The New Growth Engine: How Kellanova Uses AI and Creative Data to Power a Marketing Transformation

In today's rapidly evolving marketing landscape, creativity, data, and AI are not just buzzwords, they are the catalysts for driving faster, smarter growth. For far too long, creative was called the immeasurable step in marketing, even though it’s the single biggest driver of ROI. At Vidmob, we’re changing that by making creative data available, accessible, and actionable. Our recent work with MMA Global and Kellanova, an iconic company reborn from Kellogg’s, shows what this looks like in action. Kellanova is evolving from a traditional food company into a modern growth engine powered by human insights and AI. Their goal: build iconic brands, delight consumers, and drive growth. Vidmob proved to be the right partner to make creativity accountable to that growth.

A First-of-its-Kind Industry Study

Together with Kellanova and MMA Global, we ran a first-of-its-kind study on how AI-powered Predictive Impact Scoring can improve digital ad performance. Kellanova was committed to transforming their marketing from the ground up, not just launching new products or campaigns but fundamentally reshaping how they work. To do that, their team was focused on three levers:

• Human-Centered Insights – Understand consumers better than anyone.
• Creative and Cultural Relevance – Show up in ways that feel modern and authentic.
• AI-Powered Agility – Move faster and make smarter decisions with tech.

It started with a bold question: How do we make creativity more accountable to growth? We dove head first into the research, which analyzed over 443 assets across 10 brands—including household favorites like Pringles®, Cheez-It®, and Pop-Tarts®—and billions of impressions on Meta in the U.S. The research found that Predictive Impact Scoring can accurately forecast performance, and the insights were compelling:

• Predictive Impact Scoring can forecast 3-second view-through rates (VTR) with 83% accuracy.
• Following predictive creative guidelines  drove a 2.16x improvement in campaign performance.
• Predictive results estimate an 11% increase in profit ROI when assets followed brand-specific guidelines.

The takeaway: these results prove the link between creative magic and measurable business outcomes.

Predictive Impact Scoring is a Unique Fingerprint for Marketers 

Using VidMob’s AI-powered technology, we analyzed assets, focusing on hero brand messaging and over 20,000 creative decisions (e.g., tone, visuals, messaging, branding, talent presence). We then applied a regression analysis to distill these insights into 19 enterprise-wide and 11 category-specific scoring criteria. This resulted in a predictive impact score: a quantification of how well assets are following creative guidelines that incorporate elements like branding, emotion, object, action, format, and more.

These scores don’t just point to performance drivers, they protect each brand’s unique creative identity. This research scales through Vidmob’s Aperture, which is the AI-powered technology that can identify a brand’s creative fingerprint: distinct, predictive, and intrinsically tied to its unique brand identity and performance potential. For example, our analysis found that for salty snacks, creative highlighting consumption moments and social interaction performed best. For sweet snacks, indulgence cues and strong product imagery were the key drivers of results.

Nicole Vinson, VP, Digital, Media and Omni-Shopper Experience at Kellanova, summed it up: “By identifying the specific creative elements that drive performance—like consumption cues for salty snacks or indulgence visuals for sweet treats—we’re able to refine our briefs, optimize media investment in real time, and ensure each asset is built for effectiveness. This has changed how we brief, evaluate, and scale creative across teams.”

AI Transforms the Creative Data Process at Scale

This study shows AI isn’t replacing human creativity, it’s enhancing it. Our approach combines AI’s speed and scale with the strategic insight and creative vision of our teams. Operationally, it’s been a game-changer. What used to take us 100+ hours per brand now takes 10. Teams have shifted from relying on “gut instinct” to making confident, data-driven creative decisions with predictive accuracy.

"Creative is one of our most powerful levers for growth," explains Charisse Hughes, SVP, Chief Growth Officer at Kellanova. She likens predictive impact scores to "creative fingerprints – unique to our brand, actionable and incredibly powerful for driving both brand distinctiveness and performance. At scale, these go beyond growth and drive transformation and with AI we can do this with increased speed and accuracy."

From Insights to Impact: Transforming the Creative Workflow

One of the biggest benefits of Predictive Impact Scores is identifying strong and weak creative before any media budget is spent. This empowers teams to adjust quickly, minimize wasted media spend, and improve campaign efficiency. Beyond that, the analysis pinpoints which creative decisions drive the greatest performance impact – these are invaluable insights that inform future briefs, production, and broader optimization strategies

This shift lets us map an improvement curve linking creative excellence, media activity, and growth—fundamentally transforming workflows. This study gives brands a roadmap for how to use AI-powered predictive scoring to reduce waste, improve their planning, and scale high-performing creative across brands and markets. Now, creative decisions are grounded in data, not opinion. Budgets are informed by predicted impact. Goals are aligned with effectiveness. Creative isn’t the “immeasurable step” anymore; it’s a critical tool for driving performance.

Ready to transform your brand's creative performance? Get in touch to learn how!