Why Social-First Ideas Need More Than Reach

DataReportal reports that the average global social media user spends 18 hours and 36 minutes a week on social platforms and uses 6.5 different platforms each month.

That gives brands more places to show up, but it also creates more competition for attention and very little room to waste people’s time.

For Hernán Cerdeiro, Chief Creative Officer Americas for SAMY, this is where many social campaigns are won or lost.

"In the traditional model of advertising, viewers were very aware when they were being sold to. That’s what put them off," he says.

"But now, particularly on social, there’s been an obvious shift. If a community feels like they are being advertised to, a [social] campaign isn’t going to land."

In this DesignRush interview, he explains why strong social ideas need cultural understanding, why audience reaction should be planned early, and why bigger budgets cannot rescue weak creative thinking.

Who Is Hernán Cerdeiro?

Hernán Cerdeiro is Chief Creative Officer Americas at SAMY, where he oversees creative work across the U.S. and South America.

Originally from Argentina and now based in Miami, he built his career across markets where ideas often had to travel across cultures and work without huge production budgets.

Before joining SAMY, he founded AnyGivenDay and held senior creative roles at agencies including Conill Saatchi & Saatchi, LatinWorks, Alma DDB, McCann Erickson, Ogilvy, and Young & Rubicam Buenos Aires.

His work for brands such as McDonald’s, MTV, Visa, Toyota, Coca-Cola, Sprite, and Quilmes has earned recognition from Cannes Lions, The One Show, D&AD, Clio, and Effie.

His approach to social-first creativity is shaped by cultural nuance, risk, and the belief that strong ideas need to work harder than the budget behind them.

Fresh Ideas Need Cultural Fit

Cerdeiro says social-first work starts with three questions: is the idea fresh, will it create impact, and is it relevant to the community?

"The idea should be, first of all, ‘fresh’; otherwise, it’s not going to make people stop," he says.

This is particularly important when brands are speaking to online-savvy audiences who already see large volumes of content every day.

Sprout Social’s 2025 Index, based on surveys of more than 4,000 consumers and 1,200 marketers, focuses on how brands can break through the noise and become memorable.

For Cerdeiro, "freshness" alone isn’t enough.

"Think early about the impact of the ideas. Is the idea going to get people talking or motivate them to take some action?" he says.

Planning for reaction early gives teams a better chance of responding quickly once audiences begin to engage.

Relevance is the third filter.

"You can have the most boundary-pushing idea of the century, but if it feels out of place or irrelevant to the communities being targeted, then there’s very little value beyond reach," he says.

For brands, this means social work should begin with community behavior before campaign ambition.

Old Jamaica Made Risk Useful

Cerdeiro points to SAMY’s work with Old Jamaica as an example of social-first thinking in practice.

The ginger beer brand had a new can design, but SAMY did not treat the relaunch as a standard packaging update.

The team built a year-long, multi-channel campaign around "killing off" and "resurrecting" the brand by answering one simple question:

How can something be new when it’s called Old Jamaica?

"We anticipated a backlash. Rebrands always trigger opinion, especially on social," Cerdeiro says.

But SAMY used this reaction as part of the campaign.

The team created what Cerdeiro calls a "semantic war," encouraging people to take sides in the old versus new debate.

Additionally, they partnered with creators to fuel the confusion, while community management kept the conversation moving in real time.

"We were actively driving the conversation in real time, responding, escalating, and creating new moments based on how audiences reacted," he says.

The campaign was a massive success, achieving:

• 28 million total views
• Over 168,000 interactions
• An 8.41% creatorengagement rate.

Overall, Old Jamaica worked because the brand had room to be bold, self-aware, and reactive.

"A big part of this success was being free to take risks, to be bold, to be self-deprecating, and to try pretty much anything to connect with audiences, which is rare," Cerdeiro says.

Data Starts the Work

Cerdeiro does not separate cultural insight from data.

At SAMY, the process begins with social listening, which helps the team understand communities before the creative work begins.

"We start our process with data, particularly social listening, to decode communities and translate signals into insights," he says.

But he is clear that data is only the starting point.

"Beyond that, it requires having the right team," he adds.

Research and insight teams help identify patterns.

Then, strategy and creative teams decide what those patterns mean and how they can become ideas people actually want to engage with.

"So, start by identifying audience behaviors," Cerdeiro says.

Then the creative team needs to understand where the audience is, how each platform works, and how the idea should live across social channels.

"Great work is about social understanding, not just social listening, to be able to have a wider cultural and business impact," he says.

This is where strong social campaigns become harder to copy. Data may reveal the signal, but the creative decision determines whether it becomes useful.

Budget Does Not Save Weak Ideas

Cerdeiro’s approach was shaped by markets where big budgets were not guaranteed.

That background still affects how he evaluates briefs today.

"It helped me not to worry about the constraints on the budget at all," he explains.

"At the end of the day, we always know the idea needs to work hard."

His point is simple: audiences do not reward a campaign because more money was spent on it.

"The idea should be the queen here," Cerdeiro says.

This view is supported by long-running effectiveness research.

Nielsen has found that strong creative drives stronger sales lift, while weak creative limits campaign performance even when media support is present.

Nielsen’s industry analysis has also cited creative quality as the largest driver of advertising sales impact, ahead of reach, brand, and targeting.

Cerdeiro sees the same issue in high-spend environments.

"If you have a s**t idea and lots of money, like we’ve seen way too many times in the Super Bowl, for example, what are you truly getting from it aside from reach?" he says.

For brands, this is the danger of treating media spend as insurance. Bigger budgets can increase visibility, but they cannot make people care.

What Brands and Agencies Should Take From This

Cerdeiro’s view of social-first creativity comes down to pressure.

The feed tests attention, while communities test relevance, but smaller budgets test whether the idea is strong enough to stand on its own.

For brands and agencies, this creates a few practical lessons:

• Start with community behavior. Social campaigns should begin with how people already talk, react, and share.
• Plan for reaction early. Strong ideas should leave room for audiences to participate, debate, or push the conversation forward.
• Let the idea carry the work. Production value and media spend help, but they cannot replace weak creative thinking.

Cerdeiro also uses a simple filter when brands talk about community.

"We work a lot with brands that ask us to build a community," he says. "That means we need to put ourselves in the shoes of potential members."

The question becomes practical: would someone in this community share the content, attend the event, or buy the product?

"If a community feels like they are being advertised to, a campaign isn’t going to land," he says.

For brands, this is the useful part of Cerdeiro’s argument. Social-first work should be built around how communities behave when they decide something is worth passing on.