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Marketing Through Volatility: Key takeaways from the most-awarded work of 2020

Many advertising and marketing industry awards were paused in 2020 but not all; a new WARC report, Marketing Through Volatility,  uncovers insights behind some of the world’s most-awarded campaigns of last year  – for creativity, media and effectiveness – and examines the strategies of brands that were notable in their response to the disruption of the past 12 months.

Marketing Through Volatility has been compiled using the WARC Rankings proprietary methodology.

Eight key takeaways

1. Urgency can create a space for innovation

The urgency to respond to the events of 2020 created a space for innovation for some brands, which pivoted their creative ideas while remaining highly recognisable.

2. Successful brands retain their authenticity through crisis

The most awarded brands have a strong sense of their brand, and they stay true to this in their messaging.

3. Bravery and risk-taking is often rewarded

The most awarded brands are commonly brave brands: brands that take risks and challenge category norms.

4. A strong brand purpose is sustained and consistent

2020 put a lens on the authenticity of brands and their overarching purpose. Many marketers are convinced that their consumers now prefer brands with a sustained, consistent purpose, applied across media.

5. There is opportunity in continued brand investment

Whilst there’s been a shift towards performance marketing over the past 12 months, evidence abounds that brands that continue to invest in brand-building through recessions see success.

6. Customer-centricity enables a rapid response to change

A focus on the customer has made it easier for brands to detect and respond to changes in consumer behaviour during and post-pandemic.

7. 2020 highlights the need for scenario planning and agility

The most awarded work of 2020 highlighted the benefits of scenario planning and being agile enough to pivot in the face of challenge.

8. Successful media strategies lie on a solid data bedrock

The need for solid first-party data strategies was accelerated by the pandemic, when the ability to target customers using connected and digital channels was paramount.

The full 2021 WARC Rankings  – Creative 100, Media 100, Effective 100  – will be released in November to allow the inclusion of a full set of show results, including those that were postponed or cancelled in 2020.

How Lifebuoy Vietnam navigated COVID-19

Soap brand Lifebuoy flourished in Vietnam due to the pandemic; the brand’s Ngọc Nhân Mai shares how it leveraged technology with an infection alert system that supports its brand mission.

Why it matters

Lifebuoy Vietnam’s real-time infection alert system was originally deployed to encourage consumers to use soap as part of their handwashing routine. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Lifebuoy became more than just a brand as its technology made a real impact on consumers’ lives with disease updates and health tips.

Takeaways

• Since 2019, the infection alert system has alerted 3.5 million mums every month and helped Lifebuoy grow by more than 20% in Vietnam.
• The demand for soap spiked during the pandemic and Lifebuoy’s penetration in urban areas rose from 20% to 35% in late 2019. 
• One of the lessons that Lifebuoy Vietnam has learned over the years is that brand awareness is always paired best with relevance.

Douyin fights loss of customer trust with crackdown vendors

China’s version of TikTok, Douyin, has promised a fresh attack on vendors that break its e-commerce rules amid fears the platform will lose customers because of a loss of trust.

Not yet a year old, Douyin E-commerce claims its business has already grown more than 12 times in terms of gross merchandise value, reports Caixin. But the ByteDance-owned platform, which is challenging the country’s e-commerce giants, Pinduoduo, JD.com and Alibaba, has been heavily criticized for the behaviour of some of the merchants selling through its platform.

The details

• Kang Zeyu, Douyin’s E-commerce head, told an e-commerce summit in Guangzhou the platform would crack down on a number of recurring problems, such as sellers faking sales figures, not making customer ratings clear, and selling fake goods.
• By the end of 2020, Douyin had discovered and “taken care of” 438,800 videos and 14,400 livestreaming sessions that broke its policies and rules, the company said. And 9,384 sellers had been removed for selling counterfeit goods.
• Kang also said that Douyin had deployed its own algorithms to gather data on customers in order to present targeted ads, describing the effects as “just like street shopping when people do not always know what they desire at first”.

Key quote

“We wouldn’t mind seeing the gross merchandise value of items sold on the platform decrease, but we have to step up regulation on retailers and their services through our platform.” Kang Zeyu, head of Douyin’s e-commerce unit. 

