Publicis London Launches "World Class": New Research Reveals the Hidden Cost of Playing it Safe in Global Advertising

Sep. 24, 2026

Publicis London has launched World Class, a new research initiative created with System1 and Effie to quantify what makes multi-market advertising effective. The study draws on Publicis London’s experience creating campaigns for brands including Essity, Electrolux, Marriott Bonvoy and Renault, examining how ideas can travel across markets without losing their power to build brands and drive commercial growth.

World Class analysed 1,262 Effie cases from Europe and the US alongside System1 Test Your Ad responses from around 250,000 people.

The research found that the strongest multi-market campaigns combine clear brand recognition with “Creative Deviance”, Publicis London’s measure of how far an idea departs from category comfort while remaining recognisable as the brand behind it.

Distinctiveness emerged as the foundation of effective global work, with the most distinctive multi-market campaigns more than four times as likely to report profit growth.

“Creative Deviance” built on that foundation: campaigns in the top third reported an average of 2.03 business effects, compared with 1.29 in the bottom third, a difference of around 57%. Business effects are reported commercial outcomes, including revenue, profit, market share, new customers, loyalty and reduced-price sensitivity. None of the campaigns in the bottom third reported profit growth.

“Creative Deviance” has five components:

• Emotionally charged work was linked with 40% more business effects.
• Provocation was linked with 29% more business effects.
• Unexpected work was linked with 24% more business effects.
• Category-breaking was linked with 20% more business effects.
• Visually arresting work was linked with 13% more business effects.

Katie Hibbard, Chief Strategy Officer at Publicis London, said:

"Too often, international advertising becomes a watered-down version of local work. As campaigns move across more countries, cultures and organisations, ideas can gradually get sanded down. We created World Class to understand what makes an idea travel commercially as well as creatively. Distinctiveness is the foundation. “Creative Deviance” is the multiplier. The strongest global ideas don’t win because they say the same thing everywhere. They win because they have something worth saying anywhere. Holding on to that as they scale is what separates work that simply travels from work that moves the world."

 

Together, the findings suggest that multi-market work performs best when brands remain recognisable while deviating further from category comfort.

Andrew Tindall, Chief Growth Officer at System1, said:

“There's never been a large enough global effectiveness databank to do a study like this, revealing once again that emotional advertising makes campaigns work harder globally, and giving new insight into the creative strategies that make ideas travel. Turns out 'safe' is the riskiest thing you can do with a global budget. The campaigns that traveled best weren't the ones that got smoothed out for every market, they were the ones bold enough to still feel like something."

 

Multi-market campaigns reported 29% more brand effects than single-market campaigns, including awareness and fame, but 9% fewer business effects.

For marketers, the findings suggest that scale alone does not guarantee stronger commercial results. Brands should focus on protecting distinctiveness, maintaining strong brand recognition and resisting the pull towards category comfort as ideas scale across markets.

Rachel Emms, Managing Director, Effie UK, said:

"Effie’s Case Library shows how marketing performs in the real world. World Class brings those cases together with creative measurement to explain why some international ideas work harder than others. It offers marketers clear, practical guidance for building global brands."

 

The full findings were unveiled at Publicis London's World Class launch event in London on 16 September.