Each year, Warc tracks the results of the top regional and global award shows for creativity and effectiveness for the Warc Rankings, a benchmark for marketing.
Using 11 years of Warc Rankings data of show results from 2015 to 2025, a total of 6,360 ideas have been analysed to assess the correlation between creativity and effectiveness, the characteristics of the best-in-class campaigns, and the creative conversion by sector, brand and agency work.
Amy Rodgers, head of content, Warc Creative, says: “Drawing on findings from 11 years' worth of War 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 the current shared characteristics are that define the most creative and effective ideas.”
Over a fifth (21%) of ideas awarded for creativity in shows tracked by the Warc Rankings were subsequently awarded for effectiveness. This conversion rate remains the same as last year.
However, when ideas are highly awarded for creativity, making it into the Warc Creative 100, the conversion to effectiveness more than doubles, rising from 21% to 45%, up from 44% last year.
“Should the 21% conversion rate be higher?” asks Rodgers. “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.”
Here are the takeaways from Warc’s analysis of 167 best-of-the-best ideas, which are highly creative and highly effective, having ranked in both the Warc Creative 100 and Effective 100 between 2016 and 2026.
TV’s role as a lead channel is declining among top ideas despite its strength for emotion and storytelling strategies
A quarter of best-in-class ideas (25%) led with television in 2025, down from 44% in 2018. Its strength still lies in its ability to reach engaged audiences in large numbers, and exploit emotion and storytelling, both key strategies for encoding marketing messages in memory.
Data suggests that no single channel is taking its place – instead, the lead role is now spread across a broader mix of channels.
Most campaigns (85%) aim for brand building, an objective seen only slightly more often in highly creative and effective work (88%).
Strong brands drive growth and command premium pricing through long-term equity investment. Success requires consistent delivery of the brand promise across product performance, advertising, and pricing strategy, with a focus on building equity and awareness.
The best of the best ideas favour social justice, partnerships and emotion
Compared to the average, nearly half (49%) of highly creative and highly effective ideas significantly over-index in the use of social justice issues - including CSR, advocacy, and brand activism.
Customer experience is used by 42% of the top ideas and strategic partnerships by 40%.
The data suggests that the strongest ideas go beyond conventional customer-focused tactics to engage with broader societal issues and wider audiences.
Almost two-thirds (61%) of the best ideas have a measurable impact on sales and almost half on market penetration.
ROI and revenue also over-index significantly in award-winning work. Behavioural change emerges as a distinctive metric for top-performing campaigns.
This suggests that the best ideas aim not only to build brands, but also to influence behaviour and generate wider impact.
PR value is a soft metric measured by 70% of highly creative and highly effective ideas – more than double the 27% for all cases – highlighting the importance of fame.
Best-of-the-best ideas also over-index in other soft metrics including social media buzz, brand health and search.
The best ideas have longer campaign durations
Highly creative and effective ideas play the long game. Over a third (37%) of award-winning campaigns run for a year or longer, compared to just 15% of typical cases.
This aligns with research showing that highly creative campaigns build emotional resonance that drives lasting impact, while less creative efforts tend to deliver short-term results.
Creative effectiveness is strongest in the retail sector
One in five (20%) of the 167 most creative and effective ideas come from the retail sector, despite making up just 13% of all cases.
The food sector follows with 10%, followed by technology & electronics, toiletries & cosmetics and financial services (8%).
Successful ideas have higher creative commitment scores.
Creative commitment is a composite measure of the media budget, duration and number of media channels used for a creative campaign or initiative.
Creative commitment correlates strongly with effectiveness – as creative commitment increases, so does effectiveness (sales, brand building, market share and profit).
Comparing case studies in the full WARC Rankings dataset with ideas ranked in the WARC Creative 100 and Effective 100, creative commitment is higher (score of 7.0) in highly successful ideas than the average (6.0). Importantly, these numbers are not a reflection of brand size.
For creatively awarded ideas, Ogilvy leads with a total tally of 575, adding 84 this year, while BBDO tops the number of creatively awarded ideas that converted to effective at 137.
VML showed the strongest growth, adding 27 converted ideas.
By conversion % rate, Saatchi & Saatchi leads agency networks with a 32% conversion rate of its creatively awarded ideas also awarded for effectiveness, rising to 44% for highly creative ideas. (Data reflects agency networks as credited at the time of award, including those since acquired, merged, or rebranded).
