A synthetic customer panel built from JTBD maps gave a marketing agency an affordable way to test creative work — reducing client revisions and replacing opinion with data.
A data-focused marketing agency with a national client reach had a recurring problem: clients second-guessed creative work based on personal opinion, leading to endless revisions. Affordable creative testing tools didn't exist at their scale. We built an AI solution using synthetic research — a custom GPT backed by JTBD-based customer personas — that gave the agency a rigorous, cost-effective way to test creative and present data-backed rationale to clients.
"Clients used personal perspectives to provide feedback — leading to multiple revisions and wasted account hours."
The agency needed a more data-driven approach to creative testing that was both effective and affordable. Traditional testing tools were out of reach at their budget. Without objective data, every creative review became a debate based on taste rather than evidence — and the agency had no way to defend their work.
We selected a pilot brand and worked with the account strategist to understand the brand's customer base. Using this foundation, we built a Jobs-to-Be-Done map for each identified customer archetype — main job, sub-jobs, emotional and functional criteria, and circumstances.
Using the JTBD maps as a foundation, we worked with the LLM to develop two detailed personas per archetype — creating a synthetic panel of nine customers. The panel was grounded in real job structure, not invented demographic profiles.
The panel, persona maps, job maps, and additional guidance were used to build a custom GPT the agency could use to obtain customer feedback on initial designs. The tool produced a percentage desirability score and customer quotes the agency could present to clients alongside the creative work.
Clients had greater confidence in the future performance of their ads, because the creative work was now backed by data-driven insights from a synthetic customer panel rather than gut feel. The agency experienced a measurable reduction in client-requested revisions and gained a repeatable, affordable process for validating creative work before it ever entered the review cycle.