If You Have One Extra Dollar, Spend It on Creative, Says Kantar Americas CEO
CANNES. FRANCE — The marketing world loves to debate where the next dollar should go. Better data? Smarter media buying? More sophisticated measurement? For one industry leader, the answer is simple: invest in creative.
Up to 50% of marketing and media effectiveness stems from the content shown to customers, not the channels used to deliver it. It’s not all about data optimization and performance metrics, which have dominated marketing conversations in recent years.
“If I had one extra dollar, I’d be putting it into creativity 10 out of 10 times,” said Jeff Greenspoon, CEO of Kantar Americas, in a video interview with Beet.TV at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity.
The measurement silo problem
Greenspoon, who joined Kantar a year ago after spending many years at advertising agencies, has observed a troubling pattern in how marketers approach measurement. While media fragmentation gets plenty of attention, measurement itself has splintered into disconnected silos.
“You’re measuring your brand over here and your creativity over here, your media impact over here, your experiences over here,” he said. “The best CMOs, the best marketers are looking at the signals that go across all of those different channels, going across all the different types of measurement that they do, and then starting to find both the correlations and the causations of the data so that they can make more informed decisions.”
The challenge, according to Greenspoon, lies not in collecting data but in connecting it. “Everyone has data. So, it’s (about) what do you do with it and how do you build decisions and strategies on top of that?” he said.
Meaningful, different, and salient
Kantar’s approach to breaking down these silos centers on its MDS framework, which measures whether brands are meaningful, different, and salient. The Marketing Accountability Standards Board recently certified this framework for its effectiveness in linking brand equity to financial performance.
Greenspoon explained the three components:
- Meaning addresses whether a brand solves problems and resonates emotionally with customers
- Difference captures whether a brand innovates and offers something competitors cannot match.
- Salience measures whether customers think of a brand first when making purchase decisions.
“Difference really drives the ability to gain price performance and price share, earn more margin on your product,” Greenspoon said. The framework connects brand actions to brand value and ultimately to enterprise value, providing a through-line from creative decisions to stock price performance.
The case for brand investment
Kantar’s 2026 BrandZ report shows the top 100 most valuable brands grew approximately 504% over 21 years, compared to just 234% for average stock indices. The combined value of the BrandZ Global Top 100 has now reached a record $13.1 trillion.
Greenspoon argued that many brands have “over-rotated” toward performance marketing at the expense of building future demand. “If you don’t invest into the salience, you’re not going to have that predisposition later on,” he said.
The tension between brand building and performance marketing represents a false trade-off, according to Greenspoon. “It’s actually cheaper to get real performance results today if you’ve invested in the past to deliver those results,” he said. “And so they work together in a harmonious world.”
CANNES. FRANCE — The marketing world loves to debate where the next dollar should go. Better data? Smarter media buying? More sophisticated measurement? For one industry leader, the answer is simple: invest in creative.
Up to 50% of marketing and media effectiveness stems from the content shown to customers, not the channels used to deliver it. It’s not all about data optimization and performance metrics, which have dominated marketing conversations in recent years.
“If I had one extra dollar, I’d be putting it into creativity 10 out of 10 times,” said Jeff Greenspoon, CEO of Kantar Americas, in a video interview with Beet.TV at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity.
The measurement silo problem
Greenspoon, who joined Kantar a year ago after spending many years at advertising agencies, has observed a troubling pattern in how marketers approach measurement. While media fragmentation gets plenty of attention, measurement itself has splintered into disconnected silos.
“You’re measuring your brand over here and your creativity over here, your media impact over here, your experiences over here,” he said. “The best CMOs, the best marketers are looking at the signals that go across all of those different channels, going across all the different types of measurement that they do, and then starting to find both the correlations and the causations of the data so that they can make more informed decisions.”
The challenge, according to Greenspoon, lies not in collecting data but in connecting it. “Everyone has data. So, it’s (about) what do you do with it and how do you build decisions and strategies on top of that?” he said.
Meaningful, different, and salient
Kantar’s approach to breaking down these silos centers on its MDS framework, which measures whether brands are meaningful, different, and salient. The Marketing Accountability Standards Board recently certified this framework for its effectiveness in linking brand equity to financial performance.
Greenspoon explained the three components:
- Meaning addresses whether a brand solves problems and resonates emotionally with customers
- Difference captures whether a brand innovates and offers something competitors cannot match.
- Salience measures whether customers think of a brand first when making purchase decisions.
“Difference really drives the ability to gain price performance and price share, earn more margin on your product,” Greenspoon said. The framework connects brand actions to brand value and ultimately to enterprise value, providing a through-line from creative decisions to stock price performance.
The case for brand investment
Kantar’s 2026 BrandZ report shows the top 100 most valuable brands grew approximately 504% over 21 years, compared to just 234% for average stock indices. The combined value of the BrandZ Global Top 100 has now reached a record $13.1 trillion.
Greenspoon argued that many brands have “over-rotated” toward performance marketing at the expense of building future demand. “If you don’t invest into the salience, you’re not going to have that predisposition later on,” he said.
The tension between brand building and performance marketing represents a false trade-off, according to Greenspoon. “It’s actually cheaper to get real performance results today if you’ve invested in the past to deliver those results,” he said. “And so they work together in a harmonious world.”