Sourced from Caixin 

Question marks over the future of corporate travel post-pandemic

Views on the long-term effects of the pandemic on business travel are mixed, but, in a clear signal that things may not return to the old normal, Virgin Atlantic’s boss has warned the industry faces big changes – and quite possibly permanent ones.

The airline is planning for a reduction in corporate travel of 20% over the next two years, compared to pre-pandemic levels, chief executive Shai Weiss tells the Financial Times. And, while he believes there will be a recovery, he questions whether business travel will ever make a total recovery.

The details

• Business travel makes up as much as 75% of revenue on some flights, according to PwC. While Weiss says he believes people are fed up with video conferencing tools like Zoom and Teams, Weiss says, airlines will inevitably feel the effects of the changes in the way people now work.
• One YouGov poll found 40% of those European business travellers surveyed said they would fly less often on business trips post pandemic. The chief executive of Star Alliance, the world’s biggest airline group, predicts a third of business trips will go; while others in the industry, such as Lufthansa and Delta, are much more upbeat about business passenger numbers picking up strongly once travel restrictions are lifted around the world.
• A surge in cargo flights has kept some 60% of Virgin Atlantic’s fleet in the air; but Weiss warns cargo alone will not be enough and that the threat to airlines from the loss of passenger traffic due to the pandemic will remain “existential” until passenger numbers pick up at scale.

Key quote

“Will business travel return in the same way? No, I don’t think so. But do I think there will be a return to business travel? Absolutely!” Shai Weiss, chief executive Virgin Atlantic. 

Sourced from the Financial Times

From start-up to global fashion brand – how Shein conquered the world

It may not yet be a household name yet, but few teenagers will not know the name of Chinese fast-fashion brand Shein.

Founded in 2008, Shein now has around 30 million Instagram followers and on TikTok #shein has amassed 6.2 billion views and appears in over 70 other trending hashtags. It recently emerged as US teens’ second-favourite e-commerce site after Amazon.

Shein is known for its vast offering of on-trend clothes at ultra-low prices. It also sells a wide range of other goods. It sells to 200 markets globally, and has doubled its sales over eight consecutive years, Jing Daily reported.

In 2020, sales were worth almost $20 billion. Its phenomenal growth is a study in a successful social media strategy.

The details

• While Shein works with big names, such as Katy Perry, Lil Nas X, Rita Ora, Hailey Bieber and Yara Shahidi, it mainly relies on social media marketing, encouraging fans globally to become affiliates, and allowing up-and-coming influencers to promote the brand and earn commissions.
• The result is a huge number of commission-earning influencers, ranging from those with massive followings, like Addison Rae (79.5 million on TikTok alone), to those with a mere 2,000 followers. In India alone, Shein reportedly worked with around 2,000 influencers when it launched in 2018.
• The brand’s biggest strength, though, is user-generated content on social – it appears in millions of so-called “clothing hauls”, or review videos, on TikTok and YouTube. Of the top 10 most-watched Shein videos, only two were sponsored by the brand.

Sound Bite

“Hauls are really advancing. As we’re starting to see them within TikTok and Reels videos, instead of having to watch a full 15- to 20-minute YouTube video, brands and influencers can demonstrate more looks within a shorter time period, and ultimately reach more potential customers.” Emily Trenouth, head of influencer marketing at MediaCom

Sourced from Jing Daily, WARC

Two in three adults prefer digital finance services

Two in three (66%) adults say they prefer digital platforms for services like mobile banking or online loan applications wherever it is possible to use them, according to a YouGov survey across 17 markets.

Why it matters

The coronavirus pandemic has made a 'no-contact lifestyle' more relevant, continuing a longer term digital shift in financial services. Brands have recognised this and advertising spend is following, with online investment from the financial services category doubling in value since 2017.

Takeaways

• This rises even higher to three in four adults in India (80%), Mexico (79%), Poland (78%) and Spain (77%) saying they prefer digital platforms.
• A majority (56%) of consumers also say they intend to avoid bank branches in future.

