For the finale (well, it was after lunch) of two packed days at IIEX EU in Amsterdam, Colonel Mustard Lucy Davison brought together our expertise in insights communication with the hottest topic of the moment – AI. We teamed up with Hennieke Potman, Global Consumer and Market Insight Manager from Flora Food Group to share our research into a common question we hear when advocating for thoughtful, structured insights communication: “Why not just use AI?”

In true research fashion, we put AI to the test in a real-world experiment: could it help us communicate insights faster, better, cheaper, or more effectively? The answer: not yet. While tools like ChatGPT, Piktochart, and Synthesia showed promise, we learned that human input is still essential – for structure, storytelling, data safety – and sanity.

Our brief was to create materials that went beyond Powerpoint reports which could be shared in Flora and which should make a measurable impact.

Here’s what we found out…

Lesson 1: The short-list only gets shorter

We began by exploring the landscape of generative AI tools, testing a wide range from LLMs like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot to tools like Claude and NotebookLM. We wanted to see if they could meet key criteria: data secure, low-cost, easy-to-use, time-saving, and genuinely useful. We also explored visual content generators like Custom GPTs, Vyond, Pictory, and our current favourite, Gamma, to see how they handled video and infographic production.

To ensure a fair comparison, we used the same input each time – a dense, 48-slide insights deck filled with data, charts, and infographics, on gender equality. We asked them to create videos, infographics and summaries – the materials for Flora to share.

The results? Very mixed. The tools varied widely in output, usefulness, and quality – and some offered more headaches than help.

Yes, generative AI can produce content based on your input – but that’s where the optimism ends. When we fed our insights deck into popular tools like ChatGPT, the results were underwhelming (and occasionally laughable).

Even custom GPTs designed specifically for infographic creation for example, could barely manage a bar chart. The outputs were incorrect, cluttered, or just plain bizarre – a classic case of hallucination.

And animated videos? Let’s just say the chaos on screen earned a solid laugh from the IIEX audience – but not for the right reasons.

Most of the tools we tried did not make it through the first round of testing.

Lesson 2: Trust still matters – read that data security clause!

Amongst the dozens of tools we tested, a few stood out for producing semi-decent outputs – notably Gamma, Piktochart, and Synthesia. These made our initial shortlist thanks to their ease of use and relatively polished results.

But when we looked closer at their data policies, things got murky. Scrutinising legal clauses and privacy terms quickly became a task in itself. And while many in the insights world love Gamma, its data protection terms are vague at best – offering no clear commitment that your input or output won’t be used to train their models. For this experiment, where we were working with confidential Flora research, that was a dealbreaker. Gamma had to go.

Lesson 3: It’ll take (your) time… A lot of it

AI tools love to promise the same things: faster, better, more efficient outcomes. And yes, in some cases, they delivered. For example, ChatGPT-4o (with its latest image generation update) helped us create custom visuals for our infographic. But other tools? Across the board, we found that the tools required a lot of human editing, creative judgement, and iteration – more than without using them.

Take Synthesia. It’s a platform that lets you create talking head videos using stock avatars – or even one in your own likeness, complete with your voice. Sounds futuristic, right? And on the surface, it is. The editing interface is user-friendly, and generating an avatar version of Hennieke was eerily realistic.

But things got manual, fast. We still had to write the storyboard, script the content, and manually adjust everything from tone of voice to timing and animation. After seven iterations and over five days of tweaking tone, timing, and visuals, we finally got a version we liked. Ironically, doing it the ‘old-fashioned’ way and filming Hennieke presenting, would have taken us just three. So, while Synthesia automated the avatar, the rest still relied heavily on human creative direction.

The same was true with Piktochart. It gave us a decent starting point for our infographic, based on a storyboard we fed in – but missed key insights, context, and tone. We had to fill in the gaps ourselves, then redesign fonts, colours, and layout elements to align with Flora’s brand. What began as a “smart” AI quickly became a clunky design tool. In the end, using good ol’ Adobe design platforms – with a real human at the helm – proved quicker and better for the job.

