The Extraordinary Cost of Dull

The business cost of creative dullness

ABOUT THIS SESSION

Why creative quality is a business issue

Adam Morgan, Founding Partner of eatbigfish, presents research from the IPA effectiveness databank on the financial cost of below-average creative quality in advertising.

The data shows that emotional ‘fame’ advertising requires 4.5% extra share of voice to achieve large market share growth compared to 11.8% for rational advertising, a gap of 7.3 percentage points.

The session also draws on DMA Effectiveness Databank 2024 findings on how below-average creativity affects business outcomes across the full marketing funnel.

What you’ll learn

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The ESOV gap between rational and fame advertising

Research from the IPA effectiveness databank (1998–2022) shows that for very large market share growth, emotional ‘fame’ advertising requires 4.5% extra share of voice, compared to 11.8% for rational advertising a 7.3 percentage point efficiency gap.

What’s driving advertising towards dullness

The session identifies four structural forces performance marketing, optimisation, averaging, and AI as the primary causes of creative dullness in advertising today.

The business impact of below-average creativity

DMA Effectiveness Databank 2024 data shows that below-average creativity reduces the likelihood of recording an effect across nine business outcomes, including customer penetration (−48%), brand consideration (−43%), market share growth (−37%), and brand trust (−22%).

A framework for diagnosing creative dullness

The session presents a diagnostic framework covering connection, surprise, emotion, and character that can be applied to creative briefs and review processes to identify and address tendencies toward dull advertising.

WATCH THE SESSION

The Extraordinary Cost of Dull

Presented by Adam Morgan, Founding Partner of eatbigfish.

Download the presentation

THE SPEAKER

Adam Morgan

Founding Partner, eatbigfish

Adam Morgan is Founding Partner of eatbigfish, a consultancy that works with challenger brands and their leadership teams. For this project, he collaborated with Peter Field, Dr Karen Nelson-Field, and Jon Evans to analyse data from the IPA effectiveness databank, with the aim of quantifying the financial impact of low creative quality on advertising performance. This session presents the findings of that research.

EFF-Word-Adam-Morgan

THE EFF WORD SERIES

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