In 2026, marketing doesn’t suffer from a lack of content.
It suffers from a lack of connection.
Brands are producing more assets than ever before.
More channels. More formats. More optimisation.
Yet despite record levels of activity, effectiveness is declining.
Attention is harder to earn, recall is weaker and media efficiency is under pressure.
The uncomfortable truth?
Most content simply doesn’t work.
Industry research consistently shows that around 80% of content is forgettable and up to 96% of ads are not positively remembered.
As audiences become more selective and media environments more competitive, creative that connects has become an increasingly more significant driver of marketing performance.
In 2026, the answer for brands isn’t to just spend more; it’s to ensure their content & creative connects more effectively.
Creative Connection; A Multiplier of Performance
The link between creative quality and commercial return is no longer theoretical. It’s proven.
System1’s extensive testing shows that as creative quality increases, return on marketing investment (ROMI) increases alongside it. High-quality ad creative delivers over three times the ROMI of low-scoring ads.
JCDecaux research reinforces this, finding that high-quality creative is more than twice as effective at driving business outcomes. Well-branded campaigns are over 50% more likely to be recalled, even after just two seconds of exposure and outdoor creative aligned with existing brand assets delivers 2x recall.
Creative quality coupled with channel optimisation doesn’t just improve outcomes, it transforms them.
The Hidden Cost of Ineffective Advertising
One of the biggest myths in modern marketing is that “safe” or purely rational advertising is more efficient.
The evidence shows the opposite.
System1’s ‘Cost of Dull’ research reveals that dull, low-attention ads require between 2x and 2.6x more media spend to achieve the same impact as engaging, emotional creative.
This is about effort versus efficiency.
Ineffective advertising doesn’t always fail outright; it just doesn’t work hard.
The attention gap makes this clear:
That difference compounds across reach, memory, brand association and long-term growth. Ineffective advertising that doesn’t connect is expensive.
Emotion is the engine of effective connection
Across markets, the most common reaction to advertising isn’t love or hate.
It’s nothing.
System1 testing shows that neutral emotional responses dominate, with over half of UK TV ad reactions classified as emotionally neutral. Neutral ads don’t offend but they don’t build brands either.
Emotion is the engine of effectiveness.
As Les Binet puts it, “Emotion is the most powerful selling tool we have.”
Ads that make people feel something, particularly happiness, are more memorable, more persuasive and more likely to build long-term mental availability.
System1’s star ratings make this explicit:
Two Jobs. Two Creative Strategies.
Marketing has always had two core jobs:
Only around 5% of consumers are in-market at any given time. Performance marketing is effective at capturing that demand.
But growth depends on the remaining 95%; people who aren’t actively in market yet.
Creating future demand requires a different creative approach. Not rational persuasion. Not functional proof points. But connection; through emotion, storytelling and memory-building.
Creative must always be tailored to the channel environment, the stage of the audience journey and the associated comms objectives.
Performance-led creative has an important role. But when it becomes the default everywhere, brands sacrifice long-term growth for short-term efficiency and often lose both.
The Real Question for 2026
The challenge for marketers in 2026 isn’t how to produce more content.
It’s how to produce content that works harder and is effective in the environment it is published.
Because creative connection is no longer a differentiator. It’s the baseline for effectiveness.
In Part 2, we’ll explore why so much content still fails, what’s driving the rise ineffective creative and how brands can reconnect creativity and performance to build work that earns attention, builds memory and drives action.