In total, the Flora and Mustard team spent over 60 hours producing all the content.

What does this mean for insights communications?

The bottom line? These tools not plug-and-play. AI can support the process – if you’re prepared to invest more time editing, refining, and steering output than you would without them.  Above all they don’t replace the creative thinking and sharp eye that only humans bring.

What is important to know is that when we shared the final materials and measured impact at Flora, the content captured attention and sparked engagement across the board – proving again the value of thinking beyond the PowerPoint report and creating insight communication campaigns that resonate.

Final lesson: AI is promising but people make it meaningful

Of course, AI isn’t the problem – it’s the expectation that it can do it all. The creativity, context, and quality control still need to come from people – AI just gives us a new set of crayons to colour with.

Experimenting with these tools reminded us just how valuable we are.

The post Faster! Further! Better? Spreading Flora’s Insights in a real-world experiment using AI appeared first on Keen as Mustard Marketing.

Specialist MRX consulting firm Cambiar Consulting had a brand and website that had not been updated in years. It felt at odds with the personality of the company and the unique, smart work that they do within the industry.

Through the initial strategy refinement work we did with Managing Partner, Simon Chadwick, we were able to pinpoint the core benefit they deliver to clients – value growth. This is what we call a “single overriding message”, the most important element to communicate and what we should build the brand and website around. Once we have this, along with the company personality and tone of voice, the process of design becomes clearer, less about individual likes and dislikes and more about what is right for the brand. We use the single overriding message to focus our creative brief which means we understand exactly what needs to be done and what the design should look like.

To start the project we looked at Cambiar logo. Using the creative brief as reference we tweaked the logo to bring the value growth message into the design using vertical arrows, whilst retaining the personality of the original logo by keeping the font.

We could now turn our attention to the website. We started by creating a wireframe of the pages, focusing on reducing the complexity of the old site and totally rethinking the navigation and UX – ending up with just four buttons.

Once the wireframe content and layout were signed off, we started the design. We were aiming for a really clean simple site with a focus on imagery around growth, we also used the arrows we came up with for the visual identity to build icons and a background pattern. We designed all the site pages in Adobe Illustrator, sharing PDF files of the design as we moved forward. The final stage was to use Adobe XD to prototype the navigation of the site so we could see how it would flow. To build the site we worked with Cambiar’s developers in Carolina using the Wix website build and hosting system, they translated the design into the drag and drop builder.

The site was launched in July. Simon and his co-Managing Partner, Michael Mitrano were very pleased with the feedback and received many spontaneous positive comments:

“Keen as Mustard not only refreshed our brand and site, they gave new vigour and relevance to both. When we launched the new look on LinkedIn, 10,000 people read the posts and hundreds commented. The sentiments expressed were all highly positive, with many commenting on how clean, modern and alive the site was. With the renewed focus on value growth, our brand is now crystal clear in its purpose and prospective clients can quickly and easily understand the benefits we offer them”

Simon Chadwick, Cambiar Consulting

Take a look at the website for yourself here www.consultcambiar.com

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Red Brick are a research company, who deliver powerful and inspiring insight, backed up with sound strategic advice and supported by business consulting, research, marketing, communications and brand-development services.

They felt their image didn’t communicate Red Brick’s philosophy and company vision so they came to Keen as Mustard for a makeover. So, like true fairy godparents we magic-ed them a pumpkin, a gown and some glass slippers and whisked them off to the ball.

Only joking. We convened and in close consultation with Red Brick, put our heads together to overhaul their brand image to better communicate their vision. We came up with several creative concepts which were evolved into their final visual identity, and then worked hard to apply that to a website that effectively communicates their strengths. And what resulted is a brand-spanking new and pretty fabulous (even if we say it ourselves) visual image and digital home:

The new logo, ‘flip’, shows Red Brick’s different perspective on market research.

The site is completely custom designed and fully manageable through a content management system (CMS), which allows Red Brick to maintain the site, adjust text, update their blog and add to their portfolio all by themselves. It even has a client area allowing them to manage access to secure client zones which can host files and additional info.

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