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WARC Rankings 2024: Effective 100 revealed
McDonald’s, Cadbury and Ogilvy lead the Effective 100 rankings – the third and final release in the WARC rankings – and here’s how they stack up.
The WARC Effective 100 recognises the world’s most awarded campaigns and companies for effectiveness. Compiled by WARC Creative, the tracked awards are determined by a yearly global panel survey and in consultation with the WARC Rankings Advisory Board.
Get the full results
- The full WARC Effective 100, Creative 100 and Media 100 Rankings can be viewed in full here.
- For a limited time the WARC Effective 100 summary report is available to all here.
Leading the rankings
#1 Campaign for effectiveness: ‘Shah Rukh Khan-My-Ad’ by Ogilvy Mumbai / Wavemaker Mumbai for Cadbury
The most effective campaign of 2023 was ‘Shah Rukh Khan-My-Ad’, created by Ogily Mumbai and Wavemaker Mumbai for Cadbury. The confectionary company increased sales of its Celebrations product by 35% during Diwali, with an interactive, geo-targeted campaign that made Indian superstar Shah Rukh Khan the ambassador for small, local stores.
#1 Creative agency for effectiveness: Leo Burnett, Dubai
After ranking for the first time last year at #26, Leo Burnett Dubai has stormed up the list to secure first place this year. The agency’s best performing campaign was ‘The Homecoming’ for Home Centre, which ranked ninth and was among four other campaigns that ranked in the top 100.
#1 Media agency for effectiveness: Mindshare New York
For the first time, Mindshare New York is crowned the most effective media agency in the WARC Rankings, up from second place last year. This success is largely attributed to its campaigns for Unilever brands, the most successful being ‘See My Skin’ for Vaseline, which ranked seventh.
#1 Network for effectiveness: Ogilvy
Ogilvy has retained its top position as the best performing network for effectiveness. The network has 11 campaigns in the top 100, including the #1 campaign ‘Shah Rukh Khan-My-Ad’. It also has eight agencies in the creative agency ranking.
#1 Holding Company for effectiveness: Omnicom Group
After five years of being the runner-up in the holding company table, Omnicom Group has moved up one place to become the most effective holding company this year with 13 creative agencies and 15 media agencies in the top 50.
#1 Brand for effectiveness: McDonald’s
McDonald’s tops the effectiveness ranking for the fifth year in a row. The fast food brand has three campaigns in the top 100, including ‘Famous Orders’ which has ranked third for the second year in a row. In total, it had 40 campaigns contributing to its points total in the full rankings database, across 23 different countries.
#1 Advertiser for effectiveness: Anheuser-Busch InBev
Anheuser Busch InBev is the highest ranked advertiser for effectiveness for the third year in a row. Thirty-two brands contributed to its points total, five of which ranked in the top 50.
Unilever moves up to claim second place with three brands ranked: Dove, Vaseline and Hellmann's. McDonald’s is in third place. The most improved advertiser is The Coca-Cola Company, rising 10 places to seventh. While only one of its campaigns ranked in the top 100, it won awards for 22 campaigns in total.
#1 Country for effectiveness: USA
The USA remains the most awarded country for effectiveness, with 24 campaigns in the top 100. India has risen to second place with seven campaigns ranked. Brazil moves up three places to rank third. Argentina and New Zealand are the most improved countries, both rising 11 places to seventh and eighth respectively.
IPL ad costs could help boost other sports
The merger between Reliance and Disney has the potential to reshape India’s sports media landscape, as the flagship IPL tournament becomes the preserve of the biggest advertisers, while smaller advertisers turn to emerging sports.
What’s happening
- Last month’s announcement of an $8.5bn tie-up between the two companies finally ended speculation that Disney was set to leave India.
- The joint venture brings together the sporting rights of the separate entities so that it controls 70-80% of the country’s cricket content (as well as the IPL this includes WPL, ICC and BCCI media rights).
- Cricket itself hoovers up more than 85% of total sports industry spending across media, sponsorship and endorsement.
- “This development underscores the IPL’s towering influence on media consolidation and its burgeoning role in shaping the future of sports broadcasting and advertising in India,” says Daoud Jackson, senior analyst for Media and Entertainment at advisory business Omdia.
- The IPL has global ambitions and team owners are involved in new T20 franchises in the Middle East, South Africa and the US.
