The Cure for Dull

What is The Cure for Dull?

The Cure for Dull is System1’s practical, evidence-based prescription for dull advertising. It follows The Extraordinary Cost of Dull, which quantified the problem, and sets out how to fix it across four areas: the role of emotion in brand growth, creative measurement, media, and the creative features that restore feeling.

The report is built on data from 120,832 ads across the UK, US, France and Germany, and applies Orlando Wood’s work in Lemon and Look Out directly to the problem of neutrality. It draws on contributions from Adam Morgan (eatbigfish), Peter Field (effectiveness), Dr Karen Nelson-Field (attention, Amplified), Orlando Wood (creativity, System1) and Jon Evans (Uncensored CMO).

What data is The Cure for Dull based on?

The report combines several System1 and partner datasets:

Emotional response benchmark: 120,832 ads across the UK, US, France and Germany, tested among 18,124,800 respondents using System1’s Test Your Ad Competitive Edge and Test Your Ad Pro databases.

Creative features analysis: 9,737 ads across the UK, US, France and Germany and 1,460,550 respondents, from the Test Your Ad Pro platform.

Market share model: annual market share predictions for 264 US and UK brands, based on over 4,000 ads and over $10 billion in media spend, with spend data from Nielsen and Numerator.

Effie analysis: 1,265 US, Europe, UK and Ireland campaigns (2007–2023) from Effie Insights’ database, measured with Test Your Ad.

Attention data: Dr Karen Nelson-Field’s biometric attention data from 115,000 real ad views across TV, social, web and gaming.

Verbatims: 42,726 consumer verbatims from the Test Your Ad platform in the UK and US.

Funnel effects: the DMA Effectiveness Databank 2024.

What does “dull” mean in advertising, and how is it measured?

Dull is neutrality: the absence of emotion. A dull ad is one that leaves viewers feeling nothing.

System1 measures it through the emotional response captured by FaceTrace, alongside three ratings. Star Rating measures emotional response, weighting positive feeling because it is most strongly linked to memory, brand building and growth. Spike Rating predicts short-term impact, from sales and clicks to talkability and traffic, by measuring the intensity of emotional response whether positive or negative. Fluency Rating measures memorability: the percentage of viewers who correctly recall the ad after viewing.

How much advertising is dull?

About half. Across the UK, US, France and Germany, 48% of responses to advertising are neutral, compared with 31% happiness and 15% surprise. Two years after The Extraordinary Cost of Dull, the picture looks much the same.

The report points to efficiency tools, fast social formats and safer creative choices as reasons the industry keeps drifting toward neutrality, even though the drivers of emotional response are well understood.

What is The Extraordinary Cost of Dull?

The Extraordinary Cost of Dull is the earlier report from Adam Morgan, Peter Field, Karen Nelson-Field, Orlando Wood and Jon Evans, launched at Cannes Lions. After analyzing more than 80,000 ads, it found brands were being forced to spend an additional $189 billion in media just to match the effectiveness of emotionally engaging creative, a sum roughly equivalent to the GDP of Greece.

Does emotional advertising drive brand growth?

Yes. For 25 years System1 has shown that emotional advertising builds market share, improves profit and reduces price sensitivity. Combining ESOV (Excess Share of Voice) with Star Rating is one of the strongest predictors of market share growth. Across 264 US and UK brands, forecast growth based on ESOV and emotional response correlates +0.81 with actual growth (R² of 0.65, p < 0.00001).

The Creative Dividend, System1’s study with Effie, reached the same conclusion: emotion builds brands, neutrality does not. Positive emotion creates and reinforces memory and, through the Affect Heuristic, shapes decisions quickly and instinctively, strengthening brand image, equity, trust, distinctiveness and differentiation.

Do emotional ads generate more fame than dull ads?

Yes, by a wide margin. In the Effie Insights analysis, 38% of the most surprising ads reported fame effects, followed by 34% of the happiest ads and 22% of the most negative ads. Just 7% of the most dull ads did.

Negative emotions can outperform the dullest work on fame, but less consistently. Work built on happiness and surprise delivers more reliable commercial returns.

How does dull advertising affect the marketing funnel?

Dull contaminates every stage. Campaigns with below-average creativity are less likely to record an effect than the average campaign, at every stage measured in the DMA Effectiveness Databank:

Customer penetration: 48% less likely

Brand consideration: 43% less likely

Ad recall: 43% less likely

Market share growth: 37% less likely

Brand awareness: 33% less likely

Brand trust: 22% less likely

Customer satisfaction and purchase intent: 16% less likely each

Long-term customer retention: 9% less likely

How do Star, Spike and Fluency Ratings change as ads get duller?

