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WARC Rankings 2024: Media 100 revealed
Unilever and Dove are the number one advertiser and brand for Media, while Mindshare New York and WPP lead the media agency and holding group rankings in this year’s WARC Media 100.
Compiled by WARC Creative, helping companies deliver creative marketing that works, the annual Media 100 Ranking reflects the work that was awarded by the most important global and regional media shows in 2023.
The awards tracked are determined by a yearly global panel survey and in consultation with the WARC Rankings Advisory Board, and are compiled by applying WARC’s transparent and unbiased methodology.
Get the full results
- The WARC Media 100 Ranking can be viewed in full here. It includes the world’s top 100 awarded campaigns for media, top 50 agencies, agency networks, brands, advertisers, countries and top holding companies.
- For a limited time the WARC Media 100 summary report is available to all here. WARC members can read the summary here.
- The WARC Creative 100 was recently revealed. The WARC Effective 100 will be announced on 25 March.
Themes from the Media 100
“A number of this year’s top campaigns leveraged partnerships to engage and amplify its impact with audiences,” explains Amy Rodgers, Head of Content, WARC Creative.
“Second place campaign, ‘Pre Loved Island’, partnered with UK TV show Love Island to bring second hand clothes into the mainstream, while Argentine NGO Alma worked with footballer Leonardo Sigali to raise awareness for Alzheimer’s disease. Dove’s ‘#TurnYourBack’ also partnered with 68 influencers, including Gabrielle Union, to drive its message of body positivity further.”
Leading the rankings
#1 Campaign for media: ‘Phone It In’ by PHD Auckland / Colenso BBDO Auckland for Skinny
Securing the top spot with a nearly 70-point lead is ‘Phone It In’ by PHD Auckland / Colenso BBDO Auckland for Skinny, a telecommunications provider in New Zealand. For this out-of-home campaign that doubled as a radio campaign, Skinny open-sourced 34 tailored radio scripts as OOH placements so anyone could record them on their mobile – for free. These then ran as radio ads for the brand.
#1 Advertiser for media: Unilever
Unilever remains in first place for the fifth year in a row, widening the gap between it and the other advertisers. Overall, 28 brands contributed to its points total, three of which were in the top 50: Dove, Boost India and Vaseline.
Esi Eggleston Bracey, Chief Growth and Marketing officer, says: “Five years of media excellence in a row! Thank you to our HUGELY talented teams and agency partners who continue to innovate in a dynamic media landscape, boosting our brands to standout in the marketplace.
“A massive congratulations to Dove for leading from the front. On our mission to broaden the narrow definition of beauty, the team successfully cuts through the noise, taps into culture and drives business impact.”
Mondelēz International and Anheuser Busch InBev have also maintained their positions ranked second and third respectively.
#1 Brand for media: Dove
The best performing brand for media is Dove, up from 8th place last year. Continuing to create campaigns focused on challenging traditional beauty standards, five of its campaigns are ranked in the top 100, three of which are in the top ten.
#1 Agency for media: Mindshare New York
Mindshare New York rose 31 places to top the agency ranking. 11 campaigns for a range of brands including Foundation to Combat Antisemitism, Vaseline, Tyson and Castrol, contributed to its points total, six of which ranked in the top 100.
#1 Network for media: PHD
After many years of steadily climbing the rankings, PHD Worldwide has risen one place to become the highest ranked network for the first time. The network had 20 agencies contribute to its points total, with seven of these ranking in the top 50.
Mindshare Worldwide rose from 4th place last year to take 2nd place, and EssenceMediacom takes 3rd place. While most of the top 10 networks maintained similar positions to last year, the most improved network is Havas Media Group, moving up five places to 7th. Serviceplan tops the independent networks for media, a position held since 2021.
#1 Holding Company for media: WPP
WPP has maintained its position at the top of the holding company ranking for seven consecutive years, with seven networks in the top 50, including three in the top five: Mindshare Worldwide ranked 2nd, EssenceMediacom in 3rd and Wavemaker in 5th.
#1 Country for creativity: USA
The USA remains in 1st place for the seventh year in a row as the most awarded country for media. More than a quarter of the campaigns in the top 100 ran in the US, three of which made the top 10 ‘#TurnYourBack’ and ‘Toxic Influence’ for Dove, as well as ‘Lunchabuild This!’ for Lunchables.