Sourced from YouGov, WARC Data

Senior players are the fastest growing segment of gamers

Think of a typical gamer and the chances are that Gen Z and millennials come to mind. But, in fact, new research shows the fastest-growing group of gamers is those aged 55 to 64, so-called OAGs, or Old-Aged Gamers.

This gaming group grew by 32% last year according to a study by market research company GWI, which surveyed 19,000 people across 15 key markets.

The details

• Younger audiences still love gaming, but a look behind the stereotypes shows a far more diverse gaming community than might be expected. Some 86% of all internet users played games in the second part of 2020 alone.
• A spike might seem unsurprising because of the pandemic, but a separate GWI study in October last year revealed only 2% of UK and US internet users had begun gaming since the start of the
• Gaming has become significantly more popular among grandparents and parents of children aged three-plus, indicating, say researchers, a new trend of gaming as a family-time activity.
• Socialising with friends was the most common reason for gameplaying, cited by 26% of players, ahead of escaping reality (22%), and immersion in storylines (18%).

Sound Bite

“Gaming has become its own form of social media. Gamers want to interact with one another and share their achievements and experiences. Having a social function within games also promotes a desire for inclusivity; gamers want to stand out among their fellow players.”  David Melia, VP Sports and Gaming at GWI 

Sourced from GWI

Google accused of boosting its own ad buying platform in antitrust suit

Google stands accused of using past bidding data from its digital ad exchange to advantage its own buying system over those of competitors, per newly available court documents.

The story is likely to supercharge the debate over whether the company’s effective control over much of the digital advertising ecosystem has allowed anticompetitive tactics.

Why it matters

Political and regulatory interest in Google’s control over ad-serving, ad-buying, and ad-exchange services has heated in recent years, with a raft of lawsuits launched in 2020 at federal and state levels. Texas’ particular case focusses on whether the company used its bidding data to artificially affect the prices advertisers would have to pay to place an ad in what the state alleges to be a kind of digital ad market insider trading.

Details

• Revealed during an antitrust lawsuit brought against the company in Texas last December, “Project Bernanke”, reported by the Wall Street Journal, the documents confirm prior reporting by the antitrust-focussed news firm MLex.
• Put simply, the Project Bernanke feature meant that unknown to ad publishers, Google could boost the likelihood of a Google Ads client win rates on Google ad exchange auctions.
• The documents point to a significant problem, given that over 90% of publishers use Google for ad sales. With exclusive information on what other ad buyers would be able to pay, a company would be able to gain an advantage, leading to publishers being paid less for winning bids.
• Google argues that using information in this way is appropriate and was “comparable to data maintained by other buying tools”. The company also invoked the findings of the CMA’s UK market study that found imbalances but not impropriety.
• Additionally, the document contains further details about an alleged secret deal between Google and Facebook back in 2018, in which the social network is said to have shelved a competitor technique to Google (Header Bidding) in return for bidding and winning a fixed percentage of ad auctions on Google’s platforms.

Sourced from the Wall Street Journal, WARC

Putting attention into context

As debate about the role of attention measurement in media intensifies, a new study calls for a greater consideration of context in campaign planning.

Research findings

• The report, by UK magazine trade body Magnetic and Lumen, measured ‘eyes-on’ attention to advertising on magazine websites.
• It found that advertising on magazine websites generate twice as much aggregate attention as other online environments.
• On mobile, 86% of people viewed ads on magazine content, as opposed to 66% on Facebook, and 62% for other types of quality digital display.

Why it matters

There are growing calls for attention – rather than viewability – to be used as a metric in media planning. When coupled with the deprecation of third-party cookies, this raises the importance of context and quality media environments.

Key quote

“If we put attention in [the] context of the cookie debate, the value of publisher environments is a real boon at a time when advertisers are looking for alternative solutions.” – Anna Sampson, Magnetic.

8% of direct mail items lead to a website visit

Direct mail can help drive digital action from consumers, with 8% of business mail and addressed mail causing the household to visit the sender's website. This is according to data from UK mail media industry body JICMAIL.

Why it matters

Advertising spend in direct mail has fallen for seven years in a row in the UK, with 2021 seeing a mild 0.1% increase. Brands may be under-investing in the medium, though, as direct mail is more effective than marketers perceive.

