Design creative systems, not one-off campaigns, says Candace Braganza

Build human-first content, rethink creator commerce, design for conversion, and embed culture, says Candace Braganza, Founder of Sculpt25, as CPG creativity evolves. In an interview with Communicate, she explains how brands must balance AI, authenticity, and performance to drive measurable growth. Excerpts: 

What are the trends shaping 2026 of the CPG industry from a creative/campaign perspective?  

In 2026, the creative advantage in CPG isn’t about producing more content; it’s about producing content that still feels human in an era of infinite automation. While generative AI is rapidly being adopted to generate multiple creative variants and optimize content in real time based on audience behavior, audiences themselves are becoming increasingly desensitized to generic, overly polished AI output. 

As a result, we’re seeing a decisive shift toward craft, texture, and intentional imperfection in design, not because technology isn’t capable, but because sameness is now the enemy of attention. The brands that will stand out are those that use AI as an acceleration layer, not a creative substitute, deliberately pairing its speed and scalability with human judgment, cultural intelligence, and narrative direction. The winners won’t be the brands using AI the most, but the ones using it most thoughtfully.

What do CMOs today seek, and how has the creator-led commerce evolved?

Marketing now sits at the center of product decisions, pricing strategy, and customer lifecycle innovation, not just “campaign execution.” CMOs are no longer satisfied with campaigns that only drive awareness. Traditional influencer campaigns were often measured by reach or impressions. Today’s brands demand ROI and sales attribution, tying creator content to measurable outcomes. 

Creator-led commerce has evolved because creators consistently outperform conventional advertising on engagement, conversion, and cultural resonance. We’re now seeing a return to authentic storytelling anchored in human voices. Brands are shifting budgets from polished corporate ads to authentic creator content because audiences now trust real people more than ads. 

This is especially true among Gen Z/Millennials, who prefer relatable, ongoing creator narratives over one-off sponsored posts. Increasingly, CMOs are giving creators genuine creative control within brand guardrails, recognizing that scripted messaging is often rejected, while ongoing, relatable narratives build belief and drive action.

With CPG brands increasingly demanding ROI from every creative, what does a ‘creative that converts’ look like in the GCC today? Can you share examples where storytelling directly drove sales?

Creative that converts in the GCC is rarely passive. Instead of broadcasting messages, the most successful campaigns invite participation, user-generated content, trends, challenges, and connect that engagement directly to sales and conversion tracking. What matters isn’t just attention, but what that attention does next.

Successful campaigns are not translations of global assets; they are built from the inside out with a regional context (Arabic-first messaging, local customs, festivals, family rituals). This approach yields higher engagement, trust, and purchase intent because it feels native to the audience. Ramadan remains one of the highest-impact storytelling windows for CPG in the GCC, where culturally sensitive narratives resonate deeply and influence buying behavior.

Koala Picks, a UAE-based health snack brand, provides a concrete example of how storytelling tied to an integrated campaign can deliver real business results in the GCC. By combining a culturally authentic content creator review with mobile-optimized paid ads and CRM follow-ups (email and WhatsApp), the brand extended storytelling beyond awareness to conversion and loyalty. The campaign demonstrated how narrative and performance work hand in hand to drive sales, with reported increases in sales and web traffic as part of the 360° marketing strategy.

Short-form video and creator-led campaigns are redefining FMCG marketing. How should brands balance polished campaigns versus authentic, creator-driven content that resonates with UAE/KSA, or Qatar audiences?

This is the tension every FMCG/CPG brand in the Gulf is feeling right now, and the brands winning in 2026 aren’t choosing polished or authentic. They’re designing a system where both play different jobs in the funnel, the culture, and the market. In the region, trust and aspiration coexist. Consumers still expect premium, well-produced brand signals, but they make decisions based on relatability, peer validation, and cultural fit.

So the question isn’t “polished vs creator,” it’s: where does polish build authority, and where does authenticity unlock action?

Polished campaigns have not lost relevance in the UAE/KSA/Qatar, but their role has changed; they now signal brand authority and legitimacy, particularly in sectors like health, wellness, and beauty (where it’s needed). But a polished creative is no longer expected to convert on its own. Creator content fills that gap because it mirrors how decisions are actually made, especially in markets where who says something often matters more than how it looks.

