Dull’s the norm in a data-driven world, which puts a big premium on entertaining ads

As advertising has moved into a data-centric AI-driven world, campaigns have leaned into middle-of-the-road mediocrity – and it’s costing you more than your pride… it’s also eating into your bottom line.

So how did we end up in this cesspool of sameness, where we can barely tell one brand from another? Through a time of great uncertainty, we’ve clung to the need to be validated – particularly through a heavy reliance on data.

What worked before won’t work again

While data provides powerful insights into customers and categories, it has also become an authoritarian control source for any strategy. With brands and agencies using the same data points, to uncover the same audiences, to produce the same type of work…well, we’re starting to see the problem.

AI acts in the same fashion, pulling from popular results to give you the most common answers. Brilliant at the ideation stage, but if you’re working on delivery, you’ll get generic results. Because using tools based on successful past ideas causes stagnation in creativity, innovation, and growth.

And the resulting content produced? Cold, emotionless adverts concocted by machines and best consumed only by bots.

With performance metrics running the show, what determines the success of campaigns has been whittled down to a few limited results. No space for big bold ideas that mix things up, instead this creates short-term thinking that looks good today but disregards opportunities for long-term growth and memorability.

Boring money

Budgets then are spent in the same uninventive places. While industry advice pushes marketers to spend at least 60% on brand and 40% on performance, that number often is switched. When performance marketing becomes the dominant part of any strategy, dullness can infiltrate your branding, your identity, and your creative output.

You may think this is harmless but recent findings from Adam Morgan and Peter Field have put the ‘cost of dullness’, at seven times more expensive. That means for every $1 it costs to push an exciting message, it can cost up to $7 to push a duller alternative.

That’s how much it costs to take the ‘safe’ middle-of-the-road approach. Not only is it more expensive, but it’s also missing out on the memorability that delivers long-term success.

Entertainment rewards attention

Today’s audiences don’t have the patience for dull ads. Arguably they never did, but they were forced into environments where they had no choice but to sit and watch. As we've diversified channels, we've entered an age where customers can easily hit the skip ad button or turn to their second screen to escape. Ad blindness – or ad avoidance – means you need to earn that attention and then, importantly, reward it.

The solution to dull advertising is not easy. You need to be truly distinctive, bring the audience in by attracting their attention and when you have it, you need to entertain. Reward audiences' time for breaking the endless scroll by making them crack a smile, shed a tear, or gasp. At the core of entertaining is creating an emotional link between the customer and your brand, making you memorable in an attention-poor era.

Entertaining is not limited to the entertainment industry. We all have the potential to entertain. Many brands are doing this best on TikTok – which describes itself as an entertainment platform – with their unique takes on the latest trends. This entertaining approach should seep through your strategy, helping you to engage fans rather than deliver indifference.

Be brave. And say no to boring. It will deliver long-term growth and drive memorability. If you’re going to be one thing, be entertaining.