We undertook one of the largest ever studies of marketing and advertising effectiveness, analysing nearly 5,000 effectiveness case studies from 2010-2019.

The resulting white paper The Effectiveness Code, gives marketers two new tools.

The Creative Effectiveness Ladder is a framework to evaluate the progress of effective marketing. It provides a universal definition and shared language for effectiveness and has been designed to be used as a continuous improvement tool for marketers and agencies, enabling them to produce more consistently highly effective creative campaigns and initiatives.

During our analysis, we made a new discovery that marketing effectiveness is heavily influenced by a campaign’s degree of what called Creative Commitment. Creative Commitment is a composite measure of the media budget, duration and number of media channels applied to a creative campaign or initiative. Creative Commitment correlates very tightly with effectiveness – as Creative Commitment increases, so does effectiveness. To increase Creative Commitment, marketers have three ‘levers’ – spend, duration and number of media channels – and pulling any of these levers will give their work an effectiveness advantage.

“Cannes Lions is committed to addressing the global community’s challenges with short-termism and proving the value of creative marketing. The Creative Effectiveness Ladder is a tool for change and the start of the mission. We’re currently working with the industry to identify how the Ladder can be used as a tool to judge the Creative Effectiveness Lion so that the global benchmark in creative and effective work is underpinned by this step forward in effectiveness.”

Simon Cook, Managing Director, Cannes Lions

“The Creative Effectiveness Ladder is a huge step forward for the industry. With a shared framework for evaluating the effects of communications, marketers and agencies can plan and benchmark their work far more consistently.”

David Tiltman, VP Content, WARC