All three decline as dull increases. Non-dull ads average a 3.4 Star Rating, 1.20 Spike Rating and 86 Fluency Rating. Moderately dull ads average 2.5, 1.10 and 83. Very dull ads average 2.1, 1.00 and 79. Extremely dull ads average 1.6, 0.80 and 74.

As positive emotion increases, so do Star, Spike and Fluency, strengthening both brand building and activation.

Does the way you research creative affect how dull it is?

Yes. The Creative Dividend found that the way you research creativity shapes the creativity you get. Modern quantitative creative measurement is strongly associated with more emotionally positive campaigns and fewer low-response ads. Focus groups also correlate with more emotionally positive work, but are less strongly linked to distinctiveness.

The recommendation is to use both: quantitative emotional measurement reveals dull, while qualitative research adds context and understanding. Measuring emotion properly gives creativity permission to work

Why can’t consumers explain why an ad left them cold?

Because neutrality rarely comes with an explanation. When System1 coded 42,726 neutral verbatims to find a clear cause, only 1 in 5 (20%) contained an identifiable reason, such as the ad being too long, confusing or generic. The other 80% were unaccounted for, with comments like “It was OK” or “No feeling”.

This means that relying only on what people can put into words will miss dull entirely. Diagnosing it requires measuring what people feel, not just what they say.

Which categories have the dullest advertising, and is B2B duller than B2C?

Dull varies widely by category. Measured by share of neutral responses, the dullest categories include Business Services and Home & Garden (57% neutrality each), Car Services (55%) and Business Software (54%). The least dull include Candy & Gum (30%), Desserts (33%), and Convenience Meals & Soups and Charities & Non-Profits (34% each).

B2B advertising is duller than B2C. Neutrality is 54% in the US and 60% in the UK for B2B, versus 47% and 51% for B2C. Because of this variation, brands should benchmark against their competitive set, not just the market average.

What is the Cost of Dull Media?

The Cost of Dull Media is Dr Karen Nelson-Field’s estimate of what low-attention media costs advertisers: $198 billion a year, with roughly 43 cents of value lost for every dollar spent in low-attention environments. It is based on biometric attention data from 115,000 real ad views across TV, social, web and gaming.

Around 80% of impressions receive no active attention. That matters because advertising typically needs around 2.5 seconds of active attention before memory can begin to form, and in fast-scroll environments very few impressions reach that threshold.

How much attention do dull ads lose?

In the dullest environments, dull ads capture just 6% of available attention, compared with 59% in the highest-attention campaigns. Active attention falls from 13.5 seconds to about 1 second, attentive reach drops from 85% of viewers to 34%, and time-in-view falls from 22.6 to 7.8 seconds.

At that point most ads never cross the 2.5-second threshold needed to begin forming memory. People scroll past, the ad is served, but it leaves no trace.

Are longer ads less dull than short ads?

Yes. System1’s Test Your Ad data shows neutrality falls as ad length increases: 44% for short form (5–20 seconds), 42% for medium form (20–40 seconds) and 36% for long form (40–60 seconds). Over the same lengths, happiness rises from 36% to 38% and surprise from 15% to 18%.

Emotion builds over time, which high-attention environments are far better at supporting. Big ideas need big media.

Where does the dullest advertising run?

The dullest ads are concentrated in non-premium social. Of extremely dull ads, 72.8% run there, along with 64.6% of very dull ads, compared with just 14.4% of non-dull ads. Non-dull ads are most often found on connected TV (30.9%) and premium social (23.7%).

The report’s conclusion is that low-attention media has a role, but over-allocation starves brand building. Dull media needs even less dull advertising to hook attention and hold it long enough to build memory.

What is showmanship, and why does it cure dull?

Showmanship is the set of creative features most consistently linked to stronger emotional response: human stories, humor, music with melody, cultural reference points and distinctive brand devices. These reflect a more right-brained style of creativity that focuses on people, relationships and shared moments. Salesmanship, by contrast, relies on voiceovers, words on screen, talking to camera and flat backdrops.

In the Test Your Ad Pro analysis, a story unfolding, a hummable tune, knowing glances, a recognizable place, characters acting and a setting in the past all correlate positively with curing dull. Voiceover, many words, talking to camera and flat backdrops correlate negatively. Longer formats encourage showmanship, while short formats often default to salesmanship.