The UK and India also maintained 2nd and 3rd place positions, although the gap between the two has shrunk significantly. Argentina is ranked in the top 10 for the first time.
Post-purchase engagement is vital for brands
Marketers should heighten their focus on post-purchase engagement, as shoppers often learn valuable information about a brand after a transaction has been completed, according to insights unveiled at SXSW 2024.
Why thinking beyond a purchase matters
Marketers are under relentless pressure to drive sales, and this can lead to an emphasis on converting shoppers without a meaningful plan on how to engage them post-purchase. Repeat customers, however, are a vital source of revenue if brands can foster long-term relationships.
Takeaways
- Research in 14 markets, by public relations consultancy Edelman, found that 78% of consumers “uncover things that attract me and...
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WFH creates more New Zealand OOH opportunities
Working patterns in New Zealand have changed post-pandemic but a majority of people still commute into city centres, while the WFH trend has also created more out of home occasions that savvy advertisers can tap into.
Key stats
- Kiwis spend more than three hours a week commuting and make 5.9 million trips a day, according to new research from OOHMAA (Out of Home Media Association Aotearoa).
- More Kiwis are exposed to OOH every day than any other channel: OOH 80%; social media 78%; online video 48%; linear TV 48%; radio 47%; SVOD 44%; music/podcast streaming 37%; newspapers 34%; free VOD 32%; magazines 7%.
- OOH reaches 70% or more of all demographics: 85% of 18-34s; 83% of 35-54s; 71% of 55+.
- With 10,000+ assets across the country, OOH ads offer mass reach and time spent with only a 24% avoidance rate (compared to 56% on TV).
The WFH trend
- Six in ten white collar workers now have flexibility over the location and hours they work but nearly 60% of Kiwis still commute into the city centre or inner suburbs for work.
- The working from home trend has influenced peak commuting times, making them slightly longer than they were historically.
- WFH has also created more Out of Home occasions – meaning more opportunities for advertisers to engage with their audience if they understand their mobility habits.
Why OOH matters
Out of Home has always been able to deliver mass reach, but arguably that strength as a channel is growing as terrestrial TV consumption declines and online video fragments with increased choice. While these channels can deliver mass reach, it can take longer due to fragmentation or declining audiences.
Sourced from OOHMAA
Reports suggest TikTok revenues up 40% to $120bn in 2023
Short video platform TikTok is on track to overtake Meta, after reports that the company made $120bn worldwide in 2023, up 40% year-on-year, with $16bn of that coming from the US alone as it faces legislation that could force the sale of the company in order to continue operating in the country.
Why TikTok’s growth matters
Amid a political storm in the United States, TikTok is emerging as one of the most important media companies on earth. Not only does it make a lot of money and entertain a lot of people, research is discovering that it is effective in different ways from its rivals, especially in the field of new customer acquisition.
The figures first reported by the Financial Times indicate how TikTok is a major media player as well as a huge political story, whatever happens next.
The Meta comparison
TikTok’s global audience, at 1.56 billion users each month, is almost as large as that of Instagram’s at 1.65 billion.
The privately owned company, which doesn’t have to declare its revenues to the stock market, is now approaching Meta ($131bn in 2023) levels of revenue too, it would appear. And much faster: revenues in 2023 grew over 40% compared to Meta’s 16%.
While ByteDance as a whole may turn a profit, it is largely because of its Chinese operations where it runs a successful e-commerce interest. By comparison, TikTok is spending heavily to continue growing in much of the rest of the world; losing US influencers could see a vital attraction to its platform disappear.
Political controversy
Huge growth in revenue for TikTok, which is owned by Beijing-headquartered ByteDance, comes amid the passage of a bill through the US Congress that could force it to sell to a non-Chinese company within six months.
The bill, which is yet to be debated in the US Senate – where it is unlikely to pass as smoothly as it did in the House – sets up the potential for a high-profile battle over free speech that could be decided in the courts.
- Not only is the controversial legislation likely to face challenges, any sale of US TikTok is going to be incredibly expensive and will still require Chinese approval.
- It’s also worth noting that ByteDance is no nationalised enterprise: multiple American venture capitalists have been involved for a long time.
Although the bill passed thanks to members on both sides of the political aisle, Americans are much more divided: 31% of adults favour a ban while 35% oppose it, with the typical tell of which way you swing depending on whether you use the app. Many voters also believe the country faces graver issues.
