Higher ROMI is a culturally salient campaign away

Culturally salient campaigns, which generate consumer conversation and attract media attention, typically secure a higher level of return on media investment (ROMI). 

That's according to research from The Weber Shandwick Collective (TWSC) in partnership with the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA). They studied over 340 campaigns submitted to the IPA Effectiveness Awards between 2010 to 2020. Data came from 60 product categories and included global, regional and local campaigns across the business-to-business and business-to-consumer sectors.

Key findings

• Culturally salient campaigns, which earned coverage in consumer-facing media and generated conversations over extended periods of time, generated an average ROMI of 399%.
• That figure stood at 282% for initiatives that did not achieve this level of cultural impact. As most entrants to the IPA Effectiveness Awards are high-performing campaigns, the industry norm is likely to be much lower.
• Culturally salient campaigns achieved this performance despite having a lower average excess share of voice – the gap between their market share and share of category advertising – than non-culturally salient campaigns.