As I recently shone a light on the $1.3Bn self-congratulation largesse of the advertising industry, allow me instead to recognise the award that matters above all the rest.
The Leffie.
Before he was knocking it out of the park as CMO for Telstra, Brent Smart was leading Saatchi & Saatchi NY, where I worked with him. He introduced me to the concept of "The Leffie" - work that wins BOTH a Cannes Lion for creativity AND an Effie for effectiveness.
It's a compelling idea: campaigns that don't just look good in case study videos but actually move business metrics. Work that proves creativity and commerce aren't opposing forces but multiplying partners.
There's just one problem. Leffies are vanishingly rare.
In 2024-2025, only one campaign clearly achieved Gold Leffie status: CeraVe's "Michael CeraVe" conspiracy. The month-long faux narrative that actor Michael Cera founded the skincare brand generated 15.4 billion earned impressions before their Super Bowl reveal even aired, winning both a Cannes Lions Grand Prix and an Effie Gold for 25% sales growth.
One campaign. In an industry that produced thousands of award entries and hundreds of winners.
This scarcity isn't just statistical curiosity—it reveals an existential crisis that should terrify every CMO and agency leader. Peter Field's landmark research of nearly 600 campaigns delivers a sobering verdict: creatively awarded campaigns are now no more effective than non-awarded work, marking a 24-year low in advertising effectiveness. (The Crisis in Creative Effectiveness - IPA)
The numbers are brutal. Creative campaigns once delivered 12 times more efficiency than average work in gaining market share. That multiplier has crashed to just 4. System1's analysis of 100,000+ ads confirms the pattern: "Creatively awarded advertising is now as effective as the average ad."
The Short-Term Trap That's Killing Creativity
The root cause is staring us in the face. Short-term campaigns now represent 40% of creative award winners, compared to below 5% before 2010. We've systematically shifted from rewarding sustained brand platforms to celebrating disposable tactical ideas.
This isn't just about measurement periods. It's about fundamental purpose. Awards increasingly favour work that generates immediate buzz over campaigns that build lasting brand equity. The creative industry has trained itself to chase viral moments rather than compound growth.
When the Exceptions Prove the Rule
The rare dual winners reveal what's still possible when strategy, creativity, and measurement align. Heinz's "It Has to Be Heinz" platform exemplifies this approach—five consecutive years of sustained creative excellence that drove 12% global ketchup sales growth annually while earning both Lions and Effies.
McDonald's emerged as 2024's effectiveness powerhouse with six Effie Awards for campaigns that also earned Cannes recognition. Their "Grimace's Birthday" proved that nostalgia and cultural relevance can drive measurable impact while earning creative acclaim.
The common thread among these rare successes: long-term platform thinking, cultural resonance, emotional brand building, and patience to measure real business impact rather than vanity metrics.
What This Means for Your Marketing
If you're a CMO, the Leffie shortage should keep you awake at night. When your industry's highest creative honours no longer correlate with business success, the fundamental value proposition of agencies comes into question. Peter Field warns this represents a "final wake-up call" before creativity becomes genuinely "non-working" spend in corporate budgets.
The solution isn't to abandon creativity—it's to demand better. Challenge your agencies to show how their creative ambitions serve your business objectives. Insist on measurement frameworks that connect creative excellence to commercial impact. Most importantly, resist the quarterly pressure for immediate results that forces tactical thinking over strategic platform building.
For agency leaders, the message is equally clear. Every award submission should start with a business question: "How did this work grow the brand?" If you can't answer that convincingly, you're contributing to creativity's credibility crisis.
The Path Forward
The industry needs structural change. Awards programs must separate short-term activation from long-term brand building, judging each by appropriate criteria. Agencies must rebalance investment from award entries toward effectiveness measurement. Brands must commit to sustained creative platforms over disposable campaigns.
Most critically, we must reconnect creative excellence with commercial impact. The few campaigns achieving Leffie status prove the combination remains possible when strategy, creativity, and measurement align around a common purpose: building beloved brands that drive sustained business growth.
As the effectiveness crisis deepens, these rare Leffies light the path forward for an industry that must rediscover how to make creativity count. Because in the end, the only award that truly matters is the one your CFO recognises: profitable growth.
What's your take? Have you seen work in your category that deserves Leffie recognition? And more importantly, what are you doing to ensure your creative investments deliver both recognition and results?
Brandflow is written by Justin Billingsley, who has spent his career on all three sides of the industry's table: senior client, global agency leader, technology founder. First published 27 May 2025 in the Brandflow newsletter on LinkedIn.