Sourced from the FT, WARC, WSJ, Washington Post
Understanding the power of ‘bothism’ for brands
Marketers can benefit from embracing “bothism”, a holistic approach to brand and performance advertising that recognises the mutually reinforcing nature of these activities.
Why “bothism” matters
Brand and performance advertising are often treated as separate endeavors. Understanding the mutually reinforcing nature of these activities, however, is a more valuable way of proceeding that can ultimately drive better returns.
The power of a combined approach
- Tom Roach, VP of brand strategy at Jellyfish, a marketing performance company, offered a simple definition of “bothism” in a session at SXSW 2024.
- “It's about taking being performance-driven, then layering in brand-building activity, so it’s...
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Supermarkets shift loyalty emphasis
Where loyalty schemes once meant offers and rewards, the emphasis is now shifting towards simple price discounts, but new research for Retail Week finds shoppers cynical about supermarket pricing options.
What’s happening
- 59% of shoppers think discounts in supermarket loyalty price schemes are made to look greater than they actually are, according to research by Walnut Unlimited for Retail Week.
- 56% of shoppers feel loyalty prices offer good value for money; but more than half also agreed that such schemes make it harder to understand which retailer offers the best value.
- The CMA is currently reviewing loyalty pricing and whether aspects of that could mislead consumers.
Why supermarket pricing matters
Supermarkets emerged from the pandemic with their reputations enhanced (in one poll 85% of respondents said that supermarkets had responded well or very well; only the NHS was higher at 93%). That now seems at risk of being squandered in a confusion of pricing options.
“This subtle change from ‘reward’ to ‘discount’ means customers need to use their loyalty card simply to get access to the lower prices,” explains Amy Nichols, research director at Walnut Unlimited. “If they don’t believe the discount to be genuine, this may cause trust and loyalty issues with otherwise loyal customers.”
Sourced from Retail Week
How Southeast Asia’s e-sports ecosystem is expanding
Both gaming and e-sports can offer numerous opportunities for brands to meaningfully engage with and capture the attention of Gen Z and Gen Alpha, the youthful demographics that are difficult to reach with traditional marketing.
Why gaming matters
Gaming has boomed in Asia because of smartphones, while e-sports’ popularity spiked during Covid-19 lockdowns. Gaming provides a multitude of advertising and sponsorship opportunities for brands, with players and fans accessing games across a range of platforms, devices, consoles, mobile apps, computers and e-sports stadiums – all which present a bigger ecosystem for advertising.
Takeaways
- Brands can join forces with publishers and...
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How AI will force agency models to change
Almost two-thirds (63%) of CMOs plan to deploy generative AI in the next 12 months, and 55% expect to change their relationship with agency partners due to its impact, according to an executive at IBM.
Why generative AI matters
AI is disrupting the world of advertising – and agency models need to change. That’s the view of Priscilla Kim, APAC marketing and communications vice president at IBM. She was taking part in a WFA-hosted panel discussion at Spikes Asia 2024. “The agency partners in the past were content creators. Now they’re moving more towards becoming content curators,” said Kim, who quoted findings from a global study.
Takeaways
- The VP called for the advertising industry to be “intentional” about the agency model across the content supply chain. “There has to be an agreed model – right at the front – around who owns and who gets it at what stage in terms of development, iterations, revisions, adoptions, testing and optimisation,” she argued.
- Brand protection is even more paramount with the acceleration of generative AI. “The most important thing I believe agency partners can help us with are things like our privacy, content credentials, legal implications of the content created, and of course ... the impact of unintended bias and ethics.”
- What is “absolutely critical” is a governance framework for brand safety, as brands look to agencies for help with matters such as “privacy, content credentials, and legal implications of the content created.”
- Brands also need support from agencies to navigate the unchartered waters of AI. “Agency partners can help us take a step back and ask the question, ‘Is this really what’s going to be meaningful? Is this what’s going to deliver the outcome? What is the benefit for the client and for the end customer?’”
- Change is coming, whether one likes it or not. Former WPP CEO and S4 Capital founder Sir Martin Sorrell summed this up in a separate session at Spikes Asia 2024: “‘Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas’ is my favorite phrase in relation to this and the ability of people to accept change, particularly when it’s not just in our industry.”
Key quote
“Media planning and buying will be revolutionized… the major holding companies probably employ about 200 to 250,000 people in media planning and buying. There will not be this amount of people in three years’ time. The headcount will be drastically reduced because US$650bn on the digital side of the media industry can be reduced by algorithm” – Sir Martin Sorrell, founder and executive chairman, S4 Capital, speaking at Spikes Asia.
