Published on: September 18, 2026
New WARC analysis finds that 45% of highly creatively awarded ideas are also recognised for effectiveness, highlighting the link between creative excellence and campaign impact.
Creative excellence and campaign effectiveness continue to show a strong relationship, according to the fifth edition of The Health of Creativity 2026 from WARC.
Drawing on 11 years of WARC Rankings data covering 2015 to 2025, the analysis examines 6,360 ideas from major regional and global awards programmes to understand the relationship between creativity and effectiveness, as well as the characteristics of campaigns that perform strongly across both measures.
Across all creatively awarded ideas tracked by the WARC Rankings, 21% were subsequently awarded for effectiveness. The figure remains unchanged from the previous year.
However, the conversion rate more than doubles among ideas recognised for the highest levels of creative excellence. Of ideas ranked in the WARC Creative 100, 45% were also awarded for effectiveness, up from 44% last year.
WARC analysed 167 best-of-the-best ideas that ranked in both the WARC Creative 100 and Effective 100 between 2016 and 2026 to identify the characteristics shared by highly creative and highly effective campaigns.
Television continues to play an important role in creative campaigns, particularly those built around emotion and storytelling. However, its position as the lead channel among top ideas has declined.
In 2025, 25% of best-in-class ideas led with television, compared with 44% in 2018.
WARC’s analysis suggests that no single channel has replaced television as the dominant lead channel. Instead, the lead role is increasingly distributed across a broader mix of channels.
Brand building continues to be the primary objective across the campaigns analysed. Overall, 85% of campaigns aim for brand building, compared with 88% among highly creative and highly effective ideas.
WARC notes that strong brands can support growth and premium pricing through long-term investment in brand equity and awareness, with consistency across product performance, advertising and pricing contributing to that effort.
The analysis highlights several characteristics that appear more frequently among highly creative and highly effective ideas.
The findings suggest that the strongest campaigns often extend beyond conventional customer-focused communications to engage with broader societal issues and wider audiences.
Creative effectiveness is not limited to brand outcomes. Almost two-thirds (61%) of the best ideas analysed have a measurable impact on sales, while almost half have an impact on market penetration.
ROI and revenue also over-index among award-winning work, while behavioural change emerges as a distinctive metric among the top-performing campaigns.
This indicates that the strongest creative ideas can combine long-term brand-building objectives with measurable behavioural and commercial outcomes.
PR value is measured by 70% of highly creative and highly effective ideas, compared with 27% across all cases analysed.
The analysis also finds that the best-performing ideas over-index on other softer measures, including social media buzz, brand health and search, highlighting the role of fame and broader cultural impact in highly successful creative work.
Highly creative and effective campaigns are also more likely to run for longer periods.
37% of award-winning campaigns run for a year or longer, compared with 15% of typical cases.
WARC links this longer-term approach with the ability of highly creative campaigns to build emotional resonance and lasting impact, while shorter campaigns can be more closely associated with immediate results.
Retail accounts for 20% of the 167 highly creative and highly effective ideas, despite representing 13% of all cases in the dataset.
The food sector follows at 10%, while technology and electronics, toiletries and cosmetics, and financial services each account for 8%.
WARC’s Creative Commitment measure combines media budget, campaign duration and the number of media channels used for a creative campaign or initiative.
The analysis finds that Creative Commitment correlates strongly with effectiveness across sales, brand building, market share and profit.
Highly successful ideas in the WARC Creative 100 and Effective 100 have an average Creative Commitment score of 7.0, compared with 6.0 across the full WARC Rankings dataset. WARC notes that these figures are not a reflection of brand size.
The analysis also examines how creatively awarded ideas convert into effectiveness across agency networks.
Ogilvy has the highest total tally of creatively awarded ideas at 575, including 84 added this year. BBDO has the highest number of creatively awarded ideas that also converted to effectiveness, at 137.
VML recorded the strongest growth, adding 27 converted ideas. By conversion rate, Saatchi & Saatchi leads among agency networks, with a 32% conversion rate for creatively awarded ideas that were also awarded for effectiveness, rising to 44% among highly creative ideas.
WARC notes that the agency-network data reflects the networks credited at the time of award, including organisations that have since been acquired, merged or rebranded.
Amy Rodgers, Head of Content, WARC Creative, said:
“Mounting evidence demonstrates how creativity plays a crucial role in driving campaign success. Drawing on findings from 11 years’ worth of WARC Rankings data, we examined whether campaigns recognised for creative excellence have sustained or strengthened their performance edge compared to last year’s findings and what are the current shared characteristics that define the most creative and effective ideas.”
Rodgers also addressed whether the 21% conversion rate for creatively awarded ideas should be higher:
“Should the 21% conversion rate be higher? Perhaps not, when viewed in the context of all the advertising produced. Winning both a creative and an effective award for the same campaign is hard. Factors include the current shift away from brand building to performance, brand size, and resources to measure effectiveness and prepare for strong award entries.”
The latest WARC analysis suggests that creative excellence and effectiveness can coexist when campaigns combine strong ideas with sustained investment, appropriate measurement and a clear connection to business outcomes.
The findings also point to a broader shift in how top campaigns are built. Television remains valuable for reach, emotion and storytelling, but leading ideas are increasingly distributed across multiple channels. At the same time, brand building, cultural relevance, partnerships, customer experience and longer campaign durations feature prominently among the campaigns recognised for both creativity and effectiveness.
