Why Most Content Misses the Mark - Insights From Creative Testing Expert Sabrina Talma

Lydia Chan is joined by Sabrina Talma, CEO and Co-Founder of Human Made Machine, a creative intelligence platform that helps global brands test and refine creative work before it goes to market. With clients spanning Google, the NBA, and The North Face, Sabrina brings a rare, data-backed perspective on what actually resonates with audiences — and what quietly falls flat. Sabrina shares why most brand campaigns miss the mark from the start, and how marketers are often too close to their own work to judge it objectively. She walks through a real campaign example where two nearly identical ads targeting Gen Z in the US and China landed in completely opposite ways — and what it revealed about the danger of treating global audiences as one. She also weighs in on whether higher production value actually drives better performance, and what regional differences her team is seeing in the data. The conversation digs into AI-generated creative, including results from a real Puma head-to-head test comparing AI and human-made ads, and why AI tends to converge on average rather than differentiate. Learn why AI personas for creative testing are not ready for prime time, drawing on both her own experiments and a Stanford and Google DeepMind study on digital twins. If you're a marketer, creative director, or brand strategist trying to understand what makes audiences truly connect with content, this episode is packed with insights you can bring back to the team. Follow Audience Connection Podcast: Website: https://www.casualfilms.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/casualglobal/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/casual-films-international BlueSky: @casualglobal.bsky.social Subscribe now and join the conversation about creating content that truly resonates and storytelling backed by behaviour science.