Sourced from Spikes Asia
How Uber drives product equity
Uber, the ride-sharing and delivery app, is tapping equitable product design and development to increase accessibility and ensure it truly understands the cultural context of its business.
Why product equity matters
Making goods and services accessible to every consumer is an ethical imperative. Alongside that, however, it also meets a clear business need, as it can help ensure that brands achieve the maximum potential reach with as many audiences as possible.
Simplicity and complexity
- Zach Singleton, director of product for the safety, equity and privacy product teams at ride-sharing and delivery app Uber, discussed this topic at SXSW 2024.
- Product...
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Performance marketing ROI varies with brand size
Performance marketing delivers a stronger return on investment for startups and scale-ups, but brand building delivers better results for larger, more established players, finds research presented at SXSW 2024.
Why marketing and brand maturity matters
Startups and scaleups often focus, out of necessity, on performance marketing as they seek to drive immediate returns. The growth curve, however, will inevitably lead to a drop-off in the results delivered by these tactics over time, and will necessitate a pivot towards brand building, which is how major companies achieve long-term growth.
Takeaways
Grace Kite, founder and managing director of Magic Numbers, a marketing econometrics consultancy, discussed this topic at SXSW 2024:
- For every $1 spent, startups generate 2.5x more in incremental return on investment from performance marketing than from more brand-focused efforts.
- Looking at scale-ups, which are no longer startups but have not yet become major brands, this gap falls to 1.3x.
- Among big businesses, however, the incremental returns from brand building topped those from performance marketing by 0.7x.
The big idea
“Performance marketing can’t drive fast growth in a cost-effective way forever,” said Kite.
Shimano targets sustainable demand as bike industry recovers
Shimano, the bicycle component giant, is looking to Southeast Asia and Latin America for growth and adapting its product mix following an instructive pandemic boom and a high-inflation-era slump in Europe and North America – here’s what marketers can learn from the last four years.
Why Shimano (and bikes) matter
There’s a good chance that if you own a bike, there’s some form of Shimano component on it – the manufacturer has a roughly 85% share of the bicycle component market – and without components there’s not much fun or value to be found from the tubes of a frame, fork, and bars. As such, it is considered a bellwether for the whole bike industry.
Marketing a sport in new markets
Speaking to Nikkei, CEO and chair Yozo Shimano explains that demand has been increasing in Asia and Latin America, with consumers keen on the mid-range components that its newly refurbished Singapore plant helps to produce.
The trend tracks the development in markets like Vietnam, where a growing middle class is beginning to see cycling as a sport as well as a means of transportation. This, however, requires marketing sport cycling culture: Shimano is beginning to do this through the creation of bike race events in focus territories and even a museum in Singapore.
Dominance in decline
With such dramatic dominance, Shimano plays at all levels of the bicycle market.
But this isn’t necessarily a great arena to be playing in, given the bike industry’s terrible post-pandemic slump, which affected Shimano to the tune of a 24% drop in year-on-year revenue in 2023, along with an even steeper drop in profits (albeit from record highs in 2021 and 2022).
“Although the booming popularity of bicycles cooled down,” the company wrote in its full year earnings release, “interest in bicycles continued to be high as a long-term trend. On the other hand, market inventories generally remained high, despite ongoing supply and demand adjustments.”
The ‘new golf’ and echo chambers
Cycling is in many ways the new golf – especially in media circles – but over the pandemic the industry largely overplayed its hand based on the erroneous hope that lockdown-era demand in the largest bike markets of Europe and North America would continue.
The story of the industry, through big players like Shimano, is one of a return to sustainability by targeting sustainable demand. Many brands and retailers, however, didn’t make it: upstarts like Van Moof folded, and retailer Wiggle went into administration.
What happened to the bike industry? A story in four parts
- When lockdowns hit in 2020, one of the few things that you were allowed to do in most countries around the world was to ride a bike.
- As such, huge numbers of people – many of whom were working from home and flush with disposable income – turned to bike shops to acquire new bikes which rapidly grew in price as demand for bikes and components fast outstripped supply. Spending, it is now known, grew in the US by 620% between 2020 and 2023.
- Licking their lips, manufacturers and some brands and distributors – according to dealers speaking to the Escape Collective podcast – were asked to put in big orders on the assumption that high demand was here to stay.
