The Creative Effectiveness Gap: Why Only One in Five Award-Winning Campaigns Deliver Commercial Results

A decade of data reveals the persistent disconnect between creative excellence and measurable effectiveness and points to what separates the best from the rest

Oct 30, 2025

Please note not all graphs have been included in this article for the complete Health of Creativity Report 2025 visit WARC CREATIVE

McDonald’s has won more creative awards than any other brand over the past decade—117 campaigns recognised for their ingenuity. Yet when it comes to proving those creative ideas actually worked, the world’s largest restaurant chain converts just 21% to effectiveness awards, underperforming its own retail sector. Its arch-rival Burger King, with fewer creative wins overall, converts half of its best work to proven commercial success.

This rivalry encapsulates advertising’s uncomfortable truth: creative brilliance and business results remain stubbornly disconnected. New research tracking 10 years of global award data shows that just 21% of creatively awarded campaigns between 2015 and 2024 subsequently won recognition for effectiveness. A decade of industry hand-wringing about accountability has moved the needle by exactly one percentage point.

The conversion challenge

The research, analysing results from major regional and global award programmes tracked through WARC’s annual rankings, reveals something curious. For the very best creative work—campaigns that reach the WARC Creative 100—conversion to effectiveness awards more than doubles to 44%. Get your creative idea to the top tier, and you’ve got nearly even odds of proving it worked.

This represents 151 campaigns over the decade—the “best of the best”. But here’s the problem: the conversion rates have flatlined. After incorporating 2024 results, the overall rate increased by just one percentage point. The highly creative conversion rate? Unchanged

The measurement barrier

Why the persistent gap? Demonstrating effectiveness requires resources many brands lack. Effectiveness awards demand rigorous evidence of commercial impact—isolating a campaign’s contribution from dozens of other variables affecting business performance. Brand size matters enormously. Larger organisations can afford the measurement infrastructure and award entry preparation. Some successful brands simply refuse to publicly showcase their commercial results.

The shift towards performance marketing has paradoxically worsened matters. Data has become more accessible, yet creative marketing often remains quarantined from performance initiatives. Add to this a timing problem: creative awards recognise work quickly, whilst effectiveness requires patience. Campaigns winning creative recognition in 2024 may not show their full commercial impact for another year or two.

The success formula

So what distinguishes the 151 campaigns that cracked both codes? “Creative commitment”—a composite measure of media budget, campaign duration and channels deployed—tells part of the story. Average campaigns score 5.8 out of 15. The best of the best score 7.0. Money and time matter.

But strategy matters more. The best campaigns layer multiple approaches. Corporate responsibility features in 34% of top campaigns versus 14% of typical work. Emotional strategies appear in 33%. Here’s what’s revealing: whilst 35% of top campaigns include informative messaging, only 4% rely on it alone. The winners balance rational content with fame-building creativity.

Television’s retreat

Perhaps the most dramatic shift concerns media. Television’s role as the lead channel has collapsed from 43% of the most creative and effective ideas in 2018 to just 26% today. Of the 11 new best-of-the-best entries this year, only two included television. Neither led with it.

This isn’t about television losing its creative potency—the medium still excels at storytelling and emotional engagement. Rather, no single channel now dominates. Social media, online video and mobile platforms each contribute around 14% as the primary channel. The winners embrace complexity over simplicity.

Earned attention wins

The most successful campaigns overwhelmingly prioritise earned media. PR value was measured by 71% of highly creative and highly effective ideas—nearly double the 36% across all cases. Consider DEGIRO and UN Women’s “Pink Chip” campaign, which created a fictional stock to highlight gender investment gaps. The idea generated global press coverage, demonstrating how campaigns designed for conversation, not just consumption, achieve disproportionate impact.

The hard metrics tell the commercial story:

Sales impact: 61%.
Market penetration: 46%.
ROI: 28%.

These figures over-index typical cases by substantial margins, with ROI measurement particularly distinguishing the best work.

Sector patterns

Retail punches above its weight, contributing 21% of highly creative and highly effective campaigns whilst representing just 12% of all cases. Quick-service restaurants lead the charge—Burger King contributes five best-of-the-best campaigns, KFC three.

Financial services shows the highest conversion rate of highly creative ideas to effectiveness at 68%. Toiletries and cosmetics leads overall conversion at 31%. Yet media and publishing—the second-highest contributor by volume—converts just 11% to effectiveness. The sector that should understand storytelling and measurement best performs worst at linking them.

Brand wars

Back to that McDonald’s-Burger King rivalry. McDonald’s wins on volume: 25 converted campaigns versus Burger King’s 23. But Burger King’s highly creative work converts at 50%—above the retail average. McDonald’s sits at 42%—below it. Scale and efficiency tell different stories.

Samsung leads all frequently awarded brands with a 30% conversion rate, trouncing the technology sector’s 18% average. Apple, newly in the top 10 for creative awards, converts just 7%—either a different measurement philosophy or simple disinterest in effectiveness competitions.

Agency approaches

Dentsu International achieved the highest conversion rate—33% overall, 69% for highly creative work—despite a modest volume. Quality over quantity. Ogilvy takes the opposite approach: 491 creatively awarded ideas, 121 converted. BBDO follows with 454 and 128. Both strategies work, but they reveal fundamentally different philosophies about creative ambition versus commercial proof.

What history suggests

A 2019 IPA study documented a 16-year decline in creative effectiveness through 2018. Author Peter Field blamed short-termism and performance-focused creativity that sacrifices long-term impact. That diagnosis has been widely accepted—perhaps too readily.

More recent research from Effie and System1, Kantar, and the IPA shows creativity drives ROI when supported by three inputs: emotion, brand fluency, and time. The third factor disappeared during performance advertising’s dominance. It may be returning.

The stable 21% conversion rate might not signal crisis so much as the inherent difficulty of excellence across multiple dimensions. Winning creative awards is extraordinarily rare—roughly one in 7,000 campaigns. That one in five creatively excellent campaigns also proves commercially effective might be success, not failure.

Where this leads

The evidence now overwhelmingly supports creativity’s commercial value. The question is whether brands and agencies will structure their work to capture and demonstrate this impact. That means investment in measurement capabilities, adequate creative commitment through budget and duration, multiple creative strategies in combination, and campaigns designed for earned attention, not just paid reach.

The 151 campaigns that achieved both creative excellence and effectiveness over the past decade prove the possibility. Microsoft’s ADLaM campaign, which created a digital alphabet to preserve the Fulani language, topped the 2025 Effective 100 and reached number 17 in the Creative 100. Honest Eggs Co.’s FitChix, featuring body-positive chickens, converted creative recognition into proven commercial results. Volkswagen’s 70th anniversary work demonstrated how heritage brands can make creativity work commercially.

But here’s what should concern the industry: after a decade of data, debate and declarations about the importance of linking creativity to effectiveness, the conversion rate has barely budged. The gap between creative acclaim and commercial proof remains as wide as ever. Either the industry lacks the measurement capability to close it, or it lacks the will. The creative effectiveness challenge isn’t going away. It’s getting worse.