CreativeX report finds brands waste millions on assets that are never used

Brands are wasting millions of dollars per year creating assets that don’t make it to market, according to new research from creative measurement and data platform CreativeX.

CreativeX used data from its clients, including Diageo, Bayer and Unilever, to assess how many assets within global campaign toolkits actually went live across markets.

The company used machine learning to analyse how over 1,000 core assets visually matched with 250,000 advertisements.

The research found that only 45% of the core assets in those kits were used in any capacity, and 90% of global campaign toolkits were never used by local markets.

This is costly for brands: The wasted assets cost the average Fortune 500 company $25 million annually, according to CreativeX’s calculations, which the company noted is equivalent to three Super Bowl ads and nearly half a billion impressions.

Anastasia Leng, CreativeX’s founder and CEO, underlined that brands are wasting “millions annually being spent on creative assets—and that doesn't even account for people's energy and time—that never end up making it to market.”

“Our ads aren’t wearing out. In fact, they’re barely wearing in: 45% of ads aren’t even given a chance to wear in,” added Leng. “This represents a large opportunity for greater budget efficiency and brings to the forefront the measurement and accountability gaps in our content supply chain, which AI is uniquely positioned to help address.”

CreativeX attributed the waste to a lack of visibility into the end-to-end content production process, with brands having little real-time data on the activation, adaptation and media investment of all their content.

After it released the data, Leng noted that no one was “remotely surprised by this finding.” 

CreativeX has produced a number of studies in recent years that take a critical look at the advertising industry: a 2024 study found brands are still stereotyping darker-skinned and older women in advertising, one from 2023 found brands wasted $73 billion on “digitally unsuitable” ads and in 2022 discovered that marketers spent almost $1 billion on subpar ads that year alone.