- When demand inevitably fell away once most of the addressable market had acquired a bike, all levels of the supply chain were left with more inventory than they could possibly sell. Then came inflation, which has further diminished demand for bicycles, especially at the middle and high end.
Lessons in failure
The story of the bike industry’s pandemic-era boom and bust has yielded some critical lessons beyond the inward-looking world of cycling:
- Grow from the core, not the high end: The bike industry can sometimes get lost in the frothiness of new tech as driven by the pro Peloton (think the $14,000 machines you see on the Tour de France), but sustainable growth requires a much more FMCG-style approach of bringing in light buyers rather than intensifying spend from existing buyers.
- First-party data: Bicycles are typically bought in dealerships, but many brand sales reps are paid for getting bikes onto shop floors. The industry could learn from other durable hardware industries in which warranty schemes help brands to track demand.
- Distinguishing trends from fads: Brands and manufacturers need to become more sophisticated in their engagement with trend mapping and analysis in order to have better signals around which to make investment cases. Much of the industry was flying blind in a crisis – it should be better prepared to keep its cool in the next major event.
Sourced from Nikkei, Cycling News, Bicycling Magazine, Shimano, Escape Collective
SPT
The age of influence and how ROI is redefined
The meaning of celebrity has become less about star power in the traditional sense and more about the ability to connect with an audience, as seen in the popularity of influencers such as Niana Guerrero of the Philippines – and it requires a different way of measuring return on investment.
Why ROI matters
As the definition of celebrity shifts, so must marketing strategy, and brands must understand the lifecycle of influence and reassess the parameters of ROI to guide campaign objectives and determine where the target audience is in the marketing funnel.
Takeaways
- ROI is multifaceted in the era...
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Radio can double campaign effectiveness
A campaign with positive Excess Share of Voice (ESOV) can be made far more effective with the addition of a little radio, according to new research.
The research
Professor Mark Ritson collaborated with Australian industry organisation Commercial Radio & Audio (CRA) in a study that analysed the ACA Effectiveness Database, including all Effie Awards entries since 2018.
Takeaways
- Investing 11% in radio can double campaign effectiveness (in terms of very large business effects).
- Brand impact is 13% higher in campaigns with radio.
- Larger mental availability gains when radio is included underpin stronger business results.
- Campaigns with radio deliver stronger impact on brand awareness, product knowledge and help to build distinctive assets.
Why radio matters
Any campaign with positive ESOV is already outperforming the average, but radio can help supercharge that. “Radio drives a disproportionately large impact for a relatively modest investment of just 11%,” said Ritson. “It’s the ultimate sidekick.”
Sourced from Commercial Radio & Audio
How Uber won over India through cultural relevance and not differentiation
In the five years since it launched the service, Uber has emerged as India’s leading provider of auto-rickshaw rides, by solving commuter pain points such as non-standard fares and price haggling: now 30% of the auto-rickshaw market in India is online with six out of ten Uber rides today via auto-rickshaws.
Why understanding Indian culture matters
Brands looking to crack the India market must “play like a leader”, said FCB Group CEO India and South Asia Dheeraj Sinha at Spikes Asia 2024. This involves solving fundamental issues on a societal level and becoming a part of culture, rather than chasing after market share.
“Solve for real problems, layer that with Indian insights, Indian cultural understanding—and the whole brand therefore will build culture up,” said Sinha.
How foreign brands can win in India
- Create familiarity. It’s more effective for brands to win over Indians with products that are familiar to their lifestyles and behaviours, rather than expect them to change their behaviour dramatically, said Sinha. “If you want to build new behaviour, you must build it through points of comfort, familiarity and relevance, not through points of surprise, differentiation and change.”
- Tell real-life stories. This ensures authenticity and credibility. Uber’s consumer-facing campaigns for Uber Auto and Uber Intercity featured the true stories of personalities such as cricketer Yashasvi Jaiswal.
- Speak the languages of the market. Given the multitude of languages in India, it’s important for brands operating in India to reflect this diverse lexicon.
Key quote
“Even after having spent a decade in a country like India, we still have miles to go because we have really merely scratched the surface when it comes to unlocking the overall mobility landscape of India” – Tanya Malhotra, brand and reputation lead at Uber.
Lai Chow, Journalist
How bad is the ‘Made for Advertising’ problem?
