An Olympics-themed campaign for Procter & Gamble, the US consumer products giant, was the most-read case study on Warc in 2013, but an innovative campaign for The Philippines Department of Tourism also attracted a significant readership.

Procter & Gamble's sponsorship of the London 2012 Olympic Games provided the foundation for a campaign aimed at connecting the company, its individual brands and the Olympics movement in the minds of consumers, particularly its core audience of women aged 18 and above. As part of the largest initiative in the company's history, the Thank you Mom campaign was created to honour the role that mothers play by helping their children to reach their full potential.

Ads featured the mothers of Olympic athletes – as well as the athletes themselves – and the approach helped P&G to record a 40% stronger brand equity performance than it achieved with its campaign for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver.

Coming in second place on the case study rankings was a campaign for Heineken, the Dutch brewer, which sought to justify the brand's price premium and maintain sales growth with ads that embraced the company's universality.

Its first ever consistent global campaign across 170 national markets presented Heineken's male drinkers as being on a "legendary Journey", helping to create globally distinctive, engaging communications that enhanced premium values. It also won the Grand Prix at the 2013 Cannes Creative Effectiveness Lions

The third case study described how the Philippines overcame an image problem that was putting off tourists from visiting the country. Adopting the slogan It's more fun in the Philippines, the campaign used ordinary Filipinos to convey the idea that they enhance the tourist experience and, within just two days of its launch, the campaign became the No. 1 global trend on Twitter.

As a measure of the campaign's success, the Philippines saw a 231% increase in Google hits while also witnessing a record number of 4.3m tourism arrivals. It also won 2013's Warc Prize for Asian Strategy.

The John Lewis: Harnessing the selling power of emotion campaign took fourth place, detailing how the UK retailer used emotional affinity to maintain customer loyalty during tough economic times. Christmas sales grew by at least 7.6% year-on-year from 2009, reaching 13% in 2012.

Making up the top five was a Warc Prize-winning paper detailing how IKEA Canada, the furnishings retailer, boosted sales, social media impressions and visitor numbers to its store in Richmond, British Columbia, by introducing the concept of a "human coupon" that was only redeemable on its opening day.

For more details about the most read papers on Warc in 2013 on other topics, visit our Most Read page.

Data sourced from Warc