Volume of Insights

Client: Barclays

Performance advertising is vital to convert potential customers who are ready to buy, but traditional approaches like A/B testing or limited pilots aren't fit for today's AI-driven, algorithmic landscape, and can't keep up with the complexity and opacity of platform algorithms - the gatekeepers between brands and audiences.

Recognising that these algorithms are the new, all-powerful audience, Barclays reimagined its creative and testing strategy from the ground up. We changed our approach to data and testing, building an AI powered insights engine that could aggregate creative insights. Then, harnessing generative AI and automated production, we repurposed an existing framework used to identify single value propositions to generate, deploy, and systematically test creative at an unprecedented scale. This enabled us to feed platforms the vast volume and variety of assets they require and allowed us to start to focus on the inputs and outputs of the platform black boxes. Operating within rigorous brand and compliance parameters, our approach turned the challenge of those algorithmic black boxes into an opportunity, transforming volume into insight and opacity into competitive advantage. As a result, we've achieved breakthrough performance, using innovative data techniques to uncover what drives results in a way traditional methods never could. This entry demonstrates how data-driven customer insight - specifically understanding algorithmic behaviour and creative performance patterns - was used not only to solve a critical marketing problem but also contributed to Barclays' overall marketing mission of reaching customers ready to buy with precision and relevance.