What it means for advertising
- With IPL media rights costing around $1.2bn annually, rights holders Reliance and Disney will seek to recoup this cost primarily through advertising and sponsorship, rather than subscription revenue.
- There are signs that 2024 will be a record year for advertising around the event, according to Omdia, with more games than ever before, increased commercial confidence across the country and broadcasters announcing new ways to drive revenue.
- Observers anticipate IPL and Cricket World Cup ad rates rising due to a monopoly effect, possibly to the point where only large advertisers can afford to be associated with these tournaments.
- Advertisers with smaller budgets seeking a sports audience are likely to invest in non-cricket sports, such as football or kabaddi, which are widening their audience base.
Sourced from afaqs!, Omdia
[Image: IPL]
The changing world of DTC
Many digitally native brands are rethinking their expansion into physical retail while some traditional brands, like Nike, are reconsidering their pivot to DTC.
What’s happening
- Rents are going up after being reduced during the pandemic, and consumer spending on discretionary items is falling as the cost of living increases. For DTC brands, there’s a new focus on profitability rather than top-line growth.
- Funding has dried up: in 2021, $5bn of capital went to fund DTC businesses but two years later that had fallen to just $130m, according to data from Crunchbase.
- Shoe brand Allbirds is planning to close a third of its stores, Modern Retail reports, while Athleisure brand Outdoor Voices has closed all its retail outlets; mattress company Purple has said it will slow new store openings and focus on its existing sites.
The Nike case
- Sports brand Nike is an example of a brand that has invested significantly in a DTC operation that aims to provide a seamless experience across its own websites and stores while reducing dependence on third-party retailers.
- That thinking is shifting as the brand reinvests with its wholesale partners (who continue to represent three-quarters of the market in unit terms). “The consumer is still clearly shopping in multi-brand retail,” Nike CFO Matthew Friend told a recent earnings call.
- CEO John Donahoe added that “we must lean in with our wholesale partners to elevate our brand and grow the total marketplace”.
- “We recognize that our wholesale partners help us scale our innovation and newness in physical stores and connect our brands in the path of the consumer,” he said.
- In Q3, Nike direct sales in North America were up 23% but wholesale was up 32%.
Key quote
“I think they [DTC brands] might be surprised to learn how their online sales are affected in these markets where their stores are closing. Retail is like a muscle that needs to be exercised. And so, if you stop exercising any muscle, it atrophies” – Rebekah Kondrat, founder of Rekon Retail.
Sourced from Modern Retail, Seeking Alpha
How semiotics helped reinvent Baileys
When Baileys set out to transcend the drinks category and become a leading adult treat brand, it turned to semiotics to help it negotiate the new world it was entering.
Why semiotics matters
When a brand steps beyond its own category, it’s crucial to understand this new arena and how that may change over time in various markets. Semiotics can play an important role in that process.
Takeaways
- By mapping the semiotics of the wider treats category, Baileys was able to identify a space the brand could be uniquely associated with.
- It was able to build a globally consistent but...
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Why McDonald’s is talking to the hand
McDonald’s came up with a “trust framework” that informed its creative and helped shift the dial with brand sceptics.
Why trust matters
Trust is a crucial factor for any food outlet: greater trust means greater affinity which leads to more visits and more spending. But the best way to drive that trust may not be what first springs to mind, as McDonald’s research showed.
Takeaways
- Rather than a rational approach that bombards people with facts, humour can be a far more effective way of getting them to retain information.
- Instead of using the brand or an expert as the messenger,...
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Brits stick with live TV, for now
Media habits are changing but nearly two-thirds (64%) of Britons’ TV viewing time remains spent on live TV, with online streaming (36%) some way behind, according to a new study.
GWI’s 2024 Global Media Landscape Report says hits like BBC’s The Traitors demonstrate TV’s durability, but cautions that, “as with any form of consumption, appetite is always subject to change”.
Why TV viewing habits matter
TV may still dominate viewing time but brands need to look to the future. GWI reports that, at the end of 2023, 13% of Gen Zs didn’t watch broadcast TV on a typical day. In a fast-changing technological environment, this demographic’s media habits are proving to be significantly different to those of its predecessors.
Takeaways
- ChatGPT has become ingrained in how younger generations in particular search for information – it’s one of the top three ways Gen Z search for information, with 40% of 16-26-year-olds using it in this way.
