Creative quality and media power ad performance, System 1

System1 and Effie have published The Creative Dividend, a book examining how creative quality and media investment combine to drive advertising effectiveness and business growth.

Drawing on large-scale creative measurement and effectiveness evidence, the book argues that creativity and media deliver the strongest results when planned together, rather than treated as competing priorities. It sets out practical tools designed to help marketers improve advertising quality, defend investment decisions and increase profit impact.

How creativity and media combine

The research behind The Creative Dividend brings together Effie Insights, Effie’s global database of effectiveness case studies, and System1’s Test Your Ad Competitive Edge database. The analysis covers one thousand two hundred and sixty five campaigns from two thousand and seven to two thousand and twenty three across the United States, Europe, the United Kingdom and Ireland, representing one hundred and thirty nine billion dollars in market share and matched to responses from more than two hundred thousand consumers.

The findings suggest that when creative quality and media support are planned in tandem, they account for an average of sixty point one percent of campaign business results, rising to as much as ninety eight point three percent in certain categories.

A central concept in the book is the Creativity Stack, a framework that positions effective advertising as a layered process built across four dimensions: emotion, distinctiveness, showmanship and consistency. The analysis shows how each element contributes to stronger commercial outcomes when developed deliberately over time.

The research also introduces Excess Share of Creativity, a metric that measures how much creative advantage enters the market once media support is considered. As Excess Share of Creativity increases, the likelihood of reporting profit growth rises at an accelerating rate, indicating that marginal improvements in creative quality can deliver disproportionate returns.

Confidence remains a barrier

While most marketers agree that creativity plays a central role in effectiveness, the research highlights confidence as a persistent obstacle. Forty one percent of marketers surveyed still regard creativity as a risk, despite its proven contribution to business outcomes.

The book positions shared language, diagnostics and case evidence as mechanisms to help teams make more assured, effectiveness-led decisions about creative and media investment.

Andrew Tindall, SVP Global Partnerships, System1: “Advertising is one of the few commercial investments that compounds when it works. But compounding requires two disciplines: creative quality that changes memory, and media support that gives those memories a chance to form. This book gives teams a shared language to improve the work, and the confidence to back it properly so advertising becomes an investment, not a quarterly cost.”

Evidence to support investment decisions

Effie positions the publication as part of its broader mission to strengthen the link between advertising and business value. By connecting creative quality, media investment and reported commercial outcomes, the analysis aims to provide practical guidance for marketers navigating budget scrutiny.

Traci Alford, President and CEO at Effie: “Effie exists to help marketers create business value, and The Creative Dividend supports that ambition. By bringing together creative quality, media investment and commercial outcomes, this research delivers evidence the industry has not seen before and reinforces advertising as an established engine of business growth.”

The book can be accessed here

www.system1group.com

www.effie.org

Follow Marketing Report on LinkedIn