Creative, labeled as ‘non-working’ media, is responsible for driving 40-70 per cent of an advertising campaign’s performance, yet it has been deprioritised and undervalued. Global advertising spend is projected to reach $1.12 trillion (€0.98tn) by 2026, so investment in creative and content is expected to surpass $140 billion. Winterberry Group, a strategic growth consultancy, has released the findings of report that details how to collapse the artificial siloes of ‘working’ and ‘non-working’ media and achieve marketing effectiveness with media, audience and creative intelligence.

The report defines creative intelligence as the ability to collect, structure and analyse creative decisions against performance data to continuously optimise assets for effectiveness and engagement.

“It is time to overhaul outdated thinking that the billions spent on creative production is non-working,” said Bruce Biegel, senior managing partner of Winterberry Group. “To truly unlock the full potential of modern marketing effectiveness with greater financial discipline, media, audience and creative data have to converge into a full-funnel, personalised and measurable experience at scale.”

Brands and agencies can connect every stage of the creative and campaign process to outcomes. Creative intelligence empowers smarter briefings, pre-flight analysis, real-time activation and optimisation as well as creative lifetime value (Creative LTV).

With the pace of AI advancements and budgets under pressure, Winterberry predicts creative intelligence will be widely adopted by leading marketers in the next 24-36 months. Starting in channels with the most accessible creative data – social, email and mobile messaging, and then expand into programmatic digital formats such as display, video, audio, and connected TV (CTV).

Other key findings from the report include:

• Nearly half of marketers (49 per cent) still equate ‘creative intelligence’ with ideation alone, rather than recognising it as a system for measurement and optimisation.
• Nearly all marketers (99 per cent) view measuring creative LTV as important – with 72 per cent calling it very important.
  • However, only 54 per cent say their organisation measures creative LTV very effectively.
• Creative intelligence is most impactful for understanding brand awareness (41 per cent) and performance outcomes (38 per cent).
• Creative quality is universally valued as the most important metric for understanding creative intelligence followed by brand lift by both brands (49 per cent) and agencies (38 per cent).
  • Brands then are more interested in measuring conversions (33 per cent), while agencies lean into audience relevance (31 per cent) and engagement (28 per cent).
• Overall, brands and agencies expect creative intelligence to be led by marketing strategy and operations (but agencies favour external advisory roles more than brands).
• Brands prioritise agencies for executional support in the evolving creative intelligence ecosystem, while agencies see themselves having more of a focus on technology and strategic integration.

“Intelligent creative isn’t an emerging trend, it’s the new standard,” said Laura Desmond, CEO of Smartly. “With audience data in place, AI accelerating, and content demands at an all-time high, brands that harness creative intelligence are turning what was once marketing guesswork into a performance engine. The shift isn’t coming, it’s already here, and it’s redefining how we drive growth with speed, precision, and impact.”

“Winterberry Group’s research powerfully validates what we see every day: for too long, creative has been under-leveraged as a driver of marketing effectiveness,” said Wesley ter Haar, Chief AI and Revenue Officer at Monks. “At Monks, we’re focused on building the AI-powered connective tissue that unifies creative, media and audience data, enabling brands to drive measurable and scalable marketing effectiveness everywhere they show up.”

“Creative Intelligence isn’t a theory – it’s a system,” said Rob Rakowitz, VidMob head of marketing VidMob. “What makes this whitepaper so valuable is its attention to the mechanics: the inputs, outputs and feedback loops that turn creative into a measurable asset across the entire marketing lifecycle.”

“This valuable research aligns with over two decades of Analytic Partners’ ROI Genome findings: Creative is the #2 driver of marketing effectiveness – right after spend,” said Nancy Smith, CEO of Analytic Partners. “Advertisers must incorporate creative within their optimisation and measurement programmes to maximise commercial impact.”

For this research report, Winterberry Group surveyed over 200 senior brand marketing and agencies executives, data, analytics and technology thought leaders across the UK and US, conducting in-depth interviews with over 50 industry experts and influencers from customers and users of creative intelligence solutions.

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Tags: advertising, AI, vidmob