The Art of Moving People: A Framework for Braver Brands

Appeals Generate Feelings and Behavior. AI + Human Co-creation Can Help Us Activate Them More Effectively

Editorial illustration made with the help of Generative AI / Tools: Midjourney, Adobe Photoshop + Firefly, Topaz Gigapixel

You’ve seen it. The drone shot of a family hugging in a golden field. The slow piano truck underneath. The inevitable line about how "we’re all in this together.” Somewhere, another marketing department just selected Empathy from the corporate vending machine of emotional appeals.

It’s not that Empathy doesn’t work—it does. So do Humor, Hope, and the occasional puppy. But after a while, something troubling happens: most brands start talking to us with the same feelings and executional triggers, in the same way.

The result? Emotion becomes wallpaper.

The Problem with Playing It Safe

Advertising runs on emotion and logic—what we call appeals. They’re the psychological levers that make people click, buy, trust, laugh, or feel something real. The problem is that most marketers keep yanking the same ones.

Hope. Endorsement. FOMO. Repeat.

But humanity is far richer than that. At Truth Collective, we’ve so far cataloged 47 distinct emotional and rational appeals that brands can use to connect with people. Forty-seven! That’s like having a chamber orchestra at your disposal, yet most brands keep playing the same three-note jingle.

Once you work with all available appeals, creative worlds expand. You notice fresh ways to move people—ways that go beyond the safe, expected, algorithm-approved defaults.

Because brave brands aren’t just louder; they’re more honestly aligned with what their audiences actually care about.

Appeals as a Creative Compass

We don’t treat these appeals as an academic inventory. They’re creative compasses—each one pointing toward a different truth a brand can tell.

Rebellion dares people to defy convention (Diesel’s Be Stupid, Apple’s Think Different).

Comfort reminds us we’re safe (Motel 6 leaves the light on, Campbell’s keeps it “M’m! M’m! Good”).

Anti-Ad mocks advertising itself (Liquid Death, Oatly—class clowns turned philosophers).

Humility celebrates imperfection (Domino’s “We’re Sorry for Sucking,” KFC UK’s “FCK” apology ad).

The goal isn’t to collect appeals like stamps. It’s to choose the one that makes the brand’s truth feel inevitable, not invented.

Enter the AI Bravestorm

Deciding which appeal fits best can take weeks or months of meetings, rewrites, and existential debates over the word authentic. That’s where our AI Bravestorms come in.

At Truth Collective, we build custom GPTs that help us and our clients accelerate through the messy middle of decision-making. Think of them as fast-thinking creative partners that help us:

Interrogate the brief—what’s at stake, for whom, and why it matters.

Explore the full spectrum of appeals—surfacing both expected and totally unexpected routes.

Pressure-test directions in real time—seeing how each appeal shifts tone, story, and tension.

The result? Clarity and co-creation.

Teams get to the right emotional and strategic direction faster so we can start creating from a place of confidence, not confusion.

Bravery doesn’t mean guessing. It means deciding fast enough to make room for boldness later.

The Great Creative Debate: AI vs. Artistry

Let’s address the algorithm in the room.

There’s a loud cultural debate about whether AI belongs anywhere near creativity. You’ve probably heard the insult: AI slop.

The skepticism isn’t wrong. When machines churn out clichés and Franken-copy, that’s not creativity. That’s content composting. But the real issue isn’t AI—it’s intent.

At Truth Collective, AI doesn’t replace creative thinking. It accelerates it.

Our AI Bravestorms take on the functional, strategic, and exploratory steps—mapping emotional pathways, testing appeals, and surfacing possibilities—so humans can spend more time on what machines still can’t fake: taste, empathy, emotion, storytelling, craft, and cultural truth.

And here’s the part almost no one talks about:

The way we use AI isn’t taking work away from humans—it’s giving humans access to ideas and expression we never could have done before.

Because time and budget limitations kill more great ideas than mediocre thinking ever has. AI lets us explore creative avenues that would’ve been impossible to justify in a traditional process—alternate brand worlds, speculative executions with CG-level modeling and animation, experiments in tone or visual language.

These aren’t projects we would have handed to humans. They’re projects that would never have existed. AI expands the creative universe—it doesn’t shrink it.

It widens the runway for human imagination. It makes more room for the brave ideas that would’ve died on a conference room whiteboard.

Humans handle the what. We let AI handle the what-ifs.

It’s not automation. It’s augmentation.

From Gut Feelings to Guided Instinct

Here’s a truth the industry rarely admits: creative genius often starts as a hunch. Someone tosses out: “What if the product is the villain?” and suddenly the room tilts with excitement. But with 47 potential appeals, hunches can get tangled.

AI Bravestorms turn that gut feeling into guided instinct. We can test, combine, and stress-test appeals instantly—seeing how Justice/Fairness might pair with Performance/Superiority, or how Courage could coexist with Humor without turning into a TED Talk.

The tech handles some heavy lifting. Humans handle the brave thinking.

Bravery by Design

Our mission at Truth Collective is simple: help brands be ever braver.

Bravery in marketing isn’t about wild swings; it’s about choosing truth over comfort. The right appeal is the voice of that truth. When a brand’s purpose aligns with the audience’s emotional state, something powerful happens:

People just don't notice you—they feel you.

That’s when an energy drink becomes rebellion, a skincare brand becomes empowerment, a data platform becomes serenity in a world of chaos.

The Efficiency of Courage

Efficiency and creativity aren’t natural allies. Usually, they glare at each other across a long table. But by blending human insight with AI Bravestorms, we’ve found that courage actually scales.

When clients and agencies align early on the emotional and rational strategies that matter, they stop debating the wrong things and start building the right ones.

The work gets sharper, truer, braver—and ironically, more efficient.

So, Why 47?

We could’ve stopped at ten. Or twenty. But the full spectrum of 47 appeals reminds us that humanity is gloriously complicated.

Some people crave status. Others serenity. Some are moved by justice. Others by guarantees.

And as culture evolves, we’ll keep refining the list because nothing in this industry—or in human emotion—will ever stand still.

Bravery, Simplified

The most efficient path to marketing effectiveness isn’t more data, more targeting, or more optimization. It’s emotional clarity.

Know what truly moves your audience. Choose that appeal on purpose. Then express it bravely. Because while there are at least 47 ways to effectively move people, the bravest brands don’t use them all. They find the few that are true to them—and make the world feel something new.