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Seven reports that will make you a more effective marketer
WFA regularly conducts research and creates best practice guides with our strategic partners to help members supercharge better marketing. Here’s our selection of the highlights from the last couple of months.
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The creativity gap: Just three in 10 multinational marketers say their teams consistently works to deliver creative excellence. Most (53%) say they value creative excellence, but prioritisation is still inconsistent across teams.
Clients and Creativity 2026 reveals the scale of the creativity gap, identifying a series of barriers for greater progress, including short-termism (68%), risk aversion (45%) and securing sufficient investment for creative development (37%).
Constant transformation: Marketing transformation is no longer a project with an endpoint but a perpetual state of evolution, nearly all multinationals (96%) are currently in transformation mode, with 80% agreeing that marketing transformation should be viewed as a permanent state rather than a finite project.
Global Brand Transformation reveals that the key drivers for this ongoing evolution include shifts in consumer behaviours (43%) and new opportunities for growth, notably fuelled by emerging technologies (41%).
The measurement disconnect: Multinational marketers have more measurement data and tools than ever before, yet the gap between what they can measure and what they act on continues to widen.
The Paid Media Effectiveness Handbook identifies three reasons for this disconnect; Data fragmentation with 46% of organisations sitting at the lowest maturity levels for integrating data sources into a unified view; Channel expansion, with retail media, connected TV, influencer marketing, and AI-generated search all outpacing the measurement infrastructure; and financial scrutiny with just 15% saying effectiveness evidence is the primary driver of how budgets are set.
World Cup boosts inflation: Global media price inflation looks set to increase to 4.4% for 2026, driven by the impact of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, the WFA’s biannual poll of media price inflation forecasts, Outlook, suggests.
In co-host the US, inflation forecasts are a full percentage point higher in 2026 than they were in 2025 (4.0% vs. 3.0%). “Football-passionate” countries will also see a big uptick in what is usually a quieter time of year for advertising. In the UK Linear TV inflation nearly quintuples from +2.3% to +11.3% during the quarter in which the tournament takes place.
The next edition of Outlook will be published in October.
Taking action on AI search: WFA research reveals that 96% of marketers believe that AI-generated search will have a transformational or significant impact on the way consumers discover and choose their brands but just 6% currently have a clear strategy, ownership and measurement framework to ensure AI visibility.
The Future of Discoverability is designed to help marketers who are concerned that previous SEO strategies are no longer fit for purpose in AI-mediated environments.
Global Policy Heatmaps: Countries around the world have started introducing laws and policies to govern AI and the WFA’s heatmaps keep a real-time track of key changes. The EU AI Act is the most far-reaching effort so far and creates a risk-based framework that introduces bans on certain uses as well as transparency requirements.
It’s one of a series of heatmaps that WFA members can access to check on the state of policy around the world, with others covering influencer marketing, food marketing and children, privacy, green claims, and influencer marketing.
Marketing is more uncertain: More than 90% of senior marketers and policy leaders say the business environment is less predictable and riskier than 12 months ago and nearly eight in 10 (79%) agree it does not feel like business as usual, according to WFA’s latest Global Risk Barometer run in partnership with transformation consultancy, The Intangibles.
As one respondent to the research noted, what has happened in the last couple of years is a noticeable uptick in the pace of change and the rising level of risk and its implications: “Risk has always existed and influenced decision-making. It is the form and function of risk which is changing.”
