With the holiday season upon us, marketers are facing a familiar challenge made newly urgent by increasing economic uncertainty: proving their work is driving measurable results.  

No, the question isn't new, but with 59% of consumers describing today's economy as worse than a year ago and 92% making changes to their spending habits, the stakes have never been higher. 

In this environment, marketers must make their media dollars work harder than ever. But the biggest risk in today’s market isn’t static media spend – it’s wasted creative opportunity. 

Brands can't afford messaging that merely looks good. They need messaging that also performs. 

New research from our survey of 1,200 U.S. consumers reveals that the most effective marketing isn’t choosing between head and heart. It’s making creative strategy as agile as your media buys — meaning content must be informed, tested, and iterated in real-time. 

Here's how. 

Making the case for creative that’s accountable. 

Let’s start with the hard truth: brand loyalty is weakening. Forty percent of consumers report feeling less loyal to brands than they did a year ago, and 85% say they have switched brands for economic reasons in the past year. This means we have to work harder to drive attention and influence decisions, with data-driven creative as a critical component. 

Our research shows that different creative approaches resonate at different stages of the buying journey. Memorable advertising blends clear product benefits (cited by 45% of consumers) with storytelling elements (40%), including creativity and humor – if appropriate for the brand. Then, as they move from awareness to serious consideration, consumer priorities shift decisively toward cost savings (65%) and product quality (60%). By the time they're ready to decide, 64% want feature comparison charts alongside customer success stories (46%) and product demos (46%). 

This isn't a contradiction. It's a road map. Creative that attracts attention earns the right to make the rational case as well, and data that tells you which messages help to make that happen. Together, they create accountability without sacrificing impact.   

Mapping the ever-changing consumer journey. 

As marketers review holiday campaign performance and plan for 2026, one trend will stand out: the path to purchase has become longer and more fragmented. Consumers are now spending more time researching their purchases versus a year ago: 62% for consumer electronics, 59% for home improvements, 54% for travel. They're also consulting more sources, including AI-powered recommendations (used by 45% of shoppers). 

As the consideration phase expands, so too does your opportunity to influence decisions — but only if your creative and data work together. Consumers moving through extended research aren't just gathering facts. They're building a narrative about which brand understands their needs. Creative provides the story. Data ensures it reaches the right people at the right time with the right message. 

Loyalty status also changes how people look for information. Brand switchers — those actively looking to defect — are relying heavily on search engines (67% vs. 53% of brand loyalists) and price comparison sites (64% vs. 51% to identify new options). They want tools that enable direct comparison and practical analysis. Brand loyalists, on the other hand, are turning to influencers (23% vs. 12% of switchers), AI chatbots for personalized recommendations (31% vs. 14%), and streaming ads (30% vs. 19%) to deepen their connection to your brand. 

For marketers, this means crafting different creative strategies for different audiences. To win brand switchers, prioritize channels that facilitate active search and emphasize transparent value messaging. To strengthen brand loyalty, build stronger connections through social platforms and streaming, personalizing content to fit individual needs. Both approaches require data to identify the audience and creative to convert them. 

Because neither works alone. 

The agility mandate: Closing the data-creative loop. 

For marketing leaders navigating a holiday season of economic uncertainty, creative agility isn't about choosing sides between creativity and data. It's about closing the feedback loop between creative execution and media performance. 

1. Unifying strengths through collaboration: Creative agility demands systemic collaboration based on a shared KPI framework. This means leveraging the strengths of each team: the media agency provides quantitative rigor and unbiased performance data, while the creative team provides essential storytelling and production expertise. This approach ensures every creative iteration is guided by unified, bottom-line goals. 

2. Real-time testing and advanced iteration: Agility requires an operational commitment to rigorous, real-time testing and refinement of messaging and formats. Especially as third-party data decays, the ability to use first-party media performance data to quickly refine and iterate creative becomes the most reliable signal for audience engagement. Move beyond simple A/B tests by leveraging advanced performance modeling to identify specific creative dimensions—such as visuals, sound, ad format, or theme—that are most effective at driving desired outcomes like brand lift and site visits. This analysis provides the creative team with a data-backed blueprint. Not just what won, but why it won and what specific creative elements to change to improve future performance. 

3. Strategic execution at scale: To meet the consumer's fragmented journey, creatives must be deployed with segmentation and scale: 

      Use data to segment and tailor creative based on loyalty status. To win switchers, emphasize comparison-focused creative with clear value propositions. To cultivate loyalists, invest in relationship-deepening content through social media and streaming that demonstrates shared values. 

      Scale creative production to match fragmented touchpoints. With consumers consulting more sources across more platforms, the days of a lone hero campaign are long gone. The streaming opportunity alone demands creative variations by platform, content type, and viewing device. Your data can identify where to focus, but you’ll need creative capacity to execute as well.   

Creative agility secures your competitive advantage.

In a value-driven, fragmented market, agility is dictated by creative strategy, not just media strategy. 

The future isn’t about forcing brands to choose between creative and performance. Instead, it’s about creating an environment that demands they work together and with greater strategic precision than ever before. 

The marketers who thrive will recognize that the most powerful accountability doesn't come from restricting creativity. It comes from unleashing it in service of specific, measurable human responses. 

The decision is not whether to bridge the data-creative gap, but how quickly. The smartest investment brands can make is to ensure their creative investment is powered by media performance data, turning creative agility into a lasting competitive advantage.