15,000 clients are reportedly heading to La Croisette for this year’s Cannes Lions, which at least indicates a degree of curiosity about those dark arts.
However new research from the World Federation of Advertisers and Cannes Lions shows most advertisers prioritise efficiency over effectiveness and creativity.
Just three in 10 multinational marketers say their teams consistently works to deliver creative excellence. Most (53%) say they value creative excellence, but prioritisation is still inconsistent across teams, according to new research from WFA and Lions.
Clients and Creativity 2026 reveals the scale of the creativity gap, while WFA surveys consistently indicate that creative excellence isn’t a top three priority for many CMOs while some brands say they are still developing a definition for creative excellence.
The study, which is based on quantitative data and qualitative CMO interviews with over 160 senior marketers, covers 86 brand owners, 26 sectors and $141bn in annual global ad spend and reveals that while AI is likely to dominate Cannes Lions conversations many CMOs need to prioritise the bigger picture of how their organisations can deliver consistent creative excellence.
The report identifies a series of barriers for greater progress in this area, including short-termism (68%), risk aversion (45%) and securing sufficient investment for creative development (37%).
AT the moment 63% of multinationals are looking to develop new ways of working and processes to improve creative output but only 48% have built creative excellence into their global marketing capabilities programmes and only 44% say they have successfully embedded a belief in creative excellence throughout the global marketing organisation.
More positively, there are signs of a consensus around the roadmap to improvement. Many are building greater systematisation (63%) – the use of templates and processes to align behaviour across marketing teams in multiple markets – and earlier agency involvement in campaign development (57%) to improve output.
Which all sounds like it may be moving in the right direction but then the dreaded AI raises its ugly head.
Just 35% respondents say they are using AI to drive better creative results beyond just efficiencies and only 13% disagree with the statement that “our use of AI is currently more focused on efficiencies over effectiveness.”
“There is much talk that AI can drive improved creativity, a proven ingredient for marketing effectiveness. But we need to look at our processes holistically before seeing how AI can fit in. The technology will continue to evolve but what matters now is that CMOs consider how they can orchestrate a culture of creative effectiveness within their organisations rather than evaluating AI on individual, disconnected initiatives across the creative workflow,” says Stephan Loerke, CEO of WFA.
He’s right of course. At the moment anyway, AI is just a distraction. It doesn’t bring anything to the party at all.