Creativity is a multiplier, not decoration. Treating dull advertising with more media is like prescribing painkillers for a broken bone: you might dull the symptoms, but you haven’t fixed the problem.

What are the five pillars for treating dull?

The five pillars are the creative features that work, as evidenced by real-world examples: storytelling, drama, melody, humor and fluent devices. Storytelling, drama and humor work best when time allows, while melody and fluent devices are the fastest routes to feeling when it doesn’t.

Why is storytelling the strongest cure for dull?

Emotion rarely appears in a vacuum. It emerges when something happens to someone. The most effective advertising presents a scene unfolding with people inside it, with a beginning, a development and a resolution. This engages the brain’s broad, right-hemisphere attention, which is tuned to context, relationships and change over time.

When an ad tells a story rather than making a claim, viewers anticipate what happens next, curiosity forms and emotional stakes appear. When the story resolves positively, that feeling transfers to the brand. Without story, advertising often collapses into explanation. Product shots, claims and demonstrations may inform, but they rarely move people.

How does drama cure dull?

Drama lives between people. Orlando Wood calls this “betweenness”: the subtle signals exchanged between people, such as a glance, a smile or a shared moment that reveals the relationship between characters. Humans are wired to read these cues, so viewers don’t just watch the ad, they participate in it and fill in the meaning themselves.

Modern advertising has gradually replaced these signals with voiceovers and monologues that speak directly at the viewer, but one-way communication rarely creates emotional involvement. Drama restores the social dimension of advertising.

How does melody help create feeling?

Music with melody is one of advertising’s most efficient emotional tools. A tune signals mood instantly, giving viewers emotional cues that help them interpret a scene and feel its meaning. Within seconds it can turn an ordinary moment into something joyful, nostalgic or uplifting.

That speed matters most in shorter formats, where storytelling time is limited. Distinctive melodies and sonic cues can also become long-term brand assets, reconnecting emotion to the brand whenever they are heard again. Modern advertising often replaces melody with rhythm or background noise, but energy is not a substitute for emotion.

Is humor an effective cure for dull?

Yes. Humor thrives on tension, surprise and contradiction, and works across short, medium and long formats. Of the types of happiness analyzed, amusement was the one most strongly associated with the difference between the least and most dull ads. It works because humor involves the audience: viewers recognize the situation, read the characters and spot the twist, and that participation creates feeling.

Great advertising humor rarely comes from lines alone. It emerges from story and human connection, often through exaggeration or a familiar situation pushed slightly too far, with music adding timing and lift. When advertising entertains, dull disappears.

What are fluent devices, and why do short ads need them?

Fluent devices are characters, symbols, sounds or styles that act as mental shortcuts, helping brands come to mind quickly and effortlessly. They can work in five seconds and sustain impact over 60 seconds or more. Used consistently, they build familiarity and emotional connection over time, making decision-making faster and more intuitive.

In short formats, brand characters, jingles and taglines help ads generate feeling and avoid drifting into dull. Curing dull on short form requires instant gratification, which familiar brand assets and music provide. M&M’s, Amazon and Lay’s short-form ads all combine them: Star Ratings of 4.9, 3.8 and 4.7, Fast Fluency Ratings of 93, 83 and 89, and Neutrality Ratings of just 23 to 25.

Which brands show the cure for dull in action?

The report features ads that beat their category’s dull benchmark using each of the five pillars. Dull Rating is the share of neutral response, shown against the category average:

Storytelling: KFC “Obsession” (US, 76 secs): 23% dull vs 35% for fast food, Star Rating 4.7, Spike Rating 1.41. Irn-Bru “Made for Girders” (UK, 61 secs): 16% vs 41% for soft drinks, Star Rating 5.9, Spike Rating 1.78. Intermarché “Unloved” (France, 153 secs): 19% vs 44% for supermarkets, Star Rating 5.0. Uber “There are Drivers in Your Area” (US, 131 secs): 28% vs 50% for mobile apps, Spike Rating 1.37.

Drama: Amazon “Meet Cute Chaos” (US, 31 secs): 36% vs 48% for retail, Star Rating 3.1. Cadbury “Garage” (UK, 60 secs): 22% vs 30% for candy, Star Rating 5.9, Spike Rating 1.20. Ardennes-Etape “Vriendenweekend” (Belgium, 79 secs): 24% vs 43% for retail, Star Rating 4.0.

