WFA Client and Creativity Global Report

Our goal is to help brand owners address, and reverse, the decline in creativity in marketing communications to drive sustainable brand growth.

We know that creative communications effectiveness is in decline. Which poses a huge problem. We also know clients feel not enough is being done to address this. The majority feel that, at an industry level, ‘we focus too much on problems and plumbing and not enough on people and art’.

That’s why, to complement the many studies and work featured during Cannes Lions and other within other industry platforms, we launched the world’s first global study focused specifically on clients’ roles in the seemingly terminal decline of creativity in marketing and advertising: exploring the client-centric barriers to creativity and what we might to do to tackle these issues.

With the partnership of 34 national advertiser associations, Contagious, The Observatory International and WFA were able to conduct a global study amongst senior client-side marketers.

Within this project we also sought to speak to industry leaders (client and agency side) to help bring to life some of the challenges we have identified and propose solutions.

Our thanks go to the creative leaders who informed our research and to the 640 respondents, from 34 different countries, consisting of global (10%), regional (44%) and national (46%) marketers. This would not have been possible without the support of WFA’s member associations.

Read more about the study here