We’ve entered a marketing era obsessed with optimization.
Media teams are targeting down to the decimal. Audience segments are sliced to the molecule. Programmatic budgets are tweaked daily to squeeze out fractional gains in click-through rates and conversion metrics.
And yet, amid all this precision, we continue to overlook the most critical—and most wasteful—aspect of advertising.
The idea itself.
According to new research from Adam Sheridan (Ipsos) and Jones Knowles Ritchie, an astonishing 85% of advertising dollars are spent on assets that aren’t truly distinctive.
That’s nearly $4 trillion globally—spent on creative that fails to leave a mark.
Let’s pause there.
In a world where marketers fight over budget and ROI, we’re funneling the vast majority of our investment into assets that people don’t remember, don’t recognize, and don’t associate with our brands.
How did we get here?
Recognition Is the First Principle of Branding
As Sheridan notes, we’ve become so focused on the bottom of the funnel—trying to extract an extra 0.01% conversion bump—that we’ve forgotten the first rule of brand building:
If people don’t know it’s you, it doesn’t matter what you said.
Recognition isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s the foundation. It’s what makes everything else—trust, preference, loyalty—possible. And yet, we continue to allocate massive budgets to media while underinvesting in the creative elements that actually drive memory.
Distinctiveness Is Difficult—But Not Mysterious
Let’s be honest: creating distinctive, ownable advertising is hard. You can’t always predict what will become iconic.
But we now have clear evidence of what increases your odds:
- Ipsos found that high-performing creative uses a broader mix of brand assets 34% more often than low-performing ads.
- Sound, fluent scenarios, recurring characters—these can generate up to 9x more branded attention than a logo alone.
- The best ads aren’t just “branded” at the end—they feel like your brand from the very first second.
And yet, we’re still measuring logo placement and brand mentions as if that’s what creates recall. It’s not.
Creative Quality + Media Quality = Profitable Growth
Too often, creative and media are treated as separate silos. But they’re not. They’re co-dependent. The best media strategy in the world can’t rescue bland creative. And brilliant creative won’t perform in the wrong channels.
Real, sustainable brand growth happens when you pair distinctive creative with high-attention media.
Think radio. Think print. Think TV. These are the channels that drive memory, narrative, and emotion. They’re not just media buys—they’re brand-building engines when used with intention.
Time to Rebalance Our Attention—and Our Budgets
As marketers and brand leaders, we’ve spent the past decade mastering efficiency. Now it’s time to master meaning.
Because brand growth doesn’t come from better clicks, it comes from deeper connections. From storytelling. From memory. From being truly, unmistakably you—over and over again.
So the next time your team is reviewing media performance or creative strategy, ask a different question:
Will anyone remember this ad next week?
Will they remember it’s us?
If the answer is no, go back to the idea. That’s where the ROI really lives.
P.S. Want to see what bold creativity looks like in action (without sitting through another dull pitch deck)? Cult. Creative. is our latest live deck—packed with killer ideas, unforgettable ads. View it in Google Slides—no downloads, just instant inspiration. [Request access here.]