Good Research Doesn’t Tell You What to Copy

“Ad testing is killing creativity”

I heard that on my flight home from Cannes Lions.

After discovering I worked for System1, the passenger next to me smiled and said platforms like ours encourage marketers to play it safe, avoid risk and optimise everything towards conformity.

It’s a familiar criticism. But I think we’ve got it backwards.

Conformity isn’t the outcome of good ad testing. It’s the outcome of marketers following category conventions without questioning whether they’re still effective.

No marketer gets criticised for making an ad that looks like every other ad in the category. Take whisky for example. If everyone else is using heritage stories, beautiful product shots and premium cinematography, following the formula can feel like the safest decision.

The problem is that safe doesn’t always mean effective.

To understand where convention helps and where it hurts, we analysed more than 1,000 beer and spirits ads from System1’s Test Your Ad Competitive Edge database. We explored how different creative features relate to Star Rating (long-term growth), Spike Rating (short-term sales) and Fluency Rating (brand recall).

Drawing on Orlando Wood’s books Lemon and Look out, we grouped these features into two broad camps: salesmanship and showmanship.

• Salesmanship features, such as voiceovers, on-screen text, product shots and rhythm, appeal to focused, narrow-beam attention. They work best when audiences are actively considering a purchase.
• Showmanship features, such as storytelling, character interaction, melody and a strong sense of place, appeal to broader attention. They create emotional engagement and help build the memory structures that drive long-term growth.

But effectiveness isn’t just about what works in advertising. It’s about what works relative to your category.

A creative device that feels distinctive in one category can be completely expected in another. Travel advertising, for example, is full of beautiful scenery and emotional storytelling. The brands that stand out tend to introduce something different, whether that’s Jet2holidays’ unforgettable soundtrack or Tourism Australia’s iconic kangaroo.

Bringing in effectiveness parameters like System1’s Star, Spike and Fluency then allows brands to narrow their focus. For example, there are very few brands in travel focusing on product shots of the plane. While this may lend brands an opportunity for distinctiveness, this feature has a low correlation with long-term Star Rating. In this case, the data tells you that not conforming is not a category advantage.

This analysis isn’t designed to tell you to ignore category conventions or shock audiences for the sake of shocking them. It is designed to identify where those conventions are helping, where they’re becoming wallpaper, and where brands have the biggest opportunity to do something different, while driving business effect.

Four Ways Brands Can Escape Category Sameness

Alcohol has an advantage over many categories. Social occasions, memorable characters and music naturally create emotion, helping alcohol ads achieve an average 2.6-Star Rating across the UK and US.

The opportunity isn’t to abandon these proven ingredients. It’s to use them in ways competitors don’t.

Using what works doesn’t create a sea of sameness. Copying how everyone else uses it does. The examples that follow show how alcohol brands can lean into proven creative features while staying distinctive.

Data doesn’t create homogeneity. Failing to question, interpret and apply it creatively does.

1. Turn Moments into Stories

Most alcohol advertising shows people enjoying themselves. It’s a social category by nature. But the strongest campaigns give those moments somewhere to go.

Storytelling has one of the strongest correlations with Star Rating across alcohol, making it a powerful driver of long-term growth across beer, whisky, bourbon and spirits.

While many ads rely on montages of smiling faces and party scenes, the best-performing campaigns create characters audiences want to follow and stories that unfold. Consumers expect social occasions. They don’t expect a narrative that takes them on an emotional journey and leaves them feeling better by the end.

The good news is storytelling doesn’t have to be cinematic. The most effective stories are often simple, relatable and built around a clear progression.

Guinness’s Lovely Day is a great example. Jason Momoa receives a mysterious letter before embarking on an increasingly dramatic journey, only to discover he’s 2% Irish. It’s a simple story, rich in character, intrigue and humour, that ends with an inclusive celebration. The celebrity grabs attention, but it’s the narrative that drives the ad’s high Star Rating and exceptional short-term sales potential.

2. Build a Brand World

Alcohol advertising is emotional, but not always memorable. After watching an alcohol ad, one in five consumers cannot remember which brand they just saw.

One creative feature consistently improves both brand recognition and effectiveness: a strong sense of place.

Yet it’s one of the least-used assets in the category.

