Don’t Waste Great Creative on Sh*t Media (or Vice Versa)
How to ensure great ideas drive the returns they deserve.
This afternoon in Cannes, Mark Ritson joins Andrew Tindall of System1 and Effie Worldwide to preview The Creative Dividend, a new collaboration merging emotional testing with real campaign results. It’s a powerful reminder that creative indisputably drives brand growth. But from where we sit, that’s only part of the story…
Speaking of stories, what good are they if no one sees them? Or worse, if they’re served on the wrong channel at the wrong moment? At Analytic Partners, we don’t see creativity as a solo act. It’s a headline act in a bigger performance but it needs the right stage, sound system, and spotlight to get a standing ovation.
Creative Ignites the Flame. Context Turns It Into Wildfire.
Our take? The big ideas coming out of Cannes matter, not just for the awards, but for the outcomes they drive. And those outcomes don’t happen in a vacuum. They happen when creative meets context: media, measurement, price, promotion, and all the variables marketers juggle daily.
Take price. When brands support a 10% increase in price with strong brand-building media, our ROI Genome database demonstrates they lose less in sales (8.6% vs. 9.5%). That difference might look small, but it adds up to a significant margin cushion and proves how brand investment softens the blow.
That’s just one example. We model impact across everything from weather patterns to competitor spend because if you want creative to deliver, you have to treat it like the commercial lever it is.
Consistency Is the Commercial Superpower
System1, Ritson and Effie Worldwide are right to bang the drum for emotional creative but WARC really nails it:
But emotion alone isn’t enough. It needs consistency. It needs scale. And it needs to show up in the right places, at the right time, with the right frequency.
That’s where the numbers speak loudest. Analytic Partners’ ROI Genome shows that when ads are in market for 11 to 20 weeks, ROI increases by 34%. Push that to 31+ weeks, and you’re looking at a 65% ROI lift.
The longer the consistency, the stronger the commercial payback. And that’s what we measure, the link between media impact and commercial outcomes. We don’t just ask ‘was the ad seen’ but ‘did it resonate? Did it move product, boost margin, or defend price?’ If not, you’re just broadcasting vibes and hoping someone felt them.
Don’t Let Creative Be a One-Night Stand
Your ad is only as strong as its airtime:
Good creative on fleeting media? It’s a one-night stand with no text back.
Great media with meh creative? It’s a glossy billboard in a ghost town.
Pair them well? That’s a long-term relationship with compound returns.
Analytic Partners’ APAC data shows that when brands combine TV, OLV, and Search, ROI lifts by 35%. Add OOH and Social? It climbs to 50%.
That’s the real Creative Dividend: not just emotion, but emotion orchestrated over time, across channels, and proven to pay back.
Ready to Turn Big Ideas into Big Returns?
Let’s test your creative, media, and 4 P alignment before your CFO calls you about disappearing returns.
⬇️ [Download the ROI Genome flash report]
📄 [Grab the Forrester TEI one-pager (495% ROI proof)]
💡 [Book a 15-minute chat to talk about better measurement]
Leave Cannes with more than a lion - leave with a profitable idea that actually pays back. 🦁
(Yes, that’s metaphorical. But your CFO will still get the joke.)
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