Campaign Creators via Unsplash
Just three in 10 multinational marketers say their teams consistently work to deliver creative excellence, according to 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 more than 160 senior marketers, covers 86 brand owners, 26 sectors and $141 billion in annual global ad spend.
It reveals that while AI is likely to dominate conversations at Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, many CMOs need to prioritise the bigger picture of how their organisations can deliver consistent creative excellence.
53% said they value creative excellence, but prioritisation is still inconsistent across teams.
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%).
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.
While much of the discussion in Cannes will focus on the role of AI, 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,” said WFA CEO Stephan Loerke.
“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."
Across the industry, there is still no clear consensus on the right way to use AI and how marketing teams can adapt to take full advantage.
Only 11% have a common agreed vision or game plan for using AI to drive creative excellence – the largest share (39%) is working on it.
57% are looking to their agencies to work it out, saying they want external partners to understand and prove the value of AI.
There are areas where AI is finding a role in boosting creative effectiveness include using it for concept testing (55%), using AI for ideation (52%) and analysing consumer intelligence data to develop new insights (47%).
However, there are also concerns about creative homogeneity and ‘a sea of creative sameness’ (58%).
More optimistically many (74%) feel hopeful that AI will help to measure the business impact of creativity.
Currently 38% are already using it for this purpose. Seventy-eight percent believe up-skilling AI capabilities is key to creative excellence in the future.
64% of marketers say the C-suite is pushing for overly optimistic efficiency savings from AI and 61% say this is shifting the focus away from marketing effectiveness.
“Brands need to develop systems to codify and scale creativity, use measurement to link it to growth, invest in talent and skills, as well as identify a supporting role for AI that amplifies the work,” said LIONS chief content officer, Paul Kemp-Robertson.
“One reason why AB InBev has been named the Cannes Lions Creative Marketer of the Year for the third time is because the company has already done the hard work and invested in these capabilities across its global marketing teams, embedding creativity as a core business driver."
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