Very bad, according to a new Adalytics report that appeared this week, finding that major brands including P&G, Unilever, Mondelez, Mars, Ford, Disney, Google, Pfizer, and Reckitt, among many others, are being placed on such low value inventory, potentially wasting millions of their ad budgets.
The study, which ran in January 2024, was based on observations of 22 websites deemed to be MFAs based on industry definitions and cross-referenced by multiple sources. Some of the allegations, which come in for a wide swath of major companies, have been rejected in statements from some network providers.
Adalytics’ report follows the explosive ANA Programmatic Media Supply Chain Transparency study back in December, which found that a focus on “cheap reach” had led to 19% of ad buying on open marketplaces and 14% on private marketplaces going to MFA sites.
Why MFA matters
Made for Advertising/Made for Arbitrage sites are largely useless for brands seeking to do anything but burn cash. Relative to some of the most expensive inventory on the market, MFAs can be staggeringly inefficient (see chart).
Media agencies and ad exchanges have said that they are moving to identify, filter out or prohibit MFA ad inventory. While many brands are confident that they are protected, this new study suggests that this is not the case.
According to some observers, a fix is simple even if it might cost a little more: to optimise digital advertising to a particular conversion goal rather than aim for high online reach on a budget.
Definition
MFA sites typically feature low-quality content with a much higher density of ad placements and a super fast refresh rate, meaning that a single ad shows up as being served many thousands of times during a single user session.
What Adalytics found
Hundreds of major brands continue to have their ads served on websites that meet the industry trade group definition of “Made for Advertising”. The ads were placed both through programmatic and non-programmatic channels.
- Over six months after the ANA’s Programmatic Transparency study, almost all of the participating brands continue to have ads placed on MFA sites.
- Frequency capping is apparently not working, according to the study, with some ads being shown thousands of times during a single page view. This means that some brands are paying enormous amounts often to reach far fewer actual customers. Adalytics found that one major telco paid an effective CPM of $2,600 just to reach one unique viewer.
- All levels of the digital marketing supply chain, supply- and demand-side platforms, retail media networks, numerous brand safety vendors, and agency holding groups, were identified in the study.
Sourced from Adalytics, ANA, WARC.
[Image: Adalytics]
Favorability is a powerful metric for Ally Bank
Ally Bank, the financial services brand, has learned that favorability among consumers is a key metric, as it feeds into tangible actions that can drive business results.
According to a study designed by marketing trade body MMA Global, 73% of consumers with a favorable view of Ally Bank who were exposed to a brand advertising campaign went on to convert.
Why brand favorability matters
Brand favorability has often been perceived as a vanity metric with a limited connection to revenue goals. Understanding how that favorability translates into tangible action, however, can help marketers link positive associations with favorable outcomes for...
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Companies need to boost commitment to sustainability
Most companies do not see sustainability as a business imperative, according to a report from EY which highlights particular scepticism about the business rationale among non-executive directors and chairs.
The consulting firm’s 2024 Europe Long-term Value and Corporate Governance Survey draws on the views of 200 directors, CEOs and C-suite heads and concludes that businesses need a more ambitious approach to sustainability.
Key findings
- Less than a quarter (24%) of EU company leaders say they are “completely satisfied” that they have a clear strategic view of how tackling their ESG priorities will achieve their value-creating objectives.
- Just 8% of non-executive directors and chairs report being “completely satisfied” – indicating a significant gap between Boards and their businesses.
- Less than half of companies are taking “transformative” action in relation to the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) and Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD).
Why sustainability matters
Sustainability can be a source of differentiation and growth, but winning the necessary investment will require a more robust articulation of long-term value potential – backed by a credible business case that could include higher market share, reduced cost of capital, increased net promoter scores and greater employee engagement and productivity. A failure to do so could mean passing up game-changing opportunities.
How Boards can react
EY offers three areas where Boards can act to establish a leading position:
- Demand an ambitious strategic vision from management teams and critically scrutinise supporting business cases.
- Insist on an ambitious, strategic approach to the policy and regulatory agenda that goes beyond compliance and identifies where the company can find a strategic advantage over the competition.
- Exploit the potential of AI, while balancing its sustainability opportunity with its environmental, societal and ethical challenges.
Key quote
“We are seeing a cooling of company commitment when it comes to sustainability, and Boards have a duty to help reinforce a business culture where sustainability is seen as mission critical” – Julie Linn Teigland, EMEIA Area Managing Partner at EY.
