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
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.
02:27 – What do we actually mean by “dull” advertising?
03:55 – The cow-chewing-grass test and why half of ads lose
06:00 – Attention vs emotion: two ways to measure dullness
08:00 – The Cannes “Ennui” experiment and burning money as a signal
11:10 – What “dull media” really means (and why it’s misunderstood)
13:55 – When great creative is wasted by low-attention environments
16:20 – Is dull creative ever the better option?
17:24 – Trust, facts, and why rational messaging costs more
19:00 – Campaigns vs single ads: where attention is really lost
20:00 – Why mix matters more than hero-only thinking
21:00 – Global differences: creative vs media effects
23:00 – Why B2B marketing is structurally duller and the cost of that
26:00 – The “dull eclipse”: performance mindset, optimisation, benchmarks
28:20 – Procurement, pricing pressure, and creative erosion
31:00 – CPM, wastage, and the illusion of efficiency
34:20 – AI, challenger brands, and testing creativity at speed
37:55 – Risk vs responsibility: how sensible decisions kill ideas
41:00 – What marketers can actually do differently
43:45 – Final reflections and where the research goes next
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: