Why marketers are selling creativity as risk management to the C-Suite

New Delhi: Marketers are increasingly repositioning brand investments as strategic tools for risk mitigation to gain stronger support from the C-suite, according to the WARC ‘Creative Impact Unpacked’ report, highlighting the key themes from Creative Impact, one of five content streams at Cannes Lions 2025.

Karen Crum, Partner, Strategy and Transactions at EY-Parthenon, advised that brand strength should be framed not merely as a creative asset, but as a risk reducer, highlighting how strong brands tend to recover faster from crises, while underinvesting in brand can jeopardise long-term commercial performance.

The report further highlighted that new data reinforces the financial impact of weak creative and poor media quality. According to fresh research by Amplified Intelligence’s Dr. Karen Nelson-Field and eatbigfish’s Adam Morgan, the cost of underperforming creative in low-quality media environments can lead to a loss of 43 cents on every advertising dollar spent, translating to a staggering $198 billion in value loss across the industry.

Further validating the commercial upside of creativity, a study by Interbrand on the most awarded companies at Cannes Lions revealed that such brands outperformed the average EBIT performance by 2.7% per year and achieved 4.7% higher market capitalisation compared to their peers.

To tackle the fixation on channel-level return on ad spend (ROAS), Laura Jones, CMO of US-based grocery delivery platform Instacart, recommended adopting a portfolio-based ROAS approach. This shift, she explained, enables marketing teams to justify investments across the full purchase funnel and elevate brand-building initiatives beyond performance marketing silos.

However, achieving brand consistency remains a major challenge in today’s media-fragmented environment, described by many as a “lots of little” landscape, highlighted in the report. As content is increasingly consumed in bite-sized, multi-platform formats, maintaining coherence across brand touchpoints demands sharper strategic integration and creative discipline.

In this evolving landscape, marketers are being called upon to not only deliver performance but also act as stewards of long-term brand health, creative excellence, and enterprise value.

The report also addressed the growing challenge of maintaining brand consistency amid media fragmentation, referred to as the “lots of little” landscape. Dr. Grace Kite (Analytic Partners) and Tom Roach (Jellyfish) discussed how inconsistent emotional storytelling across platforms can erode brand effectiveness. Kite, however, pointed out that synergy across multiple short exposures can still build brand equity if messaging is well orchestrated.

JJ Healan (McDonald's) and Natasha Maharaj (Desperados) showcased how brands are evolving from rigid "matching luggage" executions to "brand universes"—frameworks that maintain core brand codes while empowering contextual and creative flexibility. Desperados, for example, has embraced creator-led content with "freedom within a framework" to improve cultural relevance.

The theme of agility over process also emerged strongly. Emmanuel Orssaud, CMO of Duolingo, highlighted the brand’s decision to allocate 30% of its marketing budget to experimentation, while relying on its mascot “Duo the Owl” to maintain brand consistency. Strategy experts Paula Bloodworth and Rob Campbell further critiqued rigid, process-driven marketing approaches, contrasting them with artist-led models that prioritise speed and creative POV, like those of Idris Elba or Metallica.

The report also delved into the concept of “unshittification”—a term used to describe reversing the decline in product or service quality often seen when marketing promises outpace customer experience delivery.

Richard Dickson, CEO of Gap, described how consolidating siloed teams into a unified services group improved brand storytelling across all customer touchpoints, emphasising that “retail is detail.”

Yael Cesarkis (R/GA) and Brent Mitchell (Sephora) advocated for designing for emotion, not just efficiency, with Mitchell citing Sephora’s product sampling as a key emotional brand interaction.

Meanwhile, Mercado Libre, working with GUT, transformed delivery anxiety into a branding opportunity, launching the emotional tagline “Lo mejor está llegando” (“The best is coming”), turning logistics into a brand equity builder, according to CMO Sean Summers.