S5 · E4
The Eye-Watering Cost of Dull Media & Creative with Karen Nelson-Field & Adam Morgan
Karen Nelson-Field, Adam Morgan
3 Feb 2026 · 48 min
About this episode
Most advertising doesn’t fail because it’s wrong. It fails because it’s dull and dull is expensive.
In this episode of That’s What I Call Marketing, Conor Byrne sits down with Adam Morgan and Karen Nelson-Field to unpack the real cost of dull creative and dull media using hard evidence from IPA effectiveness data, System1 testing, and large-scale attention measurement.
The conversation moves beyond taste or opinion and into economics: why rational, low-emotion advertising can still “work” but only by wasting millions; why some media environments structurally suppress attention; and why optimisation, procurement pressure, and performance thinking have quietly normalised mediocrity.
If you work in brand, media, B2B, finance-led marketing, or any category that tells itself it has to be boring, this episode is a wake-up call.
What you’ll learn
Why 50% of ads struggle to beat a cow chewing grass on attention and emotion
How dull creative drives up required spend by millions to achieve the same outcomes
Why CPM is often a cost per meaningless thousand
How attention volume predicts ROI, memory, and effectiveness
Why great creative fails when media doesn’t give it a stage
How risk, responsibility, and “sensible” decisions slowly drain impact from work
Where AI may actually help creativity rather than flatten it
This episode draws directly on the “Cost of Dull” research programme and explains what it means for marketers trying to balance effectiveness, efficiency, and real-world constraints.
About the guests
Adam Morgan is co-founder of Eatbigfish and a leading voice on challenger brands, effectiveness, and commercial creativity.
Karen Nelson-Field is Professor of Media Science and one of the world’s foremost researchers on attention, media value, and advertising effectiveness.
If you’re trying to explain to a CFO, procurement team, or board why “safe” work keeps underperforming, this episode gives you the language and the evidence to do it properly.
Content Mentioned in the Episode:
Risk & Responsibility https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuJx2IJjaFw
Cost of Dull Media Report https://21467338.fs1.hubspotusercontent-ap1.net/hubfs/21467338/COMPANY%20MATERIALS/Cost%20of%20Dull%20Final.pdf
Cost of Dull Eat Big Fish https://www.eatbigfish.com/thinking/challengers-and-cost-of-dull
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Chapters
- 02:27What do we actually mean by “dull” advertising?
- 03:55The cow-chewing-grass test and why half of ads lose
- 06:00Attention vs emotion: two ways to measure dullness
- 08:00The Cannes “Ennui” experiment and burning money as a signal
- 11:10What “dull media” really means (and why it’s misunderstood)
- 13:55When great creative is wasted by low-attention environments
- 16:20Is dull creative ever the better option?
- 17:24Trust, facts, and why rational messaging costs more
- 19:00Campaigns vs single ads: where attention is really lost
- 20:00Why mix matters more than hero-only thinking
- 21:00Global differences: creative vs media effects
- 23:00Why B2B marketing is structurally duller and the cost of that
- 26:00The “dull eclipse”: performance mindset, optimisation, benchmarks
- 28:20Procurement, pricing pressure, and creative erosion
- 31:00CPM, wastage, and the illusion of efficiency
- 34:20AI, challenger brands, and testing creativity at speed
- 37:55Risk vs responsibility: how sensible decisions kill ideas
- 41:00What marketers can actually do differently
- 43:45Final reflections and where the research goes next