign work that we did this year is coming out of all that. We've now got a really nice sort of library of learnings. Right.

Matt Harris [00:24:54]:

And learnings from creative testing are never going to be inapplicable in every case because it's got to be right for the ad and the market and so on. But, but I think just trying to develop those libraries of learnings and iterating on them and then it gives you shortcuts. Right. So as we're next time, we have a particularly creative problem that we need to solve. We've learned a lot about.

Matt Harris [00:25:09]:

We could try adding voiceover here or let's extend the product sequence here and a few kind of shortcuts to try.

Steve Phillips [00:25:16]:

Brilliant. Actually, I'll finish with you, Orly. What's the one thing that marketing and insight teams need to do together in the next 12 months to help your company win with consumers and grow their business?

Oli Bussell [00:25:27]:

For me, it's just continuing to develop that relationship between the two.

Oli Bussell [00:25:32]:

And I think it's something we're like Matt touched on. It's something we're kind of. We've had to learn very fast over a large, you know, large number of campaigns over a very short space of time. And I think getting that balance between, you know, like consumer testing shouldn't,

Oli Bussell [00:25:49]:

It's not a binary thing that defines creative and equally great creative doesn't come from being a cookie cutter and just sort of following exactly what consumers say. So I think we're definitely getting closer to that sweet spot. And yeah, I'd just love to continue working with Matt and learning as we go how to create amazing creative.

Steve Phillips [00:26:07]:

Brilliant. Perfect way to wrap things up.

Steve Phillips [00:26:09]:

Thanks to Canva's Matt Harris, research and insight lead for Europe, and Ollie Bussell, creative lead for Europe, for joining us. If you'd like to contact either of them, you can find a link to their LinkedIn profiles in our show notes or at InsideInsightPod.com or you can visit their company website at canva.com. If you haven't subscribed yet and want a regular stream of research and insight knowledge in your podcast, hit that subscribe button in your podcast app now or follow us on YouTube. Okay, that's all for today. See you in the next episode of Inside Insights.