Why brands missed the moment on social

March 31, 2026

Creating true multichannel marketing campaigns – such as combining messaging across CTV and social media – requires agility across audience targeting, campaign analytics and, most importantly, creative. Image credit: Kargo

By Alena Morris

After her gold medal performance at the Winter Olympic Games in Milano Cortina this February, Alyssa Liu skyrocketed from 355,000 followers on Instagram to nearly 6 million.

Almost immediately after her winning free skate, her social media following overtook other top female performers at the games including Lindsay Vonn and Mikaela Shiffrin. Millions of people were buzzing. While many advertisers were there on CTV, a lot of them were left out of the conversation on social media.

Advertisers are spending record amounts to advertise during major moments such as the Olympics, but are unable to flex their creative messaging to be of the moment. As a result, they are unprepared to expand their presence from other advertising channels to social media in near-real time.

Pivoting across channels, either to take advantage of an opportunity or to shift strategies to avoid an issue, is harder than it sounds.

Media teams optimize constantly, but creative remains largely static – and doesn’t flow across channels. This February put in sharp relief how important it is for advertisers to be able to move their creative presence across channels fast, especially from CTV to social media.

Alena Morris

Media and creative need to move fast
Media teams have been built to take advantage of opportunities and optimize in real time.

If they see high performance through one partner, they can quickly move budget away from an underperformer and dial up spend where it’s working best.

If one audience is reacting well to a certain campaign, they can expand to capitalize on it.

The one exception to this rule has been creative.

Creative has often been seen as monolithic – an asset that is created before a campaign that comes fully packaged.

Media teams can lean into the creative or messaging that performs best, but that’s about it.

The only time new creative is delivered is after reporting shows that creative performance is starting to erode.

In the case of Alyssa Liu, an advertiser with a CTV presence during the Olympics has spent millions on a high-quality ad for CTV.

When her Instagram blows up, is that advertiser able to spin up social media creative that’s relevant – in near-real time? Not usually.

Alyssa Liu isn’t a one-off example.

Consider other major cultural moments and live sports highlights, from a game-winning goal to a massive winter storm.

Whenever something big happens, people see it on CTV, but they talk about it on social media.

Being able to pivot across channels is becoming non-negotiable.

Bringing creative into the real-time optimization loop
Creative is the last unoptimized lever in performance marketing.

The good news is that the agility that media teams have long fostered on the inventory and audience side can finally include creative.

Advances in AI technology and dynamic creative optimization make it possible for creatives to be changed quickly.

Brands and creative teams put a lot of research and expertise into creative designs, but that doesn't mean that a good creative needs to be static.

Putting together a portfolio of creative assets that can be assembled, reformatted and resized allows a media team to stay true to the creative vision while also being able to pivot quickly.

This concept of “transcreation” is critical for any brand that wants to optimize across channels in real time.

For social media in particular, having an AI-human optimization loop is even more important because there is so much feedback to anything that’s put on the channel.

While brands can benefit from sponsoring influencers directly and having their own presence on social channels, advertising also plays a critical role.

Hidden performance lever
The biggest opportunity in social advertising is not better targeting or media buying. It’s the ability to move creative at the speed of culture.

Media buying teams look for any opportunity to improve performance, even if it’s just by a few percentage points.

For years, media buying teams have fine-tuned audience data, ad placement, inventory quality and other signals from programmatic, but haven’t even scratched the surface with creative.

A lot of advertisers are talking about using AI to build new creative from scratch but that misses the point.

Creative teams have incredible talent and expertise, and can certainly use AI tools as they work. But the true value of incorporating AI into the creative process is after the campaign has been activated.

AI CAN BE used for creative workflows to make it easier to pivot in real time. Creative that’s already been made can be reworked quickly.

The ability to bring creative up to speed with the rest of the elements of a multichannel campaign is where incremental performance is unlocked.

Alena Morris is vice president of product marketing at Kargo, New York.

Share your thoughts. Click here

Why brands missed the moment on social

Why brands missed the moment on social

US Sailing, Goslings Rum renew ties through 2027

Engagement through experiences key for success, Asian Racing Conference hears

Slow recovery continues for luxury in China, Japan

Thailand’s popular Phuket island becomes strong residential magnet for upscale Russian families

British beauty brand delilah is title sponsor of Guards Ladies Charity Polo Day in new 3-year deal

United States Polo Association names ranch broker Icon Global as network sponsor for USPA Polo Network

AI supercycle changing the way how companies operate

Customer demand, expansion appetite and tech advances drive entrepreneur optimism for 2026

Why luxury retail is rethinking retail media