- Gen Z is the only generation to prefer social platforms over search engines for shopping purposes. Customizable results will draw 16-26-year-olds in, and it’s likely this behaviour will continue with Gen Alpha.
- Ethnic minority groups (22%) are more receptive to influencer recommendations than the average consumer (14%), which suggests they are still underrepresented in traditional media.
- Since 2021, there’s been a 17% increase in shoppers favouring ads that offer discounts or special offers, with 37% saying this is a priority for them. Price is now more important than other factors such as social responsibility.
Key quote
“While traditional advertising remains strong, the data presents new opportunities for brands to engage audiences in creative ways. Brands should look for new ways to expand their marketing strategies through the media and find new pathways to reach people” – Chris Beer, Trends Analyst at GWI.
Sourced from GWI
How brands can tap the growing gaming market in Vietnam
With a young and digitally savvy population, Vietnam is a huge market for e-sports and online games, offering brands the opportunity to access a lucrative gamer community that is transforming Vietnamese society and consumer behaviour.
Why gaming matters
Brands should view gaming as a mainstream media platform with sub-cultures and communities; by targeting gaming cafes and gamer KOLs, they can influence this unique audience while also benefitting from the retail potential of this industry.
Takeaways
- Gaming cafes are popular due to gamers’ preference for PCs and offer a communal venue for casual gamers to socialise.
- Professional players and streamers have...
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Bud Light: not all boycotts are equal
Bud Light is far from the only brand to have seen a backlash to its stance on a social issue, but its sales suffered more than many others – an assessment in the Harvard Business Review suggests possible reasons why.
Background
A social media post in April 2023 featuring transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney sparked conservative figures to call for a boycott of Bud Light. Over the following three months, says the HBR research, Bud Light sales and purchase incidence were about 28% lower than during the same period in prior years.
This decline persisted into the fourth quarter when sales and purchase incidence were down 32%, and it was more pronounced in Republican counties. Around 15% of previously loyal Bud Light customers were identified as shifting spending on beer to other brands as part of the boycott.
Factors at work
- Polarization of an existing base. The authors speculate that middle-ground brands such as Bud Light are more vulnerable when taking a stance as they could potentially alienate a large chunk of their customer base, unlike brands near the ends of the political spectrum which are less likely to anger existing customers.
- Substitutability. Brands with close substitutes are easier to boycott because there are many similar alternatives. There are many light beers available to consumers, for instance, and they tend not to have any distinguishing taste.
- Observability of consumption. Whether a consumer boycotts a brand or not may be down to peer pressure and whether he or she is seen consuming it in public. If consuming in private, they may be less likely to boycott it.
- Sense of brand ownership. The authors note that Bud Light’s advertising may have built a strong sense of “psychological ownership” with their customers that led many to feel personally affronted by the brand supporting an issue they did not agree with.
- Prolonged engagement. Media coverage generally moves on quickly to something new, but Bud Light’s delayed response helped to keep the issue in the news spotlight and top of mind with consumers.
- Distribution changes. Retailers won’t give shelf/bar space to brands that aren’t selling and that can create a negative feedback loop. (AB InBev has acknowledged Bud Light lost shelf space but says it has recovered that space with other brands across its portfolio).
Lessons for brand marketers
- Know your consumer base and align your messaging accordingly.
- Assess your vulnerability to close competitors.
- Avoid actions that will prolong negative attention in the media.
Lessons from the Bud Light Boycott, One Year Later is written by Jura Liaukonyte (Cornell University’s SC Johnson College of Business), Anna Tuchman (Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management) and Xinrong Zhu (Imperial College London Business School).
Sourced from Harvard Business Review
[Image: Bud Light]
TV OOH measurement moves up a gear
The measurement of TV out-of-home is becoming more robust as audio-visual TV outdoor network C-Screens completes an audit process with measurement company RSMB.
Why it matters
Parity between the planning, execution, and measurement of TV and TV OOH experiences feels long overdue. TV OOH isn’t a channel that tends to feature prominently in campaign media plans but a rigorous audit process of viewership figures at one of the UK’s leading suppliers will help create consistency, trust and accountability as data is brought in line with the broader media industry.
Takeaways
- Brands that advertise around sport have an opportunity to extend traditional TV campaigns during a busy summer that includes the Euros, Olympics and Paralympics, T20 Cricket, Tour de France, Wimbledon, and F1.
