Embracing Unexpected Creativity: The Route to Creative Nirvana for Brands 

Despite no shortage of evidence out there, there still appears to be a disconnect in the minds of brand leaders. They can’t quite match up the importance of creativity, and its power to impact conversion – as demonstrated in UNLIMITED’s comprehensive study of UK CMOs, the CMO Barometer 2023. But why does this gap exist? What methods or metrics can brands tap into to bolster confidence around creativity? 

Find out this and more in our special Lab Leaders takeover with TMW UNLIMITED. Hosted by one of Campaign Magazine’s 2022 Faces to Watch Henry Joyce and featuring Chief Strategy Officer Dan Bowers and Chief Creative Officer Graeme Noble, our latest episode takes us on a journey of enlightenment around creativity, and the unexpected insights that brands can feed their creative to realise its true ROI potential.  

If you have any questions or are interested in continuing the discussion, get in touch with our experts: 

Dan: [email protected]  

Graeme: [email protected]  

Don’t forget to subscribe to Lab Leaders wherever you get your podcasts to make sure you never miss an episode! 

In our latest instalment of the Lab Leaders podcast, our host Faye Hawkins welcomes Dr. Cristina de Balanzo, Board Director at Walnut Unlimited, and Andreaa Tarasescu, Research Director at Walnut. Together, they attempt to explore the tension building around the communication of brands’ sustainability narratives – highlighting the benefits of a positive, human-led approach. With potential accusations of ‘greenwashing’ akin to a sword hanging over their heads, what nudges and techniques can brands apply to reduce the risk of making reputation-damaging mistakes? Tune in as our Lab Leaders discuss this and more.  

If you’d like more guidance on how to manage your company’s sustainability story, check out the Human Understanding Lab’s latest report, The ‘S’ Word: A Brand’s Guide to Sustainability. 

To carry on the discussion, reach out to our experts: 

Cristina: [email protected]  

Andreea: [email protected] 

Or, as ever, you can get in touch with our podcast host by dropping a line to [email protected].

With the drive to do more with less, and an ever-increasing focus on conversion, we’ve forgotten about what really matters to the buyer and how best to engage them. Please enter: the dark funnel. This latest episode of Lab Leaders welcomes Eoin Rodgers, Managing Partner of TMW Business, who outlines a new way of thinking for B2B marketers: one which enables the buyer to hold the sceptre of power for a change, in a new era where millennials and Gen Z’ers leading buying group.

We have become too focused on our own marketing goals and measurement and forgotten about the buyer and their needs. A little human understanding goes a long way and shows us that content marketing has become transactional and arguably cold. Allowing customers to engage with your expertise and value add on their terms means B2B marketing looks and feels more like a magnet than a cattle-prod.

If you want to explore the dark tunnel or find out more about how to create content that ‘helps not hypes’, drop Eoin a line at: [email protected]

Or, as ever, you can chat to our Lab Leaders host: [email protected]

It’s not just about the end game, it is about the journey. Never has a truer word been said about the importance of the customer journey.  

In practice, creating the customer journey starts small; you collect data points, define the journey that you want to focus on, make the data available and ensure the channels are ready for your journey. 

This week, host Faye Hawkins sits down with Darryl Delacroix, Partner at Navigate and Ian Bobbett, Chief Analytics Officer at Realise UNLIMITED to talk about all things data and the customer-centric recipe for success. We discuss how the journey is all about identifying clients’ needs and objectives of what they want to deliver, what do they have to work with ‘today’, what are the barriers and ultimately come up with a road map of what they need to do to deliver that analysis. 

Reach out to our customer journey aficionados: 

Darryl Delacroix, Partner at Navigate: [email protected]

Ian Bobbett, Chief Analytics Officer at Realise UNLIMITED - [email protected] 

Or have a chat with our Lab Leaders host: [email protected]

Developed as a string to UNLIMITED's Human Understanding Lab's bow, LUCA caters for the need for brands dive deep into emotional context, collecting insights quickly and efficiently to support fast decision-making and responsiveness to market opportunity.

Our guest this week is John Cunningham, Group Chief Technology Officer at UNLIMITED, and in our chat, we discuss the uses of LUCA and how it can boost your campaigns. Being AI-powered, this service reduces the requirement for teams to research, gather, combine and analyse digital data to deliver useful human insights back into the business. We also talk about using LUCA's Cultural Analysis, Video Movement Analysis and Influencer Mapping tool to speed up access to deep human insights.

