Five key priorities for delivering effective advertising

WARC today releases ‘Anatomy of Effectiveness: 2022 Edition’, a white paper giving brand marketers, advertising agencies and media owners a fresh perspective on the five key building blocks of effectiveness.

Why it matters

Much has changed since WARC published the first Anatomy of Effectiveness in 2019, David Tiltman, SVP Content, WARC, observes: “We’ve had a pandemic that saw budgets switch out of brand investment into performance marketing; we’ve seen the rise of ‘retail media’ platforms that are reshaping the media landscape; and with the impending death of the cookie we see a growing lack of confidence in advertising and media measurement.

“This updated edition of our white paper draws on new thinking and the latest evidence to present the key building blocks required to deliver commercial impact today.”

Five priorities

• Invest for growth

Understanding how factors such as brand size, campaign investment and category dynamics will determine effectiveness are key first steps when it comes to setting budgets and agreeing on objectives. Getting the right framework for investment is crucial if a campaign is to meet its potential.

• Balance your spend

Set the right framework for investment to ensure sustainable success. Whether it is long-term effects vs short-term sales impact, brand-building vs performance marketing, broad reach vs active in-market buyers or upper funnel vs lower-funnel, plan for effectiveness across different timeframes, messaging, audience types and buyer journeys to deliver maximum growth.

• Plan for reach

Campaign reach is becoming harder to achieve as media consumption fragments. This is forcing marketers to reconsider long-held assumptions about reach and frequency management. Factors to be considered include brand objectives, media selection and consumer purchase habits.

• Be creative

Creativity makes a difference and is the most powerful weapon under the marketer’s control. There is widespread evidence that creativity delivers increased effectiveness when it is distinctive, engaging, emotional and has some longevity. Recent research cited in LIONS’ State of Creativity 2022 study claims only 8% of agencies feel confident in convincing clients to invest in high-quality creativity and 12% of clients feel confident in convincing the CFO to invest in high quality creative.

• Plan for recognition

Advertising must be associated with the brand behind it, if it is to work. Planning for recognition involves creating shortcuts in consumers’ minds that make brands more memorable, impactful and easy to recall. Failure to brand communications properly is a common pitfall. Investing in and nurturing distinctive assets will enable quick recognition.

The white paper, launched in conjunction with WARC's Anatomy of Effectiveness hub, features new case studies, expert opinions and over 20 'Evidence' decks. WARC clients can read the full report here. A sample edition is available for all.

Highlights from the white paper will be presented to Cannes Lions attendees today as part of a full week’s worth of content curated by WARC, together with the world’s leading effectiveness experts, covering strategy, media, creative and digital commerce. For more details on WARC x Cannes Lions, click here. 

IPL ecosystem faces shake-up

A combination of inflated media rights and falling ratings means that advertisers will be taking a long, hard look at their ROI from different media at next year’s India Premier League. 

Why it matters

Broadcast rights for the next period were sold for more than three times the previous deal, which is inevitably going to result in higher ad rates. Would-be advertisers will have to make hard choices between appearing on TV or on digital or sponsoring teams.

At the same time viewership declined by 30% or more for the initial stages of this year’s event (although that may be related to the easing of COVID restrictions), meaning that advertisers are re-evaluating potential reach. “While not all advertisers necessarily come to IPL only for the ratings and they are not the entire game, they are still very important,” Madison Media CEO Vikram Sakhuja told The Economic Times.

Takeaways 

• Ad rates could increase up to 10% for TV and 30% for digital.
• Startups accounted for more than half of the IPL’s advertisers in the past two seasons but their funding is drying up – a concern for broadcast rights holders.
  

Final thought

The IPL media rights auction saw the value of digital rights exceed TV broadcast rights for the first time. “IPL media rights is a case study for the entire world to understand where the OTT industry is going,” Jean Francois Pigeon, Global EVP & Head of Sales-Marketing at Synamedia, told e4m.

Sourced from Economic Times, e4m

Cracking the code of creative effectiveness

The ANA, WARC, and LIONS have announced a unique long-term research partnership to create a global framework that guides and supports brands in ‘Cracking the Code of Creative Effectiveness’. 

Why it matters

The initial goal of this project is to address both the culture of effectiveness within organizations as well as the elements of campaign effectiveness. Other fundamentals of effectiveness, aligned with the ANA Global Growth agenda’s Brand, Creativity & Media pillar, will be incorporated into the creation of the roadmap and foundation for the practice.

What’s happening

• Over the course of the next twelve months, this partnership will work together, using insights from the ANA, WARC & LIONS, and leveraging work from award-winning marketers, to create a framework that CMOs and brands can follow to establish a culture of both effectiveness and creative excellence leading to long term success for their businesses. 
• As part of the partnership, the ANA and WARC will conduct an extensive worldwide qualitative study among CMOs to identify the elements of a culture of effectiveness and jumpstart the industry in moving towards more effective marketing. The study will build on the existing Creative Effectiveness Ladder, developed by WARC and LIONS, a framework to understand how to utilize creativity to drive specific marketing outcomes.
• To kick-start the project, on-stage interviews were conducted at last week’s Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. Further insights will be presented at the ANA Masters of Marketing conference 25-28 October 2022.

Key quote

“The aim of this partnership is to drive a culture of effectiveness in our industry. WARC’s vast knowledge base, proprietary data and extensive experience in marketing effectiveness, combined with the ANA’s work with their Global CMO Growth Council in partnership with LIONS, will help accelerate the practice of effectiveness” – Paul Coxhill, CEO of WARC.

For further information or for any CMOs wanting to get involved, please go to www.warc.com/ana. 

CEOs think CMOs can do better

The majority of US chief marketing officers receive a “B” grade from chief executives with regards to their overall performance, a study* finds, with many needing to improve in terms of thinking big and understanding corporate finances.

Overall performance scores

• Chief executives were asked to rate their CMOs on a similar spectrum to that used in the academic world, with “A” grades being the best and “D” the worst.
• Only 16% of respondents gave their marketing lead an “A” grade for overall performance, while 55% scored a “B”, 23% got a “C” and 6% received a “D”.
• Similarly, just 16% of CMOs were afforded an “A” grade for their ability to drive company growth, while “41%” received a “B”.

Areas for improvement

• Exactly 25% of CEOs regarded marketing heads as possessing “above-average” skills when it comes to decision-making.
• Another 51% suggested that their CMO “plays safe” and avoids risk, whereas 27% thought marketers “play big” and inspire other members of the C-suite.
• While 53% of chief executives agreed their chief marketer understood profit-and-loss statements and balance sheets, 47% did not have this confidence.
• Just 49% of CEOs concurred with the statement that the CMO “is on my side [and] I trust them,” the study found.

*The study was conducted by Boathouse, a full-service agency based in Boston. Its chief executive (CEO) panel was made up of 150 corporate leaders from enterprises in the United States. The sample was evenly split between three cohorts in terms of annual company revenue: companies earning between $250m and $500m ; from $500 m to less than $1bn; and over $1bn.

Sourced from Boathouse