Keeping the consumer in the room: Using a Consumer Twin to pressure-test communications strategy

There is often a gap between the consumer insight that starts a brief and the communications that eventually reach the market. As ideas move through strategy and creative development, the original consumer evidence can become diluted.

This session explores how Unilever used a Consumer Twin built from unprompted social data to keep consumer evidence active throughout the development of work for a large laundry brand.

We'll follow the journey from identifying a deeper human tension within a consumer segment to developing campaign messaging, social hooks, influencer guidance, and proposition refinement, including where the Twin challenged assumptions and creative directions. We'll also examine the limits of the approach, and where human judgement and consumer validation remain essential.

The session will help us understand where digital consumer twins strengthen decision-making, and where we should remain cautious. By joining this session, you’ll be able to:

• Understand how unprompted social data can help uncover deeper consumer tensions beyond the initial category-level response
• Explore how consumer evidence can stay active through creative development, from the initial insight to messaging, social hooks and proposition refinement
• Learn how a Consumer Twin can be used to pressure-test ideas, including challenging assumptions and identifying when creative work has drifted from the original consumer tension
• Understand the role of human judgement in probing, interpreting and deciding how to act on synthetic consumer responses
• Recognise the limits of Consumer Twins, including where further consumer research and validation are still needed