It’s award season again. Campaign Media Awards. Festival of Media. The big stages where agencies queue up to showcase their most innovative work.
But here’s the truth: the best ideas in media don’t start with an award entry. They start with an insight, a business challenge a brief that asks not just for reach but for disproportionate results.
And it’s often at peak spend periods: Christmas, Black Friday, Back to School – where the stakes are highest, and the difference between predictable returns and standout growth is made by one thing: creative media thinking.
The Myth of Media as “Just Placement”
Media has long been pigeonholed as distribution. Buy the right spots. Optimise the numbers. Reach enough people. Tick the box.
“Creative media thinking is something else. It’s the ability to look at the same inventory, the same platforms, the same budgets as everyone else and unlock something others miss. It’s where context becomes part of the creative.”
Think of John Lewis’ Christmas campaigns. The TV spots grab headlines, but the ripple effect comes from how media amplifies the creative: partnerships, experiential, retail tie-ins, social storytelling.
Or consider Spotify’s “Wrapped.” Yes, it’s a digital-first product experience, but the brilliance is in how the campaign exploded across social, PR, and OOH. The medium itself – data-driven personalisation – was the message.
Peak Spend Doesn’t Reward Safe Plans
Every brand fights for attention in the same high-pressure moments: November’s retail frenzy, Christmas gifting, the summer of sport.
But here’s the trap: in those moments, the gravitational pull is toward the obvious. “We’ll just spend more.” More impressions, more TVRs, more CPMs.
And yet, more often than not, the brands that cut through aren’t those who spend the most, but those who think of the customer AND the data. The magic is created when the customer is kept front-of-mind when interpreting the data.
Take Aldi’s Christmas work in the UK. They’ll never outspend Tesco or Sainsbury’s. But year after year, their media choices: nimble, witty, culturally tuned, help them punch above their weight. According to Kantar, Aldi overtook Morrisons in 2022 to become the UK’s 4th largest supermarket, partly powered by these disruptive strategies
Creativity in Media is Measurable
There’s a lingering scepticism that ‘creative media’ is fluff. But the data tells a different story.
- The IPA’s landmark “Media in Focus” study shows campaigns that balance creativity in both media and message are 60% more effective long-term (IPA, Binet & Field, 2017).
- Attention research from Lumen demonstrates that creative placement and context can double memory encoding versus standard inventory (Lumen, 2023).
- And Marketing Mix Modelling (MMM) consistently reveals that smartly designed media moments deliver outsized ROI relative to spend.
In other words, creativity isn’t a ‘nice to have.’ It’s a multiplier.
Awards Aren’t the Point (but They’re a Signal)
The hardest sell for a CMO isn’t the consumer. It’s the board.
When agencies pick up trophies, what’s being celebrated isn’t the case study deck. It’s our thinking that turned ordinary budgets into extraordinary results.
That should matter to every brand, especially in 2026 where growth budgets will face tougher scrutiny, and “efficiency” alone won’t win.
Because the real test isn’t what judges think, it’s what the market does. Do people notice? Do they care? Do they buy?
Four Questions to ask in Peak Periods
As you prepare for the next awards cycle, or the next Christmas, the next cultural moment, here are four questions worth asking:
- What problem are we solving? Not the media plan problem. The business problem.
- What context can we own? A moment, a mindset, a cultural cue that’s bigger than inventory.
- How can distribution become the idea? Media as part of the creative, not the afterthought.
- What’s the disproportionate upside? If we’re not making a small budget feel bigger, or a big budget work harder, are we really being creative?
Closing thought
At the heart of every standout case study isn’t scale, or spend, or even creative brilliance alone. It’s media thinking that refuses to be average.
Because in the moments that matter most – whether it’s a campaign launch, a cultural event, or the peak trading season – creative media thinking is what separates those who merely spend from those who truly win.
Need a partner who thinks can build your brand? Let’s talk : +44 (0)20 7257 2600 or hello@smithfieldagency.co.uk (https://smithfieldagency.com/contact/)