One of the standout sessions at the 2025 CommerceNext Growth Show was the keynote, “Triple Threat Strategy: Unlocking Incrementality, Creative, and AI for Competitive Advantage.” The session featured Avinash Kaushik, a globally respected expert in data-driven marketing and leader of Brand Strategy & Marketing Transformation at Tapestry, in conversation with Pooja Chandiramani of Coach. Together, they unpacked how brands can thrive by marrying AI, creative excellence and incrementality into a single cohesive strategy.
This session covered:
- The three buckets of AI adoption
- Why HR (not just tech) is key to AI transformation
- How AI search is reshaping the consumer journey
- The power of creative pre-testing: “win before you spend”
- Incrementality as the CMO’s bulletproof shield
The Three Buckets of AI Adoption
Avinash broke down AI adoption into three simple clusters:
- Adopt now: Tools already proven and scaled, such as advanced analytics, to measure incrementality, identify audiences and evaluate creative effectiveness. At Tapestry, these are being leveraged today in partnership with Meta, TikTok and Google.
- Bleeding edge: Emerging applications like creative large language models that help brands manifest a creative vision faster and at scale.
- Avoid for now: Areas where the technology is unproven; let others make the mistakes first.
This framework ensures that marketers invest their time and resources where impact is both real and measurable.
Why HR is Key to AI Transformation
One surprising takeaway: AI transformation is less about technology and more about people. Avinash emphasized that the Chief People Officer, not the CTO, often enables AI at scale. Why? Because real change requires cultural adoption. He outlined three actions companies can take:
- Rethink hiring: Before opening a new role, ask if AI can fulfill 15-100% of the function.
- Reward experimentation: Celebrate teams that take risks, even if some AI projects fail, because failure is part of innovation.
- Educate legal & compliance: Partner with HR and legal leaders to reduce barriers, ensuring teams can safely use tools like ChatGPT or Gemini without fear of being blocked.
How AI Search is Reshaping the Consumer Journey
Perhaps the most urgent warning came around AI-driven search. As Avinash put it: “If you want to be freaking out about one thing, freak out about AI search.”
The traditional world of “10 blue links” is disappearing. Consumers no longer want links. They want direct answers. This shift fundamentally disrupts both SEO and paid search strategies.
Even more concerning: AI systems like Claude and ChatGPT learn about brands from external content, not just from a brand’s owned channels. That means 70-90% of what these systems “know” about your brand may not come from you. Tapestry has already begun investing in content strategies across the wider web to ensure accurate, brand-positive representation.
The Power of Creative Pre-Testing: “Win Before You Spend”
Creative, Avinash noted, drives 60–70% of marketing impact, yet is often undervalued. Tapestry’s approach? Pre-test before investing.
Using platforms like HumanMade Machine, they test creative with hundreds of people before rolling it out globally. This ensures campaigns resonate across markets while minimizing risk.
- For global hero campaigns, pre-testing is non-negotiable: the stakes are too high to fail.
- For platform-specific campaigns (like TikTok, where 300 creatives may be required), testing in-market works better.
- The real magic happens when pre-tested global concepts fuel scalable creative executions, creating a competitive edge.
Incrementality as the CMO’s Bulletproof Shield
Finally, Avinash tackled one of marketing’s toughest questions: “What if we turned off all marketing tomorrow?”
The answer lies in incrementality: measuring what truly drives growth beyond what would happen naturally. At Tapestry, this happens across three levels:
- Channel Silo Incrementality: What happens if we shut off spend on one channel, like Google?
- Cross-Stack Incrementality: Do we need $10M on Google and $10M on Meta, or will $17M across both deliver the same outcome?
- Portfolio Incrementality: How much total lift comes from all marketing combined?
This framework, he said, is what makes CMOs “bulletproof” when facing the CFO. “If your company fired all the marketers tomorrow, you want them to miss you by Monday.”
CommerceNext Steps
Avinash closed with clear deadlines and KPIs for teams to embrace:
- By now: Ensure 70% of your performance marketing budget is AI-powered.
- This month: Incorporate creative pre-testing into every major campaign.
- Quarterly: Measure cross-stack incrementality to optimize budget allocation.
- Annually: Report to your CFO on two key KPIs—incremental revenue driven by marketing and cost per incremental sale.
Discover more actionable insights and can’t miss sessions at CommerceNext’s Post-Purchase Forum, October 15 in NYC. Apply today to take your post-purchase strategies to the next level.