Get more information on LUCA platform for digital insights: www.unlimitedgroup.com/humanunderstandinglab

Reach out to our Lab Leaders host: [email protected]

"Free from" alternatives have taken the market by storm across many categories. One of the most dear to the British consumer is the alcohol market, and within that there are many players looking to compete for their share of the market. From big players like Budweiser and Heineken, to indie and craft equivalents. But there are many challenges for brands looking to create a standout, tasty product that ticks all the boxes for expectant consumers, especially from a sensory perspective.

Should brands be replicating flavours or carving a whole new space for these products? How do brands create flavours and experiences that meet the expectations products in this industry? Dr. Debbie Parker, Head of Sensory at Walnut Unlimited, shares her thoughts as she joins Faye Hawkins for a taste test of some leading no/lo alcohol beers on the market. We explore the ins and outs of sensory science, the taste and scent blueprints as they emerge in a live tasting from a sensory perspective, whilst also exploring the landscape of no/lo alcohol beers in general.

In this episode of Lab Leaders Faye Hawkins speaks to eminent neuroscientist Dr. Andy Myers, Director at Walnut UNLIMITED, about the power of scent and how smell can make a difference for brands. Andy has a wealth of experience in how we can use our senses to trigger emotions and we often hear about how neuroscience can be applied to marketing from a visual perspective. Rarely do we consider smell and how it can be used in our campaigns. Faye and Andy talk in depth about why scent is so important, how it can be applied to your brand and some of most interesting ways other brands have incorporated it into their marketing.

To get more depth into the power and role of scent for your brands from our neuroscientist, email Dr Andy Myers at [email protected]. As always you can contact our host, Faye Hawkins, Chief Revenue Officer at UNLIMITED at [email protected].

In this episode, Faye Hawkins is joined by Caroline Coventry, who is a Director at Nelson Bostock, and by Dr. Simon Collister a Director at Human Understanding Lab. Between them they've got 35 years background in everything to do with PR and comms, social creative, and of course the new world of data science, neuroscience, and behavioural science.

Throughout the conversation we discuss where PR meets data science and the world of opportunity that awaits. More specifically, how data-driven ways of informing creative and guiding execution in PR can be the future of effective, disruptive and human-led PR.

To get more insight into the world of neuroscience and how it can help you, contact Dr. Simon Collister at [email protected] and for all things PR and comms contact Caroline Coventry at [email protected]. As always you can contact our host, Faye Hawkins at [email protected]. 

Social media is a powerful tool, and many brands across both B2C and B2B have embraced this modern phenomenon. But not every brand has a solid, future-forward social strategy. This means they risk falling behind the times.

Just like the algorithms that dictate the success of the content that circulates on these channels, the rules of engagement with these platforms are constantly changing: how audiences engage with and share content and how creativity is perceived and appreciated. Not to mention, with new and unique platforms emerging all the time, it has never been more crucial to keep up with social media.

The next guest on our Lab Leaders podcast is Liv Wedderburn, social media lead from TMW UNLIMITED. We discuss the changing landscape of social media, how best to plan ahead and why human understanding can help produce a social strategy that stands the test of time.

Get in touch with Liv to discuss the everchanging landscape of social media and, more importantly, how we can help you futureproof your strategy via [email protected]. Or reach out to our host, Faye Hawkins, at [email protected].

Product-led marketing is a thing of the past with more and more companies realising that in order to stay on top, the customer must come first. Our Lab Leader today, Dr. Stephen Welch, is joined by special guest Hazel Pitchers discussing how to transform your business using data science and human understanding to make customers the beating heart of marketing. Hazel has been in the industry for 20 years, most recently as CMO for AXA Investment Managers, re-vamping their global marketing vision and strategy. Steve is Managing Director at Realise UNLIMITED and has years of experience in using specialist data science techniques to revolutionise businesses.

We discuss the simple notion that in order to be truly customer-led, you need to also be data-led. This begs the crucial question for marketeers: Do you consider yourself to truly be either? We explore how you can diagnose your data-readiness and customer centricity, as well as how to train your workforce to read and analyse customer data and shift operating behaviours.

To find out more about this episode contact Steve at [email protected] and as always you can email our host, Faye Hawkins, at [email protected].