Creative, Not Media, Often to Blame for Weak Ad Results

RADIO ONLINE | Monday, October 27, 2025 | 1:29pm CT

Cumulus Media and Westwood One

When a media campaign underperforms -- whether due to low website traffic or minimal brand lift -- advertisers often look to blame the media plan or vendors. But according to this week's Cumulus Media | Westwood One Audio Active Group blog, the real culprit is usually weak creative that fails to "brand early and often."

The blog encourages marketers to conduct a "brand early and often" creative audit to ensure the brand name appears within the first two seconds of every ad and is repeated at least five times in 30-second spots. Research cited in the post shows that strong audio branding -- especially in the first few seconds -- drives greater purchase intent, emotional connection, and website attribution.

"Clicks don't generate sales. Advertising creates memories, and memories generate sales," notes Jon Lombardo, founder of Evidenza and former LinkedIn B2B Institute researcher. He explains that advertising success depends on creating positive brand memories long before a consumer is ready to buy -- a concept supported by the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute's "95/5 rule," which finds that only 5% of consumers are in-market at any time.

Audio branding plays a particularly critical role, as studies show that the number of times a brand is mentioned in the audio track of a video ad can have a far stronger impact on recall than visual logos alone. One study found that increasing visual logo appearances added just eight points of brand recall, while increasing audio mentions boosted recall by 39 points.

Real-world examples reinforce the principle. A national insurance company that moved its brand mentions earlier in its ads and repeated them more often saw emotional engagement rise 9% and purchase intent soar 160%. Likewise, a job recruitment firm saw "good-to-excellent" website attribution after enhancing its AM/FM radio creative to include early and frequent brand mentions.

The blog also highlights the power of sonic assets. Citing research from System1, TikTok, and Veritonic, it finds that jingles and melodic brand mentions dramatically improve recall and brand association. As marketing professor Mark Ritson puts it, "The king or queen of them all is the jingle. It smashes all the other distinctive assets."

Ultimately, the blog argues that successful advertising depends less on media placement and more on creative execution. As B2B Institute's Ty Heath summarizes, "The brand that's remembered is the brand that is bought. Win the mind to win the market."

Read the full blog post here.