System1 and Effie have launched The Creative Dividend, a new book that brings together large-scale creative measurement and effectiveness case evidence to demonstrate how creativity and media work best together.
Rather than debating whether creativity or media matters more, The Creative Dividend unpacks how the two must work together to maximise effectiveness. The research introduces two tools to help marketers defend investment, improve work, and make advertising a more dependable driver of business growth.
This research draws on Effie Insights, Effie’s global database and content hub featuring effectiveness case studies, linking reported commercial outcomes to real campaigns across markets and categories, and System1’s Test Your Ad Competitive Edge database. The analysis covers 1,265 campaigns (2007–2023) across the US, Europe, UK, and Ireland, representing $139 billion in market share, matched to consumer responses from more than 200,000 people.
The book introduces a practical framework for improving creative effectiveness across four proven dimensions—Emotion, Distinctiveness, Showmanship, and Consistency—showing how each contributes to stronger business impact when thoughtfully developed.
It also shows how creativity and media do not work in isolation. When planned together, the two account for 60.1 per cent of campaign Business Results on average, and as much as 98.3 per cent in certain categories. The book shows how to diagnose whether teams should focus on the work, increase support, or scale what’s already winning.
The book introduces Excess Share of Creativity (ESOC), which captures how much creative advantage actually enters the market once media support is considered. As ESOC rises, the likelihood of reporting profit growth increases exponentially, demonstrating why “good enough” creative is often the most expensive choice.
While most marketers say creativity matters, 41 per cent say it is still seen as a risk. The Creative Dividend provides case evidence, shared language, and diagnostics to help teams make confident, effectiveness-led decisions.
Andrew Tindall, SVP global partnerships at System1 and author of The Creative Dividend, said: “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.”
Traci Alford, President and CEO at Effie, said: “Effie ultimately exists to help marketers create business value, and The Creative Dividend is yet another way of supporting that ambition. This is the first analysis of its kind—bringing together creative quality, media investment, and commercial outcomes, delivering evidence the industry has not seen before. By showing exactly how to make creativity more effective, this research reinforces advertising as an established engine of business growth, and arms marketers with clear, actionable evidence and practical guidance to invest with confidence.”
