Is Creative Impact in Crisis? New Data Shows Why Consumer Connection is Falling, Despite Rise in Marketing Spend
Written by Emily J. Thompson, Senior Investment Analyst
Updated: Oct 23 2025
0mins
Should l Buy SSTK?
Source: PRnewswire
Global Ad Spend and Marketing Impact: The 2025 Creative Impact Report reveals a 33% increase in global ad spend since 2023, but marketing impact has dropped nearly 20%, highlighting a significant 'impact gap' in advertising effectiveness.
Key Drivers of Marketing Success: The report emphasizes that creative quality, emotional connection, and cultural relevance are more important than budget size, with AI playing a crucial role in enhancing creativity and campaign effectiveness.
Strategies for Improved ROI: Top-performing campaigns focus on emotional engagement, limit messaging to a few high-impact ideas, and leverage AI to enhance creativity and adapt to cultural shifts, leading to better ROI.
Implications for Future Marketing: As brands face increasing competition and social movements, those that prioritize emotional intelligence and cultural relevance in their marketing strategies will be better positioned to succeed in a crowded advertising landscape.
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Analyst Views on SSTK
Wall Street analysts forecast SSTK stock price to rise
2 Analyst Rating
0 Buy
2 Hold
0 Sell
Hold
Current: 16.710
Low
28.85
Averages
28.85
High
28.85
Current: 16.710
Low
28.85
Averages
28.85
High
28.85
About SSTK
Shutterstock, Inc. provides a global creative platform for connecting brands and businesses to quality content. Its content is distributed to customers under various brands: Shutterstock; Pond5; TurboSquid; PicMonkey; PremiumBeat; Splash News; Bigstock; Envato and Offset. The Shutterstock brand includes various content types, such as image, footage, music and editorial. Pond5 is a video-first content marketplace which expands the Company’s content offerings across footage, image and music. TurboSquid operates a marketplace that offers more than one million 3D models, and a 2-dimensional marketplace derived from 3D objects. PicMonkey is an online graphic design and image editing platform. PremiumBeat offers music tracks and provides producers, filmmakers, and marketers the ability to search handpicked production music from the composers. Splash News provides editorial image and video content across celebrity and red carpet events. Envato offers digital creative assets and templates.
About the author
Emily J. Thompson
Emily J. Thompson, a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) with 12 years in investment research, graduated with honors from the Wharton School. Specializing in industrial and technology stocks, she provides in-depth analysis for Intellectia’s earnings and market brief reports.
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