The challenge
Sunnyside, a mindful drinking app, was struggling with rising paid media costs. While their team had many creative ideas, they lacked a fast, low-risk way to understand which ads would actually drive conversions — especially across their diverse audience segments.
Solution journey
After identifying the need for more predictive creative insights, Sunnyside partnered with Gins AI to simulate audience responses at the persona level before campaign launch.
Implementation process:
- Defined their key customer personas
- Uploaded multiple creative concepts for Instagram
- Used Gins AI to simulate responses from 20 people matching Sunnyside's key customer personas
- Evaluated everything from emotional resonance to conversion likelihood instantly
- Identified winning creative approaches before spending real media dollars
Results & impact
Pre-launch testing revealed clear patterns in what resonated with Sunnyside's target audiences. The most significant finding: authentic content consistently outperformed more polished, produced content across all audience segments.
- Reduced CAC by cutting low-performing ads before spending real dollars
- Identified winning creative approaches across four unique personas
- Established Gins AI as their "creative co-pilot" for ongoing campaign development
"Gins AI has become our creative co-pilot, helping us get insights that reduce CAC by cutting low-performing ads before spending real dollars."
— Ian, CGO at Sunnyside
Five creative principles Sunnyside discovered
- Real people outperform polished design: Ads showing authentic stories, supportive messaging, and achievable next steps drove the highest conversion intent across every audience.
- Visual storytelling accelerates understanding: Simple illustrations (like balance/contrast) communicate mindful drinking faster than words alone.
- Supportive tone builds trust: Non-judgmental messaging ("We're here for you") resonated strongly with all segments.
- Flexibility resonates across audiences: Framing alcohol change as flexible ("soberish," "mindful") resonated most across all audience types.
- Clear next steps increase action: Specific timeframes (like "28 days") and clear CTAs reduce friction and increase conversion intent.
Additional use cases
Sunnyside continues to use Gins AI for:
- Validating messaging and positioning before campaign launch
- Creating landing page content ready to deploy
- Social media strategy and organic content development
- New product offering concept testing
Key takeaways
- AI creative pre-testing pays for itself immediately by killing losing ads before they drain budget.
- Authentic content consistently beats high-production value — AI simulation can confirm this for your specific audience before you shoot anything.
- The cost of not testing creatives before launch is always higher than the cost of testing with AI simulation.