A new global study from WPP Media, System1 and TikTok argues that the future of creator marketing depends less on engagement metrics and more on building lasting brand memory. Based on an analysis of 1,217 paid TikTok campaigns, 182,550 consumers, 350+ Brand Lift studies, $70.5 million in media spend and 23.6 billion impressions, the report presents one of the most comprehensive datasets to date on creator advertising effectiveness.
The research challenges one of the industry's biggest assumptions: that engagement equals effectiveness. According to the authors, metrics such as likes, views and engagement rate reveal little about whether consumers actually remember the brand after seeing an ad. In fact, engagement rate showed virtually no meaningful relationship with Brand Memory Lift, while comment-to-like ratio explained only a small fraction of campaign performance.
Instead, the report proposes Brand Memory Lift—a combination of brand awareness and ad recall—as the most relevant measure of creator effectiveness. The findings show that creator-led ads generate, on average, 23% more Brand Memory Lift than traditional brand-created ads, reinforcing the role of creators as genuine brand builders rather than simply engagement drivers.
However, not all creator campaigns perform equally. The study reveals that only a minority of creator ads significantly outperform traditional advertising. Around 20% of creator campaigns generate nearly half of all Brand Memory Lift, suggesting that success depends on execution rather than the mere presence of a creator.
The report identifies three factors that consistently predict stronger results:
- Creative Quality – combining emotional impact with early brand recognition.
- Creator Fame – audience recognition of the creator or the creator's content world, rather than follower count.
- Brand Fit – how naturally the brand belongs within that creator's universe.
Among these, Creative Quality emerged as the strongest predictor of Brand Memory, explaining more than half of campaign performance and outperforming engagement metrics by almost five times. The research also highlights the importance of introducing the brand within the first two seconds, ensuring that positive emotional responses are attributed to the advertiser rather than solely to the creator.
Perhaps the report's most important practical takeaway is that effective creator marketing starts long before content production. Brands should first identify the human need they want to address, select creators whose communities naturally align with that need, verify that audiences recognise both the creator and the context, and only then focus on producing entertaining, platform-native creative that incorporates early branding.
Ultimately, the playbook suggests a shift in how marketers evaluate creator partnerships. Rather than optimising campaigns for platform engagement alone, brands should focus on the combination of emotional storytelling, strategic creator selection and brand integration—factors that collectively build stronger mental availability and long-term brand growth.
Read The Creator Effectiveness Playbook to explore the full findings and learn how to brief creator ads that build branded memory here.