- C-Screens claims more than 12 million people will visit one of its Summer Live sites, which broadcast key sporting events, over the summer months.
- Previous campaigns have delivered results for brands as diverse as YouTube, Aldi and Starling Bank.
Sourced from C-Screens
[Image: C-Screens]
How to ease the strain in brand-agency relationships
Effective creativity is the result of the team that makes the work happen, but strain between brands and their creative partners is a critical tension identified in the LIONS State of Creativity report.
Why strong relationships matter
Strong, trusting relationships are at the core of all stages of the creative process; on the flip side, those that find it very difficult to work efficiently as a client-agency partnership are three times more likely to predict a decline in growth in 2024.
Based on a survey of 3,000 marketers and creatives from around the world, the State of Creativity offers practical guidance on tackling the challenges facing the industry. You can download the full report for free here.
Behind the tension
- Agencies feel undervalued and underutilised: This includes often being made to feel like an extra pair of hands rather than a creative partnership, which contributes to low-quality work.
- Poor alignment across partners: Agency respondents feel there is a greater need for all creative partners to drive toward the same goals rather than working in silos, and often work to different agendas or goals.
- A lack of trust in the agency: “There’s no belief or trust from marketers that creativity sells,” explained one creative director based in France. Trust is vital to the kind of big, brave ideas that create business impact.
Go deeper
The subject of client-agency relationships is never far from the surface in marketing.
- Last year, WARC explored the nature of effective creative teams and their root in a shared culture of excellence, with a framework for establishing a high-performance partnership.
- More recently, the WARC podcast explored the issue at the level of the agency business model and why an outdated monetisation model devalues creativity and effectiveness.
Sourced from LIONS, WARC
Underperforming Nike wants bolder brand marketing
Sport and lifestyle brand Nike is not performing to its potential, according to its CEO, who has identified a need for brand marketing to become “bolder and more distinctive”, one of four areas that require “adjustments”.
Four adjustments
- “Our brand storytelling will leverage our athletes and sport moments to become sharper and bolder, beginning with the Olympics this summer,” John Donahoe told an earnings call.
- He also highlighted a renewed focus on sport. The same day, Nike announced that from 2027 it would be the new kit supplier to all German national football teams, replacing Germany-headquartered adidas.
- A three-year pipeline of innovation: “In an uneven macro environment, newness and innovation are what drives brand distinction,” said CFO Matthew Friend.
- Better wholesale positioning (three-quarters of the market in unit terms): “We recognize that our wholesale partners help us scale our innovation and newness in physical stores and connect our brands in the path of the consumer,” Donahoe observed.
What it means
It’s not just about bolder marketing, it’s about doing less and doing it better. “We are sharpening our brand storytelling to tell fewer, bigger stories with greater reach,” said Friend.
“Having a strong brand is the foundation for us to be able to drive long-term growth and profitability. And we’re focused on what it takes through this flow of innovation, being authenticated in sport, and elevating our presence across the marketplace,” he added.
Sourced from Seeking Alpha, Reuters
Regulation builds trust in advertising
When people are aware that advertising is regulated, they are more likely to trust and have favourable views towards the industry generally, as well as displaying higher levels of trust across individual media channels.
That’s the main takeaway from research by the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) into the effectiveness of a recent campaign that ran on TV, print, online, cinema and OOH channels, backed with advertising inventory from media owners.
Key findings
- Those who saw or heard ads for the ASA were more than twice as likely to say they trust the ad industry (33% vs 14% for those who didn’t see/hear the ads).
- The biggest positive shifts came in online ads, where trust jumped from 15% to 36%, and magazines, where trust increased a similar amount from 18% to 39%.
- But all channels showed significant uplifts in trust: cinema from 27% to 44%; direct mail from 19% to 36%; newspapers from 20% to 36%; posters from 21% to 37%; radio from 31% to 43%; and TV from 31% to 46%.
Why trust in the ASA matters
Driving trust in the regulator drives trust in the industry. “Awareness and buy-in of the ASA system is a key strand in our new five-year strategy, and our ad campaign plays a crucial role in helping achieve our ambitious targets,” explains Guy Parker, chief executive of the ASA.
Sourced from ASA
Three factors that make TV critical to effectiveness
Attention, emotional clout, and trust are the critical elements of what makes TV effective, says Peter Field in a new report exploring the enduring business impact of television advertising.