Sourced from EY
Study sheds light on inaccuracies reported by self-claimed survey respondents
Three-quarters of self-claimed respondents to surveys had not actually purchased items in a category they claimed to have bought in, according to recent research from Kroger insights unit 84.51°. That data point – and others from the research – calls into question the accuracy of this widely-used type of data.
Why inaccuracy in survey samples matters
A great deal of marketing research relies on survey participants to accurately recall their shopping habits and behaviors. If those recollections prove inaccurate, they carry a major risk for marketers trying to glean both accurate and actionable insights. 84.51°, which benefits from a trove...
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Apple tests new AI capabilities to boost $7bn advertising business
Reports suggest that Apple will emulate some of Google’s advertiser-focused AI efforts by testing new tools to help customers buy App Store ads – as the iPhone-maker seeks to prove it has the AI chops to keep up with its big tech rivals while also underscoring its seriousness about the business opportunity from advertising.
Why Apple ads matter
Apple is a big-deal brand, but it now also has its eye on becoming a big-deal advertising destination by boosting the targeting capabilities of its quietly successful App Store advertising products (this year it is expected to make $7bn from ads alone).
Its ambitions are bigger and its increasing media properties – from its News, Maps, and Stocks apps to its Apple TV+ product featuring the Messi-hosting MLS – offer extensive opportunities it is now exploring. With content to advertise around, and an extensive user base, it’s likely that an automated targeting product will unlock value across its properties.
What’s going on
Apple is testing a tool, according to a report by Business Insider, to help a select group of advertisers automate the placement of ads on Apple’s App Store. An enhanced ad placement system would build on the already considerable (but quiet) advertising business that Apple has established selling search ads in the App Store experience.
Sources familiar with the testing tell BI that they expect the company to announce the product officially in the next few months.
The new product is said to be similar to tools like Google’s Performance Max and Meta’s Advantage+, both of which use machine learning to optimise campaigns.
How it works
Two placements are available:
- Ads on the search and ‘you might also like’ tabs
- Ads that appear on the ‘Today’ homescreen of the App Store
Advertisers can then automate placements based on the budget, cost-per-acquisition target, audiences and territories they enter.
In context
The news comes as Apple will be keen to attach the term AI to anything investors hear about the company. It follows recent questions about the company’s plans in the space and Apple’s own ambition to “break new ground” with AI this year.
It will be aware of the emerging shape of advertising in 2024: non-endemic players developing huge advertising businesses, while artificial intelligence techniques are helping ad businesses like Meta to make up shortfalls in their targeting capabilities.
Sourced from Business Insider, TechCrunch and WARC
Rethinking some sustainable stereotypes
While European consumers can be divided into four broad groups when thinking about the environment, their behaviours differ from one country to the next, often in unexpected ways, finds a new study.
The four groups
The study by Forrester identifies the following types of green consumer:
- Active Greens (21%): environmentally friendly products are chosen ahead of low cost or convenient ones.
- Convenient Greens (24%): value convenience and cost over the environment.
- Dormant Greens (40%): don’t actively look for environmental information but are most likely to be persuaded once aware.
- Non-Greens (15%): not environmentally conscious, cost always comes first.
Tackling country stereotypes
- Despite having a Green party in government, Germany has the highest percentage of Non-Greens and second-lowest percentage of Active Greens after the UK.
- UK consumers are most likely to agree that they prefer cheaper products to environmentally friendly ones.
- Italy has the highest percentage of Active Greens and the lowest percentage of Non-Greens, followed by Spain and France. Italy and Spain have suffered most from recent heat waves.
- Spanish online adults are the most likely among the five largest European economies to be willing to pay more for environmentally friendly products. A majority want to to understand how their purchases impact the environment and are disappointed when packaging isn’t recyclable or compostable.
- While French online adults are primarily Dormant Greens, only one in five French online adults think that reducing their environmental impact is too much work.
Tackling age stereotypes
- Gen Z is often considered the most actively green generation, but it’s riven with contradictions: they value environmental awareness, but they also expect seamless, instant experiences; they demand sustainable products but are the main buyers of fast fashion; and they’re most likely to say that a low-cost/convenient product is more valuable to them than an eco-friendly one.
- Older generations contain more Non-Greens, but the proportion of Active Greens among the Silent Generation is significantly higher than among Gen Z, thanks in part to the latter’s influence. Older consumers often have the time and money to act on the values that their children and grandchildren have instilled in them.
Sourced from Forrester
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