Full-funnel, full flavor: How CPG & QSR campaigns stay cutting-edge

The biggest brands aren’t guessing anymore. They’re constantly learning and turning those insights into a competitive edge. 

From AI-powered everything, including image generation and real-time performance optimization, marketers now have tools that were pure fantasy a few years ago. 

But data alone isn’t enough. The biggest shift is connection. 

Brands are building continuous feedback loops that let them test early, adapt on the fly and use data to optimize and create. They’re not waiting post-launch to review; they’re building smarter.

Amanda Addison, Senior Manager of US Menu Insights at McDonald’s, put it this way:

“A big benefit is being able to look back and see what worked and what didn't and theme the learning to focus on better product options in the future. We have learnings we can now apply and get smarter.”

In this article, I’ll explore the trends reshaping advertising strategy, frameworks that drive winning teams and a few campaigns setting a new bar for CPG and QSR. 

Marketing is a hot seat job in the mid-2020s. Advertisers are under constant pressure to prove ROI. To do so, they’re building data-filled dashboards to optimize media spend and deliver results.  

However, you need more than metrics to build a cutting-edge CPG or QSR advertising campaign that moves people. You need strategic insights that blend creativity and full-funnel thinking from start to finish. 

Programmatic advertising

Take programmatic advertising and AI-powered media planning. These bring speed, efficiency and precision to brands. Yet, full-funnel marketing does something more — it touches people's emotions so your customers feel something. 

This is more than vibes talking. Nielsen research found that CPG brands that adopted full-funnel strategies experienced 45% higher ROI and 7% more offline sales compared to campaigns focusing on only one stage. 

Omnichannel experiences

When that full-funnel experience is done well, it bridges the gaps in the fragmented nature of consumer behavior. From TikTok to a Google ad to an in-store experience, people bounce between channels and devices, expecting consistency everywhere. 

Starbucks is one brand that’s mastered omnichannel marketing. The coffee brand offers a seamless mobile ordering and loyalty experience that blends app personalization, in-store rewards and real-time data that customers love. 

Of course, customer expectations keep evolving. They expect personalization. They appreciate interactivity. Nowadays, brands are showing up in video games like Wendy’s “Keeping Fortnite Fresh” Twitch campaign, where the fast food giant hosted a live stream where they “destroyed freezers” in Fortnite, demonstrating their fresh — never frozen — beef. 

Creating a memorable advertising campaign in 2025 means blending creativity, AI and heavy doses of consumer insight. From idea to scalable performance, here’s how your brand can set the stage for success. 

Use AI tech for cutting-edge ad campaigns

AI is more than a buzzword. New tools can embed it in every stage of campaign development. From creative concepting to media spend, AI can make your marketing faster and smarter. 

AI-driven creative development and testing allows brands to test early and often pre-launch. Marketers are embracing bolder, AI-assisted creative to move faster from ideation to execution. Cheetos even pre-tested creative to discover which version resonated the most before green-lighting their M.C. Hammer “Can’t Touch This” Super Bowl spot. 

Not only did it resonate with consumers, but it also won them a Cannes Lions award.

Mars uses AI to forecast ad performance and reduce costly mistakes. With their in-house tool ACE (Agile Creative Expertise), the brand has correctly predicted the sales response for over 4,000 ads. 

Predictive targeting and personalization

Ever look at someone else’s Netflix account and wonder if you fell down a rabbit hole? What are these shows? That’s predictive targeting in action. It’s powered by data and not guesswork. 

Now, brands can apply that logic to advertising. AI-driven insights give brands the power to personalize everything from ad creative to landing pages based on real-time behavioral signals. The result is less generic messaging and more targeted content. 

AI dials in delivery so the right message lands with the right audience. For a deeper look at these tools, consider how AI is reshaping ad strategies. 

Retail media and first-party data leverage

Third-party cookies are disappearing, so brands are turning to retail media networks and first-party data for targeting and measurement. 

Retail media platforms like Walmart Connect, Kroger Precision Marketing and Instacart offer high-intent environments. Buyers go to those places to shop. This gives CPG and QSR brands access to real-time shopper behavior at or near the point of purchase. Combined with loyalty programs and in-store purchase histories, they create a powerful feedback loop for audience targeting and ROI tracking. 

Jenny Holleran at Kroger Precision Marketing describes their retail media platform as integrated within the brand, “We have this whole force behind us at KPM – tech, engineering, product, data scientists – to really be that media provider. We’re grounded in data.”

AI in media buying and optimization

It’s true, AI is transforming media buying fast. Today’s platforms use machine learning to adjust bids, placements and formats in real time so you experience smarter spending and run dynamic campaigns that continuously adapt to consumer signals. 

Meta’s Advantage+ and Google’s Performance Max allow marketers to automate much of the work with AI. These tools can test creative, dynamically allocate budget and optimize placements across channels. This gives you more brain space for strategic thinking. 

Zappi’s consumer insights platform helps marketers dial in the creative and messaging to pre-test concepts so by the time you’re ready to scale your media buy, you’ve found what works. 

Without direction, speed can run you right into a wall. To unlock your brand’s full funnel potential, you need the right measurement frameworks to guide planning and execution. 

Use measurement & performance evaluation frameworks

The most innovative campaigns look great and perform across the funnel. These frameworks help marketing teams identify what’s working and how to connect short-term wins with long-term growth. 

Setting KPIs from brand to conversion

You’ve heard the famous Peter Drucker quote, "What gets measured gets managed.” By aligning KPIs to every stage of the customer journey, you create a visible pathway to conversions, which means you can measure every stage. 

You can map metrics across the funnel: 

• Top of funnel: Reach, ad recall, brand awareness

• Mid-funnel: Time on site, engagement 

• Bottom of funnel: CPA, ROAS, conversions

Here’s how that can work in the real world: A CPG brand might run a seasonal campaign — tracking brand recall in streaming video ads followed by email engagement and finally measuring purchase lift. 

Tip: Tailor KPIs for different audience segments. You already design creative for different audience segments, make sure your KPIs reflect their behavior too. Whether it’s generational differences or new vs. loyal customers, their behaviors can give you insights. 

Modern measurement approaches (MMM + attribution)

To get a full picture, it’s important to look at long-term and short-term data. 

For example, Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM) reviews historical data over the past 2-3 years for insight on different marketing channels and factors like seasonality or discounts that drive sales. 

It’s helpful for trend analysis across channels and budget planning. However, it’s not real-time and requires a lot of clean historical data. 

Multi-Touch Attribution (MTA) assigns credit to every touchpoint in the customer journey. How did a Facebook ad, Google search and email campaign work together to drive conversion? 

It works great for real-time optimization of digital campaigns and helps marketers see the biggest performance drivers across today’s fragmented customer journey. 

One challenge is MTA’s heavy reliance on third-party cookies and can be misleading without full context. The most successful brands use both to fill in the blind spots. Boston Consulting Group calls this a “four-legged” approach to understanding marketing ROI. It blends attribution, the marketing mix, brand tracking and financial data for the best context of impact. 

Tip: You can triangulate with both models and incorporate incrementality testing to separate true lift from expected behavior.

Real-time analytics & optimization This is the magic of modern marketing. AI-enhanced dashboards flag underperformers and highlight winning formats. You can also create dynamic ads and landing pages that adapt in real time to consumer behavior. 

In short, imagine getting feedback in hours instead of weeks? That’s the power of tools like Zappi’s consumer insights platform.  

Tip: Set alerts based on performance thresholds. Notifications can help you cut short underperformers or scale winners without waiting for reports. 

Long-term impact & brand equity measurement

Clicks and conversions are “right now” signals. They’re necessary, but don’t build long-term brands. The most successful brands build an emotional connection with their audience. Tools to help marketers measure what people remember about the ad include ad recall tracking, brand lift studies and sentiment analysis.

This brand equity drives future sales and creates category leaders. 

In this Harvard Business School Online article, author Sallie Allen says, “Think of brand equity as the sum of consumers’ thoughts, feelings, and attitudes about your brand that influences their willingness to pay for your product.”

No matter which framework guides your campaigns, don’t forget to close the loop. Assess each campaign by what worked, what didn’t, how did audiences react? Use that information to inform your next campaign.

Zappi customers do this by testing early and often, and building a library over time. This helps every campaign learn and be smarter than the last. 

Tip: Feed campaign insights into product development by sharing what worked with R&D and innovation teams. 

What else should be on your radar? 

Here are a few power moves for advanced marketers who want to step things up. 

1. Granular segmenting - Audience insights help you tailor messaging for each key consumer group. This goes beyond A/B testing and helps you design with intent for different mindsets.

2. Feedback loops - Test, learn and incorporate your learnings into R&D and messaging.

3. AI-enhanced audience discovery - Find lookalike segments and new audiences based on your top-performing audiences. 

The most memorable campaigns are bold and data smart. They’re built for evolving consumer behavior. Here are some examples of innovative ad campaigns — from AI infused to modern culture, trends and more — from the world’s most recognized brands. 

Coca-Cola’s “real magic” AI platform

Coca-Cola invited digital creatives to use an exclusive AI platform to create new branded content. The tool gave artists access to Coca-Cola’s creative assets along with the AI platform to combine with their creativity to create new work. 

Artists could submit their work for a chance to be featured in Times Square and Piccadilly Circus. 

Mars’s AI-powered ad testing

Mars uses predictive AI models to test ad creative before launching. This early test approach reduces wasteful spending and improves campaign outcomes. In fact, the brand experienced an “85% accuracy in predicting if an advertisement would result in a sale.”

Dunkin’ & Ben Affleck Super Bowl stunt

Dunkin’ could have aired a splashy Super Bowl spot, but instead, they went for the unexpected—a documentary-style ad depicting Ben Affleck working the drive-thru. 

Unexpected, funny, and oh-so-shareable -- especially when J.Lo shows up demanding to know what he’s doing there. 

Dove’s “Reverse Selfie” campaign 

Dove soap has built a brand around a body-positive ethos. The “Reverse Selfie” campaign features a 13-year-old girl heavily editing a selfie before posting it online. The video plays backwards, revealing the filters and tweaks young girls take with their appearances to adhere to formulaic images of beauty. 

Starbucks omnichannel loyalty program

Starbucks offers real-time personalization based on customer habits and its integrated with its mobile app, rewards program, and in-store experience. Customers appreciate the natural, seamless experience.  

Today’s most innovative ad campaigns are more than creative. They connect data, intuition, brand, performance, AI and human insight. Whether you’re looking to drop the next cultural moment or refine a full-funnel experience, modern tools can help you learn fast and build smarter with every campaign.