90% of brands running scared on creative risk, growth hobbled; half admit insights too weak; shift to lower funnel performance spend accelerates
Latest data from a sweep of 1,000 marketers and creatives confirms the industry is hobbled by risk aversion, leading to underperformance and weaker profits. Meanwhile, less than half of marketers think their insights are strong enough to build something bold and different, and little more than a tenth of the industry feels able to react swiftly to "cultural moments" – with safety-first approaches and lead-footed, process-driven hierarchical structures leaving a pile of money, profit and growth on the table as more marketers scramble for short-term lower funnel wins.
Almost 90 per cent of brands are too scared to take risks, resulting in vanilla marketing and comms that deliver far lower returns and profits, according to a poll of 1,000 marketers and creatives for Cannes Lions.
Risk-taking brands that back bold, top quality creative generate four times higher profit margins, per research by Warc and Kantar, while brands with a high appetite for creative risk are 33 per cent more likely to see long-term revenue growth, according to Deloitte.
Insight void
Meanwhile more than half of those surveyed for The State of Creativity 2025 report, authored by the Cannes Lions Advisory, admitted their insights are too paltry to underpin bold creativity.
Just 13 per cent said their insights were strong enough to do something interesting with – though marketers tend to rate their ability to develop high quality insights more highly than the agencies tasked with making something good out of them.
The report suggests AI and synthetic data – which approximates consumers, and in some cases highly accurately when tested against actual consumers – might help bridge the gap.
The report found the dearth of quality insights is exacerbating the lead-footedness that prevents many large brands reacting to cultural trends and moments – often fleeting in nature and at odds with multi-layered hierarchical structures and processes.
Per the study, 57 per cent of brands said they struggle to react quickly enough to cultural moments, just 12 per cent highly rated their ability to swiftly capitalise – with risk aversion also a key inhibitor.
Lower funnel slide
The shift of marketing dollars into short-term activities – i.e. lower funnel demand capture rather than longer-term brand, or future demand building – has also accelerated markedly over the last 12 months.
Last year 53 per cent of marketers polled said they were increasingly focused on short-term wins; this year’s poll finds that has jumped to 63 per cent, meaning little more than a third of marketers are prioritising long-term growth.
Read the report here.