Takeaways

• Direct mail has seen growing levels of engagement as a result of coronavirus stay-at-home orders.
• Potential creative opportunities include pairing direct mail with personalised URLs and social activity.

Sourced from JICMAIL, WARC Data

Frasers unveils a department store for the future

As non-essential shops reopen today, Frasers Group is opening its first department store (although it prefers a different terminology) since acquiring House of Fraser in 2018.

As reported by Retail Week, Frasers – formerly known as Sports Direct – has taken 34,000 sq ft in the Mander Centre in Wolverhampton, with additional space for interconnected Flannels and Sports Direct stores.

Frasers’ retail vision

• Frasers claims the store format will “reignite the high street with a new-found optimism” by focusing on “experience, brands and service”. The company also describes the new format as a “lifestyle platform for brands”.
• This includes a new “beauty playground” that welcomes customers as they enter the store’s main entrance, with 120 beauty, tanning, hair, bath and body brands available along with independent advisers on hand to offer consultations.
• The store showcases major brands in the beauty, fashion, accessories and children’s wear categories, including famous names such as Estée Lauder, Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren.
• The group’s first-ever homewares section will enable customers to book appointments with expert interior designers.
• Central “zones” offer Frasers more flexibility to move with customer demand and showcase emerging brands. Based on sales, this could be done on an almost weekly basis.
• A first-floor restaurant will open in the summer when Covid-19 restrictions allow.

Key quote

“We are committed to raising the bar for retail and delivering aspirational stores with a focus on experience, brands and service. Frasers Wolverhampton demonstrates our dedication to, and our vision for, the brand’s future” – Michael Murray, head of elevation at Frasers Group.

_{[Image: JSP via Retail Week]}

Sourced from Retail Week

Three-fifths of Southeast Asians use social networks to learn more about brands and products

Social networks and search engines are the most popular sources used to find information about brands and products in Southeast Asia, according to survey data from target audience company GWI.

Why it matters

E-commerce has surged in the last year and people are increasingly comfortable completing purchases within social networks and brands have an opportunity to meet demand and drive awareness through shoppable media.

For partnership opportunities in Southeast Asia, collaboration between digital platforms, such as social networks, and businesses can offer cost-effective and technological advantages.

Takeaways

• Three-fifths (60%) of consumers use search engines to learn more about brands and products.
• Consumer reviews are also popular sources of information for half (48%) of Southeast Asians.

Sourced from the latest edition of the WARC Spotlight Southeast Asia series, which covers how brands in Southeast Asia can develop effective marketing partnerships for growth. The full series of articles is available here.

Senior Chinese consumers are digitally engaged

Older consumers in China present brands with significant business opportunities because they are becoming more tech-savvy and now embrace smart products and digital campaigns - . In other words, when it comes to digital offerings, China’s “silver” citizens have moved from being passive users to “active consumers”.

That is according to a new study by Wavemaker, the media agency network, and Nestlé Health Science. Entitled Embracing Spring of the Silver Economy, the findings are published by Campaign Asia.

Why it matters

The number of smart products and services designed for seniors tripled between 2018 and 2020, while in 2020 alone 1,908 start-ups set up in business to cater for older consumers. Wavemaker estimates that the annual spending of senior citizens from tier 1 to 3 cities in China is worth Rmb 6.64 trillion. And it is forecast there will be 300 million senior citizens in China by 2025.

Key findings

• The urban silver generation has become more confident and is investing more in personal appearances and skin management.
• They already use more diversified smart technology products, such as water purifiers (50%), air purifiers (39%), Bluetooth earphones (38%), tablets (36%) and cleaning robots (26%).
• They also use various apps to make their life easier, such as for online payment (71%), online shopping (59%), maps and navigation (51%), life services information (41%) and ride-hailing services (34%).
• Older Chinese consumers are also less worried about ageing and have more expectations for life after retirement.
• The market for senior citizens is still imbalanced with not enough supply; specifically, sectors like health, beauty and fashion, travel and financial services still need to provide exclusive products for silver consumers.

Sourced from Campaign Asia