The UAE’s highly diverse audience has a strong appetite for aesthetic-led, lifestyle content, where an English-Arabic blend feels natural, and creator content can remain polished without losing authenticity, making a roughly 50/50 balance between high-production brand work and creator storytelling most effective.

In Saudi Arabia, creativity is culture-first and community-driven, with creator credibility carrying more weight than production value; humor, everyday context, and local dialect are critical, and brands that allow creators to lead the narrative, often leaning toward a 30/70 split favoring creator-led content, consistently outperform overly polished executions. 

Qatar, by contrast, is a smaller, high-trust market where restraint, quality, and brand authority matter more than volume; fewer creators dominate the landscape, expectations are higher, and the most effective approach pairs a tightly controlled, polished brand world with very selective, credibility-driven creator partnerships.  Together, these differences reinforce a critical truth for CPG brands: success in the GCC isn’t about one regional creative strategy, but about calibrated execution that respects how trust, culture, and influence operate differently in each market.

CMOs now demand measurable creative accountability. How do you ensure visuals, design, and social storytelling actually impact brand growth, not just “cool look”?

The question CMOs are asking creative leaders in 2026 is no longer “Is this beautiful?”, it’s “If I spend more money on this, will it grow my brand?” 

Accountable creative isn’t less creative; it’s more disciplined. At Sculpt25, our main rule is: every piece of creative has to answer one primary business question first: what behavior are we trying to change right now? 

Is it a trial? Is it a repeat purchase? Is it belief-building? Each objective demands a different creative job, and high-growth brands are ruthless about aligning storytelling to the specific stage of the funnel they’re trying to move.

On social, visual systems shouldn’t be reinvented every time. They need to be recognizable within seconds. The strongest brands resist over-designing originality and instead build distinctive, repeatable visual cues that drive memory. That consistency is what allows performance storytelling to scale.

Finally, we close the loop with measurement. Social storytelling only drives growth when it’s tied to signals beyond engagement, ie, search lift, saves, add-to-cart behavior, store visits, or assisted conversions. Creative accountability is impossible without a testing culture. We always advise short-form demos: treating content like a performance system, not a one-off expression. High-growth brands test fast, kill faster, and scale what works. If we can’t measure what the creative is meant to move, we can’t justify scaling spend.

In markets like KSA and UAE, culture seems to be the new distribution channel. It is relevant to ask how the industry embeds local cultural nuances into creative campaigns without losing global brand consistency.

Algorithms amplify what culture accepts, not what brands push. The mistake global brands still make is treating localization as a translation task, when it’s actually a cultural operating model. Every global brand needs a small, ruthless set of fixed assets that never change, regardless of market. These are the memory anchors. They’re what make the brand feel like itself everywhere. 

The question we always ask when designing or converting a campaign is: “How does this idea live in this culture?’’ For example, a global idea about reward, care and progress will manifest very differently in Saudi family settings, Emirati social rituals and expat urban lifestyles. 

Cultural scenarios, casting choices, humor, pacing, and platform-native execution are all shaped locally because global calendars don’t drive attention here; cultural rhythms do. The most effective teams treat creators as feedback loops, not just distribution channels. 

They actively monitor reinterpretations, study comments, remixes, audience reactions, and feed those signals back into global playbooks in real time. Success is measured not just by reach, but by cultural participation, shareability, sentiment in comments, creator adoption, and one essential gut check: would this feel strange if a local friend posted it? If the answer is yes, the creative isn’t ready to scale.

Given that over 70 percent of consumers discover new CPG products on social media, how do you craft content that isn’t just seen, but actually drives purchase intent in the GCC?

In the Gulf, people don’t buy because they saw a product or liked a video. They buy when the product fits a real cultural moment, and someone they trust shows how it fits in.

We use a simple five-part framework: It begins with a culturally familiar moment hook that stops the scroll by reflecting real-life problems or moments, not brand messaging, generally triggering self-identification. 

This is followed by a belief builder, often delivered through creator validation that feels like a recommendation, not a promotion- this reduces perceived risk. Next comes normalization, showing the product naturally integrated into everyday use rather than staged consumption. 

The fourth step is friction removal, where clear cues around price, availability, or how to buy eliminate hesitation. Finally, follow-up sequencing reinforces intent through retargeting and repeated exposure, ensuring the message moves from awareness to action. Together, these elements transform social content from passive visibility into a system that actively drives consideration and purchase behavior.