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Gain Theory global CMO survey surfaced a creative measurement problem – with direct implications for budget and business impact.
Overview
Key Takeaways
- Gain Theory partnered with NewtonX to survey 115 global senior marketing leaders on creative effectiveness
- The research confirmed something CMOs already sense: creative impact is easy to feel and hard to prove. 89% call their creative effective, but only 36% measure it with the same rigor they apply to media, and that disconnect already shows up in budget decisions.
- Gain Theory took the findings to press within days of launch. Digiday and other industry publications covered the study.
Media gets audited. Creative runs on faith.
Media measurement has always been rigorous. Advertisers can trace spend to reach, frequency, and increasingly, sales impact. Creative hasn’t kept pace. Most brands still rely on copy-testing built decades ago, brand recall scores, and the occasional award: tools built to gauge reaction, not business outcome.
Gain Theory identified this emerging trend as far back as 2024 and the marketing effectiveness consultancy now wanted a data-informed read on where CMOs actually stood: what they believed about their creative, how they measured it, and whether they had the evidence to defend it. That meant a verified, global sample large enough to speak for the industry. So Gain Theory brought in NewtonX to deliver the data .
NewtonX verified the sample before a single answer counted.
NewtonX led the study as Gain Theory’s B2B research partner: recruiting and verifying the audience, and enforcing quality control throughout fielding. That combination moved Gain Theory from solid market hypothesis to launch-ready evidence, on schedule.
NewtonX fielded the survey among 115 senior, global marketing leaders, at large enterprise brands across financial services, retail, tech, and CPG. Before any response counted, NewtonX confirmed each respondent’s title, seniority, and company.
Final data landed only two weeks ahead of launch, and Gain Theory’s team had NewtonX Hub access to move from results to a finished and timely report.
The findings: confidence is high. Proof almost nonexistent.
The most striking finding wasn’t skepticism. Senior marketing leaders overwhelmingly believed their creative was working. Ask how they measured that belief, and the story changed.
89% said their creative had been effective over the last 12 months. Only 36% said they apply the same rigor to measuring creative as they do to media.
The rest of the findings made the stakes even clearer. 62% said they’re investing media behind creative whose true value is unknown. Nearly half said they don’t have the evidence needed to defend or grow creative budget with finance leaders. One in four already lost creative budget because they couldn’t make that case.
Marketers already believe in creative. What most can’t do is prove its business value once the budget conversation gets tougher at boardroom level. That’s a sharper, more urgent story than a generic argument about measurement maturity.
Marketing leaders feel good about their creative, but can’t prove it’s working, and CFOs are noticing. If you can’t measure it, you can’t defend it.”
Russell Nuzzo - Global Head of New Media Measurement, Gain Theory
Independent research when CMOs needed it most.
Gain Theory’s Creative Effectiveness Decoded: The Global CMO Survey gave the market a hard number for a question many marketing leaders were already hearing from finance: can you actually prove your creative is working? Timing mattered. The report put that evidence in front of CMOs and CFOs just as the next round of budget scrutiny was coming into focus.
Digiday’s Future of Marketing Briefing: “CMOs are still haunted by hard questions about value of ad creative” got there first, publishing on June 26, four days ahead of the report’s June 30 release. Its framing captured exactly why the research resonated: even as Cannes Lions and the wider industry celebrated creativity, senior marketers were being asked a harder question: could that creativity stand up to C-suite scrutiny?
When the report went live, other coverage quickly reinforced the same pressure point:
- Marketers still don’t know whether creative is working, from Decision Marketing
- 62% of Marketers Admit They Struggle to Prove the Value of Their Creative, from Marketing Communication News
Creative Effectiveness Decoded: The Global CMO Survey exposed a live pressure point for marketers: 1 in 4 have already lost creative budget because they couldn’t prove its value. The coverage reinforced a clear message to CMOs, marketing, brand and creative leaders,: confidence in creative is no longer enough when budgets come under pressure.
Impactful creative has never mattered more, yet it remains one of marketing’s least measured growth levers. We wanted to move beyond trend and opinion and put credible evidence behind the problem. NewtonX gave us the right audience and the rigor to do that, delivering findings we could confidently take to market. The result is a clear view of why creative measurement still lags, what it’s costing businesses and, crucially, how marketers can close the gap.”
Bill Shephard - Global Head of Growth Marketing, Gain Theory
The takeaway
Marketers aren’t short on confidence in their creative. They’re short on proof, and CFOs have started asking for it.
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