Four ways to increase your creative project ROI

Managing your spending isn't about being thrifty, or trying to snag a bargain. It's the difference between a company that can scale successfully and one that falls flat on its feet in year two, and it has a direct impact on your creative project ROI. We've worked with startups for the best part of 10 years, finding, trialing and developing new ways to help the up-and-coming get the best bang for their buck.

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Quick Reference: 4 Ways to Boost Creative ROI

What the research says about creative ROI

Strong brands outperform by 20%

A McKinsey study of more than 5,300 industrial brands found that top-quartile companies for brand visibility averaged a 16% ROIC over five years, outperforming bottom-quartile companies by roughly 30%. The top 5% of brands capture 95% of share of voice in their sectors and can charge price premiums of 5–10% over competitors.

Branding cuts your marketing costs

McKinsey's performance branding research shows that companies applying a data-driven approach to brand-building report marketing efficiency gains of up to 30% and incremental top-line growth of up to 10%, without increasing their budget. Yet 45% of CFOs still decline or underfund marketing proposals because they can't see a clear line to business value; a gap that integrated brand strategy directly closes.

Branding gap costing companies trillions

Interbrand's Best Global Brands 2024 report found that the world's 100 most valuable brands have missed out on at least $3.5 trillion in value since 2000 (with unrealised potential estimated as high as $6.9 trillion) due to over-indexing on short-term performance marketing. For the most recent year alone, this cost brands an estimated $200 billion in lost revenue. 

Branded products command higher prices

Kantar research found that shoppers who perceived a brand as meaningfully different paid 38% more for it; and even self-described price-driven shoppers paid a 14% premium for brands they found genuinely distinctive. Without that differentiation, brands become commoditised, and discounting creates what Kantar calls a "death spiral of weaker and weaker margins." 

Revenue reward for brand simplicity

Siegel+Gale's World's Simplest Brands research found that 64% of consumers will pay more for simpler brand experiences, and 78% are more likely to recommend a brand that communicates clearly. Since 2009, a stock portfolio of the publicly traded brands in the Global Top 10 Simplest Brands has outperformed the major indices by 1,600%. 

Brand and market returns

A peer-reviewed study in Heliyon tracking the Interbrand Top 100 from 2000 to 2018 found that the most valuable brands generated a risk-adjusted alpha of 0.43% per month above the market; with outperformance most pronounced during downturns, suggesting strong brands act as a financial buffer. A $100 investment in the brand portfolio in 2000 grew to approximately $450 by 2018, versus around $250 for the broader market.

High percentage of company value is actually brand

Research by Ocean Tomo found that intangible assets (of which brand is a primary component) grew from 68% to 90% of the S&P 500's total market capitalisation between 1995 and 2020. For startups and growth-stage businesses, this means brand is not a marketing expense; it is the asset class that will ultimately account for the largest share of company value.

Four ways to increase your creative project ROI

1: Consider doing a brand sprint

The 'brand sprint' was first conceptualised by Google's venture capital arm in 2011. If you or I had come up with the idea, people might not have taken notice. But it's Google, and believe it or not, they know a thing or two about brand building, brand value, and brand consistency.

Over the last decade, creative teams at design agencies have taken the principles and creative ideas from Google's sprint and developed workshops designed specifically to launch brands and products without tight budgets in mind. Creative quality drives up to 70% of a campaign's ROI, so investing in the right process from the start pays dividends. 

The ability to generate strong ROI through creativity is well evidenced: memorable ads can lead to over £400 million net profit, yet safe campaigns require 2.6x more media spend for the same effect. That's a compelling case for leading with bold, creative work rather than playing it safe.

They're not a bare-bones approach, but streamlined exercises and discussions targeted at desired outcomes and measurable business goals. Need just a new landing page and logo? There's a sprint for that. Need to adjust your tone of voice or develop a new CMS system? That's available too. Sometimes you don't need the full Monty, just enough to get your MVP up and running and into the world — without sacrificing quality.

2: Understand what makes a great design brief

Design prices ratchet up the more back and forth that you have with designers. Approval bottlenecks are one of the most common causes of ballooning costs, so a good brief not only saves you time but also money. But what makes a good brief?

Our co-founder Max has spent years both working from briefs on his own and delegating them to the creative teams here at Overpass. Here are his 7 key components of a good brief, each one tied to clear objectives and strong business outcomes:

1. An overview of the brand/business – helps creative teams understand a client.
2. Project overview/scope – what do you need from the design team?
3. Project specifics – intended goals, deliverables and outcomes.
4. Information on the intended audience – who's the campaign/design for?
5. Competitor information – what are others doing and how do you want to set yourself apart?
6. A timeline – helps both parties understand the expectations of a project.
7. Budget – the all-important numbers.

Gathering this information upfront also means your creative teams can focus on creative excellence rather than chasing missing details, which is key to measuring ROI accurately once the project is complete. It also gives you a clear line between short term metrics — like click-through rates and engagement — and the longer-term growth indicators that matter most to leadership.

3: Set yourself up for success from the start

No one likes admin, but here's the catch. Building the correct processes and design systems at the start of your brand will make your day-to-day easier as you begin to scale. These systems also make it far easier to evaluate business impact and measure key metrics over time. Once a startup ourselves, we learned this the hard way, but have now implemented several systems to ensure we spend our time on creativity, not paperwork.

Here are a few processes we've put in place:

• We use Bonsai to manage our tasks, content and client feedback — a single source to gather feedback across all active campaigns, with data kept in one place so nothing slips through the net.
• Our designers work across Figma, sharing files, resources and feedback channels, which supports brand consistency across every project.
• Our workshops are stored in the cloud and available indefinitely for our clients, providing ongoing support long after a project wraps — longer optional access to these resources means clients can explore ideas at their own pace.
• Our team has dedicated Slack channels for each of their projects.
• All copywriting is accessible and can be worked on collaboratively in real-time with G-Suite, making it easy to produce more content without losing consistency.
• One weekly team call for project updates, inspiration and team morale.

Almost as soon as you register with Companies House, you should look to implement the right tools and ensure that your workflow is smooth. Inconsistent branding, poor communication and slow feedback loops are all pain points that erode long-term value. Communication, content management, advertising and production are key areas of focus for all businesses, and getting them right from the outset is how you protect brand recall and build customer loyalty over time.

If you’d like some guidance, we’d love to help out

4: Prepare before you meet with designers

A big part of efficiency as a design agency is ensuring that your clients go through the right preparation for the work they will do with you. Good preparation also reduces short-term costs and creates long-term success; both of which matter when you're measuring ROI at the end of a creative engagement.

Recently, we created a brand blueprint deck, our latest move to shape the way we work. Its aim is simple: to uncover the secrets behind brand building and help those we work with understand the process on a granular level so we can hit the ground running and keep creative campaigns focused and on-brand from day one.

The way we see it is this… Either we keep our cards close to our chest and spend sessions explaining brand building, or we give people the theory upfront and have more time for discussions and insights during our sessions… It's a no-brainer. Strong creative campaigns generate 4x the profit of weaker ones, and ads with strong emotional appeal perform 50% better than rational content. 

That's the kind of return on investment ROI you can only unlock when your creative teams and clients are aligned from the start, with the leading agencies consistently showing that this alignment is where sustainable growth begins.

So whether you're looking for a new logo or a total rebrand, spending a few minutes to brush up on the best Google (or us…) has to offer will not only help the design team communicate their work to you, but will also increase the amount of creative time a team can put into a project and ultimately, increase sales, strengthen brand value, and improve customer engagement for the long term.

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