Health of creativity: 42% of highly awarded creative is effective

Analysis of 5,000 award-winning campaigns in the WARC archives, from 2015 to 2022, finds that those which are highly awarded for creativity are more likely to be effective. 

WARC Creative Members can read the full report here. An infographic breaking down the conclusions of the research is available to all here.

Why the health of creativity matters

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%.

“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,” writes Amy Rodgers, head of content for WARC Creative.

Key ideas

• A fifth (20%) of creatively awarded ideas between 2015 and 2022 were subsequently awarded for effectiveness. When ideas are highly awarded for creativity, the conversion to effectiveness awards rises from 20% to 42%.
• 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).
• Successful ideas have higher creative commitment scores (the three drivers of creative commitment to boost campaign performance are: spend, duration, and the number of media channels used). The average creative commitment score of campaigns in the WARC database is 5.9 (out of 15). This score rises to 6.8 in ideas that are both highly creative and highly effective. 
• 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. Samsung and Volvo outperform their category averages.
• McDonald’s is the most awarded brand for effectiveness in the WARC Rankings, but this study shows that creativity now has a greater contribution to its marketing results, with its conversion rate trending upwards over the study period.