Why TV (still) matters
TV remains a constant of effective advertising, and, increasingly, of profitable companies. “I would argue that any marketer who considers walking away from TV advertising would be crazy to do so,” writes Field.
The reason, he explains, is that TV excels at long-term demand growth through brand building. According to the IPA data studied, TV has remained remarkably consistent, with between 80%-85% of effective cases deploying TV.
What is it?
Field’s new report, commissioned by the TV industry body Thinkbox, is based on the last 10 years of the IPA Effectiveness databank alongside data from attention studies by Amplified Intelligence, Lumen, System1 and The Australian Effies.
Unsurprisingly, just as TV advertising had been a key channel in the effectiveness campaigns that made up the seminal findings in The Long and the Short of It, this new study observes many similar trends that even suggest that TV is becoming more important in an increasingly fragmented, distrustful digital era.
Critical factors
Attention and mental availability
Some media are better at holding attention and imprinting memories (mental availability) than others.
Most (85%) online ads fail to meet the 2.5 second threshold at which they start to impact memory, according to research from professor Karen Nelson-Field, and when they do gain attention it decays quickly. TV, by comparison, tends to deliver much more stable levels of visual attention throughout an ad.
Not only is the attention much more stable, TV delivers a lot more of it: on average over 15 seconds of attention for 30-second TV ads and 9.1 seconds for 15-second ads, with BVoD (Broadcaster Video on Demand) not far behind, according to Lumen data. It’s worth noting that YouTube’s unskippable ads also do a similar task of building mental availability.
Field’s conclusion, then, is that based on CPMs weighted by attention, “TV advertising suddenly starts to look rather good value.”
Emotional clout
Emotion makes your media budget work much harder and more efficiently: 3.5x harder than rational messaging. If you want to make an audience feel something, TV tends to be a good way to do it.
“If you want to reap the benefits of powerful emotional advertising on attention and therefore long-term growth, you must use high attention media,” says Field.
Trust
Similar to Field’s earlier work on trust in advertising and its importance to profit, media choice is vital. Partly, it’s down to the fact that certain prestige media (especially regulated media like TV) play on the strengthening relationship between trust and perceived quality.
With high trust building effects, TV’s impact on profit has been growing (see chart). “The clear implication is that marketers should be very careful to choose trusted media, because trust is a big issue for growth and profitability,” he says.
How much TV to use?
“If we take the broadest view of effectiveness across all of the six business metrics – some of which are more short term, some more long term – it suggests that the sweet spot for TV is about 45% of the overall budget,” Field writes.
But an important idea in this report is the importance of an advertiser’s ability to influence pricing power and, therefore, the ability to maintain or even grow margins/profitability.
“Looking through the prism of pricing power therefore suggests an even greater use of TV advertising – perhaps something approaching even 80% of the overall budget,” adds the effectiveness guru. However, with profit growth as the key objective, Field observes a budget mix closer to 50% dedicated to TV.
Sourced from ThinkBox/Peter Field. Image: Thinkbox/Peter Field
AI boosts CTRs for Tencent
Deploying AI technology in its existing businesses has begun to deliver significant revenue benefits to Chinese tech giant Tencent, particularly around its advertising business.
President Martin Lau told an earnings call that Tencent’s “AI-powered ad tech platform is contributing to more accurate ad targeting, higher ad click-through rates and thus faster advertising revenue growth rates.”
The size of the prize
- “If you think about the size of our advertising business – call it RMB 100 billion a year – and if you can just have a 10% increase, that’s RMB 10 billion and mostly all profit, so that’s the scale of the benefits on the advertising side,” Lau explained.
- The 10% figure should be seen as “a floor, not a ceiling”, added chief strategy officer James Mitchell.
- Alongside the growing advertising business, Lau continued, one can “add in the video accounts e-commerce ecosystem that has a very long track of growth potential and also the low ad load right now within video accounts”.
Q4 ad stats
- Online advertising revenue was RMB 30 billion in Q4, up 21% year-on-year.
- Increased ad revenue came from all major categories except automotive “with notable step-ups in revenue from internet services, healthcare and consumer goods categories”.
- Despite a very low ad load, video accounts ad revenue more than doubled year-on-year thanks to increased video views and upgraded ad targeting.