Melody: PayPal “Pay Your Own Way” (US, 61 secs): 29% vs 51% for consumer credit, Star Rating 3.3, Spike Rating 1.34. Calvé Pindakaas (Netherlands, 51 secs): 20% vs 39% for condiments and spreads, Star Rating 5.9, Spike Rating 1.53. Toyota “My Toyota is Fantastic” (France, 24 secs): 35% vs 49% for cars, Star Rating 3.8, Spike Rating 1.23.

Fluent devices: M&M’s, Amazon and Lay’s short-form ads (see above).

What is the Anti-Dull Dial?

The Anti-Dull Dial is a deliberately simple tool introduced by Adam Morgan and his team to test whether a strategy is genuinely distinctive or just following the expected path. It rests on the premise that the most effective strategies don’t fit the category, they challenge it, and that interest comes from challenge, surprise and emotional tension. It asks five questions:

Are we meeting them where they care, and speaking to them in their language?

Are we using the real bar to judge what’s interesting, or some invented one of our own?

Are we showing real distinctiveness and character?

Are we using emotion, drama and storytelling?

Are we denying one of their key assumptions, and surprising them?

What is the anti-dull prescription?

The report closes with a four-part prescription:

2 x Positivity Pills: prioritize positive emotions like happiness and surprise, the most reliable drivers of memory, momentum and brand growth.

2 x Creative Measurement Methods: measure emotion properly. Quantitative emotional measurement reveals dull, while focus groups add context. Use both together.

A Balanced Media Diet: low-attention formats have a role, but over-allocation starves brand building. Rebalance toward environments where attention lasts.

5 x Showmanship Pills: you can’t media-buy your way out of dull. Lean on storytelling, drama, melody and humor when time allows, and melody and fluent devices when it doesn’t.

How can I benchmark my advertising against the cure for dull?

Test Your Ad Pro shows how your advertising performs emotionally compared with thousands of campaigns across your category. You can see where your work sits on the scale of dull, understand the emotional benchmark you need to beat, and learn from the campaigns already cutting through.

What is The Cure for Dull?

What data is The Cure for Dull based on?

What does “dull” mean in advertising, and how is it measured?

How much advertising is dull?

What is The Extraordinary Cost of Dull?

Does emotional advertising drive brand growth?

Do emotional ads generate more fame than dull ads?

How does dull advertising affect the marketing funnel?

How do Star, Spike and Fluency Ratings change as ads get duller?

Does the way you research creative affect how dull it is?

Why can’t consumers explain why an ad left them cold?

Which categories have the dullest advertising, and is B2B duller than B2C?

What is the Cost of Dull Media?

How much attention do dull ads lose?

Are longer ads less dull than short ads?

Where does the dullest advertising run?

What is showmanship, and why does it cure dull?

What are the five pillars for treating dull?

Why is storytelling the strongest cure for dull?

How does drama cure dull?

How does melody help create feeling?

Is humor an effective cure for dull?

What are fluent devices, and why do short ads need them?

Which brands show the cure for dull in action?

What is the Anti-Dull Dial?

What is the anti-dull prescription?

How can I benchmark my advertising against the cure for dull?

Get in touch

Request a demo
with one of our experts

The Cure for Dull

What is The Cure for Dull?

What data is The Cure for Dull based on?

What does “dull” mean in advertising, and how is it measured?

How much advertising is dull?

What is The Extraordinary Cost of Dull?

Does emotional advertising drive brand growth?

Do emotional ads generate more fame than dull ads?

How does dull advertising affect the marketing funnel?

How do Star, Spike and Fluency Ratings change as ads get duller?

Does the way you research creative affect how dull it is?

Why can’t consumers explain why an ad left them cold?

Which categories have the dullest advertising, and is B2B duller than B2C?

What is the Cost of Dull Media?

How much attention do dull ads lose?

Are longer ads less dull than short ads?

Where does the dullest advertising run?

What is showmanship, and why does it cure dull?

What are the five pillars for treating dull?

Why is storytelling the strongest cure for dull?

How does drama cure dull?

How does melody help create feeling?

Is humor an effective cure for dull?

What are fluent devices, and why do short ads need them?

Which brands show the cure for dull in action?

What is the Anti-Dull Dial?

What is the anti-dull prescription?

How can I benchmark my advertising against the cure for dull?

Get in touch

Request a demo with one of our experts

Request a demo
with one of our experts