Over Half of Content Produced Isn’t Activated, Leading to Billions in Wasted Spend

Brands invest millions each year in producing new content, but analysis from CreativeX uses AI technology to reveal that over 50% of this content is never published. 

Advertisers’ lack of visibility into their creative production lifecycle sets the industry up to waste billions in 2024 on content that never gets used. CreativeX’s study estimated that the average F500 company could be wasting at least $25 million a year on unused creative assets. Across the entire industry, that translates to $100 billion on assets that are never activated. 

Advertisers are looking to genAI to create more content, more quickly, but more content does not necessarily mean greater impact. The lack of concrete data across the content lifecycle, from creation to activation, means marketers have limited visibility into whether and how their core assets are localised, versioned, and repurposed across markets, brands, channels, and agencies. 

Without visibility into content production, brands miss out on potential efficiencies 

In the current marketing landscape, brands are under increasing pressure to drive marketing efficiencies. But they are investing in content production without visibility as to how it’s used, by who, and where. 

This leads to inefficiencies in the content production lifecycle, costing brands millions annually. CreativeX’s analysis demonstrated that 52% of core assets created by brands were never activated across their markets. This means paid-for creative work was never given an opportunity to drive business value or exposed to the consumer. 

As marketing budgets continue to come under strain, advertisers shouldn’t just look to cut costs but examine where there are opportunities to make efficiency gains in their creative lifecycle. Reallocating budget towards activities that will drive further value might mean more investment in content that is activated, or upping investment into research or media. 

GenAI is set to make the content production challenge more difficult 

While generative AI might cut production costs and time, this investment is wasted if the content is never deployed at all. Without the visibility to track content from creation to activation, and guardrails in place to ensure creative quality, marketers will not reap the full benefits of AI. 

AI can help provide this visibility. CreativeX’s Creative Lifecycle application is powered by AI/ML-driven asset-matching technology that unlocks a view of where and how core assets are localised, and activated, and the extent to which they are reused. 

The application was developed in collaboration with The Brandtech Group, OLIVER and advertisers leading the way in digital transformation including Bayer. For Bayer’s marketing team, Creative Lifecycle has enabled unprecedented visibility into their content production process. 

As David Jones, founder and CEO of The Brandtech Group, which partnered with CreativeX on testing and developing the new technology, commented, “When I hear all the talk about artificial intelligence and how it's going to revolutionise marketing, my response is that it's already here. It’s already happening, and has been for some years, not just since ChatGPT exploded onto the scene. It is disrupting all aspects of marketing. Creative Lifecycle is a fantastic example of an application of AI that pushes way beyond content production, which many brands are now doing. It gives global brands access to information they have never had before and our teams are in a position to drive a step-change in efficiency, to truly elevate the use of our clients’ best marketing assets, at scale.” 

Gaining visibility into an asset’s creative lifecycle allows brands to answer other pressing questions, specifically how content is being used and repurposed, which in turn facilitates a data-driven conversation between global and local teams. 

Anastasia Leng, CEO and founder of CreativeX commented, “CreativeX has been using technology to measure inefficiencies in our content production cycle for years now, but this is probably one of the most wasteful patterns we’ve uncovered to-date.” 

“The industry dedicates much air-time to the notion that content is wearing out, but the data shows that more than 50% of ads we create never reach the consumer, let alone get a chance to wear in. Our newest creative data application, fittingly named Creative Lifecycle, allows brands to track how their content is used end-to-end, providing some much-needed transparency on our creative assets’ activation and re-usage rates.”