Code3’s Blueprint: How AI Brains and Human Heart Drive Bottom-Line Growth

CLEVELAND, OH – June 17, 2026 – In the relentless churn of the digital marketplace, companies often face a false choice: embrace the cold, data-driven precision of artificial intelligence or rely on the nuanced, human-centric art of creative storytelling. Digital marketing agency Code3, however, is proving that the most potent strategy—and the most profitable one—lies in their synthesis. The Graham Holdings-owned agency recently secured two distinct but related industry honors, offering a compelling case study in how to fuse machine intelligence with deep human understanding to drive measurable business results.

The firm earned the Celeste AI Pioneer Award from advertising technology leader Skai for its sophisticated use of AI in Amazon advertising. Simultaneously, it received a Bronze Award for Digital Commerce from The Drum for a campaign that transformed the legacy of Elida Beauty’s brands into a powerful engine for multicultural commerce. These dual accolades are more than just trophies for a shelf; they are a validation of an integrated philosophy that is becoming a blueprint for navigating modern commerce.

“These awards reflect something we've believed for a long time: the best marketing happens when technology and human judgement work together,” said Craig Atkinson, CEO of Code3. “AI can help brands move faster and make smarter decisions, but lasting growth comes from understanding consumers and creating meaningful connections.”

The AI Engine: From Manual Labor to Proactive Profit

For many brands and agencies, managing large-scale advertising on a platform as complex as Amazon is a reactive, often grueling, task. Teams spend countless hours manually pulling data, adjusting bids, and reallocating budgets, perpetually trying to catch up to market shifts. Code3’s award-winning work with Skai’s Celeste AI tackled this problem head-on, shifting the paradigm from reactive optimization to proactive, AI-powered strategy.

Instead of treating AI as a simple add-on, Code3 engineered a comprehensive and repeatable operating model built around the technology. This model systematized the use of AI across five critical workflows:

1. Budget Forecasting: The team moved beyond manual, assumption-laden spreadsheets. By querying the AI with historical data and client goals, they could generate granular budget recommendations with a forecasted impact on revenue, turning budgeting into a strategic growth lever.

2. Gap Analysis: The AI was tasked with auditing client portfolios to identify under-leveraged tactics and performance gaps across business units, a process that previously required hours of manual analysis. This not only optimized performance but also accelerated the onboarding of new team members.

3. New-to-Brand (NTB) Acquisition: To gain deeper insights into customer acquisition, Code3 built custom reporting frameworks within the AI platform, allowing them to pinpoint exactly which strategies were most effective at attracting customers who had never purchased from the brand before.

4. Client Reporting: The agency transformed reporting from a static summary of past events into a forward-looking, actionable narrative. By feeding the AI with client-specific context—such as promotional calendars and KPI targets—they were able to generate strategic insights 25% faster, freeing up teams to act on the data rather than just compile it.

5. KPI-Driven Optimization: The system allowed for the generation of specific bid, budget, and targeting recommendations tailored to each client’s unique ROI goals, ensuring that AI-driven actions were directly tied to business outcomes.

To ensure these results were not a one-off success, Code3 developed a shared prompt library and standardized playbooks, allowing the entire organization to replicate the model's success across its client portfolio. The bottom-line impact was immediate and substantial. Across just three clients, the AI-powered model identified $839,000 in incremental Q4 revenue opportunities and drove a 12–19% increase in new-to-brand sales. It was a clear demonstration of how operationalizing AI can directly translate to financial growth.

The Human Touch: Turning Heritage into a Commerce Powerhouse

While one team at Code3 was architecting AI workflows, another was proving that technology alone is not enough. The agency’s work with Elida Beauty for brands like POND'S, Noxzema, and Caress, which earned a Bronze from The Drum Awards, was rooted in an insight that was, as the press release noted, “hiding in plain sight.”

For millions of multicultural consumers, particularly within Hispanic and Latina households, these were not simply legacy products on a dusty shelf; they were cherished family rituals passed down through generations. Rather than attempting a costly and potentially alienating rebrand for a younger audience, Code3 leaned into this authentic cultural truth. The resulting campaign, “Beauty Runs Deep,” was anchored in the generational skincare traditions that consumers were already celebrating in their own lives.

Code3 managed the entire process, from consumer research and creative strategy to production and platform-specific asset delivery across Amazon, Walmart, and Target. The campaign’s creative didn't just speak to consumers; it reflected their own stories back to them. The results were explosive and starkly illustrated the power of culturally resonant content.

Compared to standard brand-produced video running during the same period, Code3’s creative generated:

• 17.7x more attributed revenue
• 10x more views
• 2x more product clicks

The “Beauty Runs Deep” campaign alone was responsible for a staggering 65% of the total campaign sales. Overall, Code3’s content delivered 18 times more revenue per video. This wasn't just a creative victory; it was a commercial landslide, proving a core principle for the modern age: when told authentically, brand heritage is not a liability in digital commerce—it is a formidable competitive advantage.

A Unified Strategy for a Fractured Marketplace

Viewed separately, Code3’s two awards represent excellence in two different domains: one in technical execution, the other in creative insight. But viewed together, they reveal a cohesive and powerful strategy for the future of business. Success is no longer about choosing between the machine and the human; it’s about creating a system where each makes the other more effective.

The AI-driven efficiency gains in reporting and optimization freed up strategists to focus on deeper, more meaningful work—like uncovering the cultural insights that fueled the Elida Beauty campaign. In turn, the stunning success of that campaign provided a wealth of performance data that could be fed back into the AI models to make them even smarter.

This integrated approach—uniting commerce, media, and creative under a single strategic umbrella—is how Code3 helps brands answer the fundamental questions they face today. It provides a framework for navigating an increasingly complex landscape where data is abundant but true insight is scarce. By building a repeatable model for AI implementation and pairing it with a deep commitment to authentic human storytelling, the agency has demonstrated a path forward that is both groundbreaking and intensely practical, delivering on the promise of innovation that truly serves the bottom line.