Brands like Guinness, Corona, Cruzcampo and Birra Moretti use distinctive settings, from Irish pubs and Seville streets to sun-drenched beaches, to create worlds that are instantly recognisable. Others, like Hendrick’s, take a different approach, building surreal, eccentric brand worlds that feel unmistakably their own.

Whyte & Mackay’s The Woodsman goes even further still, transporting viewers into a mythical woodland universe that helped deliver a 4.8-Star Rating, exceed growth targets and propel the brand into the UK’s top ten blended whiskies.

You don’t have to own a place to own the feeling. Michelob ULTRA’s 2026 Super Bowl ad, Ultra Instructor, swaps the usual NFL-inspired setting for a Winter Olympics-style ski resort, creating a fresh drinking occasion for its athletic audience. The unexpected choice, combined with distinctive Michelob cues, earned the campaign 5.1 Stars and exceptional short-term sales potential.

3. Heritage isn’t the Story

Alcohol advertising loves history.

Founders. Distilleries. Craftsmanship. “Since 1801.”

Heritage matters. It can build credibility, reinforce identity and gives brands rich material to draw from. But heritage alone isn’t distinctive. Too often, it becomes functional proof rather than an emotional reason to care.

The strongest alcohol brands don’t leave their heritage in the history books, nor do they simply state it as a fact. They embed it consistently into stories, rituals and experiences that people want to be part of. Heritage becomes the backdrop to the brand’s emotional world, not the headline.

Our analysis found that the strongest-performing alcohol advertising focuses less on where a brand has been and more on how it makes people feel today.

Malibu’s Clock Off campaign captures the universal anticipation of finishing work on a sunny Friday. It sells a feeling people want to experience, with the brand’s laid-back identity naturally woven throughout. Rather than telling consumers about its heritage, Malibu lives it.

Baileys follows a similar principle. Its heritage gives the brand authenticity, but its communications continually reinvent how that heritage shows up in culture. Whether it’s Christmas, Mother’s Day or St Patrick’s Day, Baileys creates emotionally rich occasions that keep the brand relevant, memorable and easy to choose.

The lesson isn’t to abandon heritage. It’s to stop treating it as the message. The brands that grow use their heritage as part of a distinctive identity, consistently expressed through emotional storytelling that people remember long after the ad has finished.

4. Premium Doesn’t Have to Mean Serious

Luxury alcohol advertising often leans on sophistication, exclusivity and sensory indulgence.

But the data points elsewhere.

Across alcohol, humour, excitement and uplift are consistently linked with stronger long-term growth, stronger short-term sales potential and better brand recall. Humour is particularly underused in whisky and bourbon, despite being one of the category’s strongest creative drivers.

Beer brands have embraced this for years. Carlsberg’s World Cup Kickabouts and Heineken’s Bond campaign prove premium brands can entertain without sacrificing credibility. More recently, Blue Moon used its iconic orange slice to create a simple, character-led comedy. No heritage. No cinematic spectacle. Just a memorable setting, witty dialogue and a distinctive brand asset at the heart of the joke.

Belvedere follows the same principle. Its campaign with Daniel Craig begins like a classic luxury spirits film before playfully subverting expectations, turning elegance into entertainment.

So be playful like Blue Moon. Subvert category expectations like Belvedere. Or, like Aviation Gin and Ryan Reynolds, turn an ordinary cocktail-making moment into something witty, distinctive and unmistakably on-brand.

The best-performing alcohol advertising doesn’t choose between premium and personality. It delivers both.

The Creative Belongs to You

Data doesn’t make advertising look the same. Using it without curiosity does.

Ad testing isn’t there to tell brands what to make. It’s there to reveal where the opportunities are: where emotion is missing, where competitors are converging, and where your brand has room to stand apart.

The creative leap still belongs to you.

The best marketers don’t use data to follow the category. They use it to find the gaps others have missed.

We’re simply here to help you spot the opportunities that are most likely to drive commercial growth.

Create with Confidence®

The biggest lesson from analysing more than 1,000 alcohol ads isn’t that marketers should ignore category conventions. It’s that they shouldn’t copy them.

Every category has its own creative patterns, blind spots and untapped opportunities. Our Expert Guidance team combines category benchmarking with creative diagnostics to identify where your brand can stand apart, without sacrificing effectiveness.

With benchmarks across almost 100 categories, alcohol is just the beginning.

Ready to find your category’s creative advantage?