- Weixin Search increased its ad revenue “several-fold” year-on-year in the quarter, on growth of commercial queries and RPM.
The AI future
- “We are increasingly going to be deploying AI, including generative AI, in areas such as accelerating the creation of animated content in terms of new game content,” Mitchell said.
- “The benefit will show up not in substantial cost reductions, it will show up in more rapid content creation and therefore more rapid monetization and revenue generation,” he added.
Sourced from Seeking Alpha
[Image: Tencent]
The role of creative in driving media performance
Creative is twice as important as ad placement in driving the performance of display ads, according to research by tech company Dell and agency EssenceMediacom.
Why understanding the role of creative matters
Understanding the drivers of success for each ad format is critical to maximizing the returns generated by a campaign. Creativity, in particular, is a vital underpinning for most channels, even those which are not usually perceived as being visually arresting.
Takeaways
- Dell and EssenceMediacom’s analysis incorporated information from over 10,000 display ads, three geographies, and consumer and business-to-business (B2B) audiences.
- Measured against ad placement, they found that creative...
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Patients turn to influencers amid lack of trust in healthcare system
Almost half (47%) of respondents globally who believe the healthcare system is failing have followed social media advice that contradicts their doctor, according to new research that points to a deep issue of distrust in the health and pharma industry that marketers need to understand.
The above statistic, from Edelman, chimes with further research from CharityRx that shows nearly one in five Americans trust health influencers more than medical professionals in their community.
Go deeper
Explore more trends set to influence healthcare and pharmaceutical marketing strategies in WARC’s latest industry snapshot.
Why consumer trust matters
Trust is a determinant of health: when consumers lack confidence in the healthcare system, they are less likely to adhere to advice from their doctors, engage in preventative care and maintain their own health.
What this means for brands
- Brands can leverage different institutions, such as the government and media, to strengthen consumer trust and motivate individuals to seek care from health professionals.
- Brands from sectors not typically associated with healthcare and pharmaceuticals can come up with creative ways to help consumers lead more healthy lifestyles.
- With more consumers turning to influencers for advice, there is an opportunity for brands to leverage influencers to spread accurate health information and encourage healthy behaviours.
- Consumer trust in influencers can provide a halo onto brands, potentially strengthening brand trust and boosting purchase intent.
Key quote
“Influencer marketing campaigns help pharmaceutical companies build trust by leveraging the influence and credibility of relevant individuals to reach and engage with a wider audience” - Jaquie Pantoja, Digital Account Director for Curious Health.
How to win Ramadan: Is high share of voice the silver bullet?
Brands can connect with Indonesians by understanding the 4Fs during the holy month of Ramadan: fasting, feasting, fraternising and faith.
It's a time when food research jumps 25%, e-commerce spikes 75% and offline shopping expenditure increases by 41% for snacks, soft drinks, food staples, hampers and parcels.
Why Ramadan matters
Share of voice should not be the only focus of the marketing campaign – brands must use a strategic mix of channels for optimal impact and deliver the right message at the right time in the right environment to make every consumer interaction special and memorable.
Takeaways
- Understand cultural nuances,...
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Weibo looks to hot trends and content marketing
In an uncertain advertising market, Chinese social media platform Weibo has found some success in hot trends and content marketing.
CEO Gaofei Wang told an earnings call that advertising demand was “a bit volatile” because the macro and industry environment had led to lower-than-expected marketing budgets for clients in key industries.
Key figures
- In Q4, MAUs reached 598 million (+11 million year-over-year), DAUs 257 million (+5 million year-over-year).
- Total ad revenues for the year were $1.53bn, a 4% decline (Q4 ad revenues were up 3% on a year earlier and up 5% on the previous quarter).
Who’s spending
- Online games and healthcare recorded double-digit growth year-over-year in Q4; automobile and handsets also grew.
- Q4 was boosted by ad revenues from the e-commerce sector during major e-commerce shopping festivals.
- Beauty and personal care declined as budgets shifted towards live-streaming platforms. “This industry is the most challenging industry against our total business portfolio,” Wang noted.
Weibo strategy
- With the granting of new licences to publishers, Weibo anticipates building on growth in the gaming sector.
- “With budget allocated mostly to hot trends and content marketing, we have delivered strong branding effects,” Wang explained – thanks to Weibo’s “unique content marketing” and ability to create hype around new launches.
