Why brands need more real-world moments, not just more content.
(Originally published on Mi3).
Marketing has become a game of one-upmanship: More content, more channels, more reach. Yet simply staying on top of such volumes isn’t equating to value. Experience-led, real-world connection is the antidote to dull media and unseen creativity – and it’s what’s going to deliver up to 12x profitability to brands.
More ≠ more.
More isn’t more; it’s just more noise. We’re living with a self-created attention recession; more channels, more content, more AI, more ads and yet, a whole lot less impact. Human attention hasn’t disappeared, but it’s being spread thinner across an expanding supply of content that looks, feels and behaves the same.
At the same time, culture itself is moving faster than ever. TikTok trends now rise and fall on average in three days¹, so brands are stuck on a trend treadmill: Create more, post more, chase the next thing and then be forgotten quicker.
The cost of being overlooked
The latest Cost of Dull research from Amplified Intelligence shows that 87 per cent of ads are paid for but never seen. That’s $6 billion of wasted value on low attention media.2
It’s a huge issue, not just for the media team, but for the creative minds behind campaigns who don’t get the eyeballs on the work they’ve poured their craft and thinking into.
Great creative drives tangible outcomes. Strong creative quality increases profitability up to x123
So what happens when you put non-dull media and great creative together?
The foundation of System1’s Creative Dividend research is that creative quality and media support together explain 60.1 per cent of commercial impact. Results become far more predictable when powerful creative is amplified with above-average category investment and strategically chosen touchpoints.4
That’s where creative partnerships and experiences are worth their weight in gold.
The brands winning today aren’t the ones creating the most content. They’re the ones creating the most impactful moments. That’s why experience-led thinking isn’t a ‘nice to have’. It’s the antidote to dull media and unseen creativity.
Creative partnerships are the power players
Branded experiences force brands to think more carefully about context, execution and how an idea shows up in the real world.
The best experiences travel into social feeds, earned media and conversation, giving them a level of weight that’s increasingly difficult to achieve through content alone.
At Val Morgan and VMO, our strength has always been grounded in this. While we operate across very different environments – cinema, retail, health and wellness clubs, office buildings, and petro and convenience – they share the same underlying power: People are physically present and engaged in the moment.
That shared DNA between cinema and outdoor is why we’ve remained heavily invested in experience-led thinking as a way of making media more effective. And there’s been a noticeable shift in the way brands have started moving toward ideas designed to be genuinely noticed and remembered.
A strong example of this is Asahi Super Dry’s campaign on VMO’s experiential format, The Cube, which used a 3D anamorphic illusion to deliver a highly immersive storytelling moment.
From a cinema standpoint, brands can build campaigns across a broad range of formats, from on-screen executions and menu integrations to sampling activations and partnerships beyond spots and dots. Lexus is leveraging a major long-term partnership with multiple exhibitors to own premium cinema experiences across Australia.
Last year, Wicked Sister demonstrated the power of a well-orchestrated, multi-touchpoint execution. The campaign came to life on-screen in the pre-show ahead of Wicked For Good, extended through to menu integration across HOYTS LUX, and was reinforced with sampling of its range of new desserts across key locations. This was further amplified through VMO’s retail network in proximity to supermarkets, extending engagement beyond the cinema environment.
These are just a few examples of how experiences continue to prove their value as a catalyst for attention, memory and for genuine impact with audiences at a human level. In a world of more content, these physical, contextual, high-attention moments are becoming more and more invaluable for brands looking to actually move the outcomes dial.
Sources:
1 Publicis Groupe APAC x TikTok
2 Cost of Dull 2026 AU, Amplified Intelligence
3 The Drivers of Profitability, 2023, Paul Dyson – accelero, ROI multiplier = area of the circle
4 The Creative Dividend, System1
