Why the best brand campaigns start with questions, not answers

Building a brand campaign used to be simple. You'd huddle in a conference room, debate concepts and taglines, and launch the idea based on the group consensus. 

But in 2026, the landscape has changed. 

The margin for error has shrunk dramatically. Our world is moving faster than ever, which means when a campaign misses the mark or worse, offends, it goes viral in seconds, damages brand trust, and can cost you customers. So how do you move forward with confidence?

Jarrod Ballou, Head of Brand Creative at SurveyMonkey, and Allison Mac, Senior Director of Brand, Content and Integrated Marketing can tell you. They needed a way to build brand campaigns that didn't just look good, but actually landed.

On May 12, the two sat down to unpack how they used market research to launch a nation-wide brand campaign.

Watch the full session here.

Here are four lessons from their research-driven approach to guide modern brand building.

SurveyMonkey runs regular pulse surveys with customers year-round, not just when a new campaign is in development. They're constantly taking the temperature of the market, watching how sentiment shifts, and understanding what their audience cares about week to week.

"We can't just rely on a tiny group in a room to make a decision," Allison explained. "We have to constantly be listening to people. 

This matters because the world changes fast. What resonated in January might feel tone-deaf by March. If you only research when you're about to launch, you're already behind.

By staying plugged in continuously, you can have real-time insight into what your audience is actually thinking and feeling. That's the foundation everything else builds on.

Takeaway: You don't need a campaign crisis to justify research. Continuous listening keeps you close to your customers and helps you spot trends before they become problems.

Try this: Automate continuous listening with SurveyMonkey Programs

Here's what most teams do: they create something and then they test it to see if it works.

Allison and Jarrod’s teams flipped the script. They used research before they started creating to understand what actually matters to customers. Then they let that insight spark the creative work.

Allison ran a survey asking customers about their biggest concerns heading into the new year. The results? People are overwhelmingly uncertain. I don't know. I'm not sure. I'm not positive.

They didn't know what products to launch, whether campaigns would work, or how to keep employees engaged. Now armed with that insight from real people, the team didn’t have to debate what the campaign should say, they had clarity. 

"The research showed us what people actually cared about," Jarrod said. "And we just tried to put it on screen."

The result was What If You Just Knew?—a campaign built entirely around the questions people ask themselves. Across the nation, billboards, ads, and social posts displayed those real, anxious questions that keep people up at night and netted thousands of impressions, sign ups and new customers. 

Takeaway: Use research to gather insights in the early stages of planning to build a data-backed foundation for your brand campaign and guide creative work.  

Try this: Market Research solutions for teams of any size

There’s a competitive advantage when teams can be genuinely curious and turn to each other and say "I don't know". The real magic happens when your team can debate, disagree, test, and iterate without fear of seeming incompetent or unknowledgeable during planning and strategy sessions. 

SurveyMonkey moved much of their marketing in-house (creating Studio M) specifically to create that environment. While speed and cost effectiveness were benefits, the biggest unlock was embedding curiosity into our culture and its impact on the final campaign.  

Takeaway: Asking better questions can lead to better results. Don’t let speed and efficiency get in the way of innovation and exploration of new ideas. 

Learn more: The State of Curiosity Report 

"We're concerned about the uncertainty of the world," Allison said, reflecting on what their research showed. "But you never know how a group of individuals will interpret your campaign, your slogan, what you post on social media."

Jarrod put it bluntly: "Diversity of voice is going to be so important."

Collecting feedback from people with different backgrounds, different perspectives, and different lived experiences can be the defining difference in a campaign that flops or succeeds. The more diverse the voices you listen to, the less likely you are to launch something that misses the mark.

Because here's the reality: What resonates with your leadership team might completely miss with your actual customers.

Takeaway: Widen feedback collection beyond your core customer base or target audience. The perspectives you didn't expect are often the ones that matter most.

Try this: Validate your next campaign with confidence with LaunchPad

The success of the What If You Just Knew? campaign wasn't the result of one big decision, it was the result of asking real people what they actually cared about using those insights to guide confident decision-making.

"Ask early and often," Jarrod said. "Escape those echo chambers. Look at things from different angles." 

SurveyMonkey gives you the tools to understand your audience at any scale, from quick concept tests to large-scale research programs. So you can build campaigns with confidence, not guesswork.

Learn more about SurveyMonkey Market Research Solutions.

Want to watch more conversations on how businesses are turning curiosity into breakthrough decisions? Check out the full CuriosityCon session library.