New research from WARC has revealed that of the 5,000+ creatively awarded campaigns analysed, 42% of highly awarded creative ideas are subsequently awarded for effectiveness, compared to 20% for all creatively awarded ideas.
Using the results data from between 2015 and 2022, The Health of Creativity report has assessed the health of creativity to establish how often creative work is also effective.
Amy Rodgers, Head of Content, WARC Creative, said: ‘Since we published the previous edition of ‘The Health of Creativity’ in 2021, there have been many studies proving how creativity supercharges effectiveness, so we wanted to see if the status of effectiveness of creatively awarded campaigns had changed.
‘This latest research shows a marginal improvement over the last couple of years. Highly creative ideas awarded for effectiveness have increased from 39% to 42% and all creative ideas have upped their effectiveness from 18% to 20%.‘
The most successful ideas across creativity and effectiveness focus on building brand equity through their use of television (highly creative and effective ideas are more than twice as likely to lead with TV as any other channel) and emotion (40% of the most creatively effective ideas used emotion as a creative strategy).
The report found that Burger King is the most creatively awarded brand, but Coca-Cola has the highest conversion rate from creativity to effectiveness, with almost a third of its creatively awarded ideas also awarded for effectiveness.
Ogilvy is the network with the most awarded creative ideas, closely followed by BBDO Worldwide, however, BBDO has converted the highest absolute volume of them to effectiveness awards. Whilst Dentsu has the lowest volume of creatively awarded ideas, at 37%, Dentsu holds the highest conversion overall to effectiveness.
Roberts added: ‘Analysis of individual brands in this study suggests that advertisers need to assess both the absolute effectiveness of their work, and the contribution of creativity towards that commercial performance, to see the best impact from their marketing efforts.‘
Featured image: The Health of Creativity report / WARC
