The Consistency Machine: How Consistency Drives Growth, Profit, and Distinctiveness

Consistency is a well-known driver of brand-building – it’s hardly new news. Yet, despite its proven impact, a mystery remains: why do so few brands prioritise it? While that puzzle is still unsolved, there’s one thing our creative detectives have cracked: consistency does, in fact, compound creativity.

A recent study by System1 and the IPA, titled The Magic of Compound Creativity, reveals the commercial benefits of consistency. Brands no longer have to rely solely on instinct; they now have solid data to inform their strategic decisions.

Uncovering the Clues 

To uncover the true features of ‘consistency’, System1 analysed 4,164 ads from our Premium Test Your Ad database over a five-year period. We examined 56 brands with a sample of 624,600 nationally representative consumers, cross-referencing System1’s emotional and brand data, business insights from the IPA Effectiveness Databank, and brand effect data from YouGov. The results were nothing short of astounding.

Our analysis revealed three core building blocks of creative consistency:

 1. Creative Foundations

For consistency to thrive, brands must start with insight-driven positioning and stick to it. As Einstein famously said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.” In marketing, this holds true only if you’re repeating the wrong thing. Brands need a strong creative identity from the outset to ensure consistency delivers results.

 2. Culture of Consistency

At the heart of consistency is coherence. Teams must be dedicated to:

• Consistent assets across channels: By maintaining asset coherence across channels, brands reduce cognitive effort and reinforce memory structures. Whether digital or out-of-home, consistently used assets across the mix make it easier for brands to connect with audiences, boosting awareness, distinctiveness, and salience.
• Commitment to longer ad life: Ads that air longer tend to show higher creative quality. Take Yorkshire Tea as an example—its average ad lifespan is 2 years, while some brands only run ads for 15 days. Longer campaigns drive long-term commercial results and give brands the luxury of time to invest in higher-quality creative. It’s a classic case of quality over quantity.

• Commitment to showmanship: System1’s Chief Innovation Officer, Orlando Wood, defines showmanship as a brand’s dedication to entertaining audiences to drive business impact. His work in Lemon and Look out reveals that features like humour, character, and story drive higher engagement and attention, resulting in market share gains and long-term effects. Sales-focused messaging often only delivers short-term results. While some brands dabble in showmanship with one campaign, they quickly revert to their usual sales-driven messaging. Brands that commit to showmanship consistently entertain and reap rewards in both the long and short term.

 3. Consistent Execution

The final clue to an effective consistency strategy is execution—how brands show up. This includes elements like tone of voice, distinctive brand assets, fluent devices, slogans, celebrities, or soundtracks. These visible features are the glue that holds the consistency web together. They’re the assets consumers will learn to love, instantly recognise, and easily remember—cementing the brand in their minds.

But it doesn’t stop there. Each year, the most consistent brands continue to accelerate their performance. These brands improved their average Star Rating by ¼ point annually, meaning that after five years, their advertising is working twice as efficiently.

When analysed through the lens of the IPA’s business data, the power of consistency becomes clear. Over five years, consistent brands unlocked an additional £3.3 billion in value and achieved nearly double the profit gains of their less consistent counterparts.

Consistency is more than just a strategy—it’s a finely tuned profit machine, driving growth and long-term commercial success.

Fuelling the Consistency Machine 

Jon Evans, Chief Customer Officer at System1 and host of the Uncensored CMO podcast, recently welcomed Andrew Tindall to explore the powerhouse of consistency. Together, they unpacked the impact of fluent device characters, the power of familiarity in fostering contentment, and the surprising role of agency tenure in driving creative success.

For more on the magic behind Compound Creativity, download the full report and tune in to the full episode of Uncensored CMO to hear real insights from one of the study’s standout consistent brands: Yorkshire Tea.