- “Our focus this year will be emphasizing those IP hot trends, and also the content marketing,” he stressed, as Weibo seeks to gain a greater share of budget from its clients.
- “We would like to further enlarge the user base and also the total scale of that and focusing on monetizable traffic,” he added.
Sourced from Seeking Alpha
OpenAI plans GPT-5 launch amid drive to enterprise clients
ChatGPT creator OpenAI is reportedly planning to launch the latest version of its large language model this year, GPT-5, as the company begins demoing the technology with enterprise customers – but real life usage of past models indicates that keeping a B2B business going will be tough.
Why GPT-5 matters
In some ways, AI is very simple: the bigger the model and the more computing power that runs it, the better. The free version of ChatGPT runs on GPT-3.5 and is said to have trained on around 175 billion parameters (or bits of information); GPT-4 trained on 100 trillion, effectively an order of magnitude greater. The development is another step in chatbot-based generative AI.
The story
Business Insider reports on the new model, quoting people familiar with the matter, including one CEO that received a demo of the technology and told the website that “It’s really good, like materially better”.
- According to this CEO, OpenAI is showing off use cases based on data unique to the enterprise client in question.
- Slated for mid-year, or summertime, it’s still very possible that safety testing will delay launch. OpenAI has not commented.
Hints of GPT-5’s arrival follow numerous stories about GPT-4, including its poor maths, which some observers understand to be a degradation of the model. It’s likely that GPT-5 will sell itself on the promise of being more reliable. After all, CEO Sam Altman himself noted in an interview that GPT-4 “kind of sucks”.
The B2B conundrum
But the story also points to the strange nature of the AI business as it currently exists. OpenAI is making around $2bn a year, with much of the real money coming from business-to-business or enterprise subscriptions (it also sells individual customer subscriptions), and it expects to continue growing.
According to the story, OpenAI has alluded to some real money-saving features like AI agent features capable of performing tasks (though these have not been released).
Will AI fundamentally remain a tool that you access through your employer, or will there be a significant level of usage at the individual level?
The big issue, as with many B2B technology fields, is that the buyer and the consumer/user are often different people – even if younger procurement professionals tend to be more collaborative – and that sustained success requires not just persuading the bosses who say yes the first year, but the workers who will actually put this expensive technology into action.
Sourced from Business Insider, ZDNet, Financial Times, WARC
Will Gucci’s ‘quiet luxury’ resonate in China?
The news that Q1 sales at luxury brand Gucci are expected to be down by nearly 20% year on year, largely because of falling sales in China, has focused attention on consumer attitudes to luxury brands in the region.
Context
“The jury is out on whether the Chinese will like the Sabato De Sarno [new creative director] quiet luxury,” wrote one analyst, reported by the Financial Times. “ We are sitting on the fence waiting for more tangible signs that the new Gucci works.”
A new report* from luxury brand strategist Bluebell Group, however, suggests that consumers in Greater China are far less concerned than those elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific region about conspicuous consumption – and that quiet luxury is not necessarily something they’d embrace.
Quiet luxury or not?
- Consumers in Korea (66%) and Malaysia/Singapore (63%) are most self-conscious about owning or displaying branded luxury items.
- The lower levels reported from China (46%), Taiwan (45%) and Hong Kong (44%) indicate a more relaxed attitude towards luxury consumption. Japan (51%) sits somewhere in the middle.
What consumers want in a luxury brand
- Consumers in all markets agree that luxury is about quality, but the levels are significantly higher in mainland China (94%) and Taiwan (93%) than in South Korea (74%) or Japan (71%).
- Brand reputation is also important, and again this is especially so for Chinese consumers (96%), compared to those in South Korea (74%) or Japan (76%).
- Consumers in China are also more open to brand evolution and style changes (91%) than those in other parts of the region, with 51% of Japanese consumers relatively resistant.
- There’s growing support for Asian premium brands, with China in the vanguard (85%) and Japan again lagging in relative terms (51%).
The big idea
Luxury consumption patterns across Asia are shifting, as more consumers show interest in active lifestyle products, pre-owned items and local brands. Western brands may need to adapt accordingly.
* The ‘Asia Lifestyle Consumer Profile’ report is based on a survey of 1,750 consumers aged 20-50, spending a minimum €1,200 on premium products in the past six months. Markets covered: Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and Malaysia.
Sourced from Bluebell Group, Financial Times
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