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Methodology and about

About WARC Rankings

WARC Rankings are the ultimate benchmark for marketing. They celebrate excellence in creativity, media and effectiveness.

In an industry that sometimes struggles to defend its place in the C-suite, the Rankings offer an opportunity for marketers to reflect on the best campaigns in the business and to review the impact their own work has on their brands. The benchmarks and insights garnered from the WARC Rankings are at the core of our brand promise: to bring confidence to marketing decisions through evidence-based insight and inspiration.

We combine the winners' lists from the industry’s most important global and regional awards shows to establish the annual worldwide league tables for the advertising industry. We offer the following rankings:

WARC Creative 100 The world's most awarded campaigns and companies for creativity based on performance in creative awards.

WARC Media 100 The world's best media ideas, based on their performance in media awards shows.

WARC Effective 100 The world's most awarded campaigns and companies for effectiveness based on performance in strategy and effectiveness awards.

The WARC Rankings are created with the industry, for the industry, so we collaborate with marketers at all levels across agencies and brands, to ensure the Rankings remain relevant.

Methodology: Outlined

The three-step methodology we use to compile the WARC Rankings for creativity, media and effectiveness is:

1. Select the right shows and weight them

To determine the most prestigious and rigorous shows, we annually survey industry executives and consult with the C-Suite across advertising and media agencies, and brands.

Shows are then weighted between 1 and 5 based on a number of factors, including:

  • The relative standing of the show from the results from our research.
  • The level of competition. For example, a global show will tend to be weighted higher than a regional show, and an ‘integrated’ category will be weighted higher than a niche category.
2. Assign the points

Points are assigned to the campaigns and companies behind them, determined by level of the award: Grand Prix (10), Gold (6), Silver (4), Bronze (2).

3. Calculate the scores

Campaigns, agencies and brands which are credited in the published winners lists, accumulate points using: award points x weighting. E.g. a Grand Prix winner in an integrated category at a show rated 5 will score 50 points.

Caps apply to the accumulation of these points in order to level the playing field across the different sized shows. Please see the individual ranking methodologies for detail of these caps, and for a more detail on each, via the links below:

Creative 100
Media 100
Effective 100

Note: ownership structures of agencies and brands reflect the situation in March 2022; this may differ from the approach to ownership of individual award shows.

The WARC Rankings 2023 Advisory Board

Made up of industry leaders from advertising agencies, media agencies, consultancies and brands, the WARC Rankings Advisory Board provides expert opinion and independent guidance ensuring the WARC Rankings remain current, relevant and service the needs of the marketing communications industry.

WARC Rankings Advisory Board

The WARC Rankings Advisory Board members 2023 are:

  • Agathe Guerrier, Global Chief Strategy Officer, TBWA\Worldwide
  • Alex Schill, Global Chief Creative Officer & Partner, Serviceplan
  • Ari Weiss, Global Chief Creative Officer, DDB Worldwide
  • Bas Korsten, Global Chief Creative Officer, Wunderman Thompson
  • Brent Nelsen, Global Chief Innovation & Strategy Officer and Co-Chair, Edelman
  • Bruno Bertelli, Global Chief Creative Officer, Publicis Groupe
  • Chaka Sobhani, Global Chief Creative Officer, Leo Burnett Worldwide
  • Chris Stephenson, Worldwide CMO, PHD Worldwide
  • Chrissie Hanson, Global Chief Strategy Officer, OMD Worldwide
  • Esther (ET) Franklin, Global Chief Strategy Officer, Spark Foundry
  • Greg Brooks, Global Chief Marketing & Culture Officer, Mindshare
  • Greg James, Global Chief Strategy Officer, Havas Media
  • Guy Melzack, Global Communications Director & Awards Director, MediaCom
  • Harjot Singh, Global Chief Strategy Officer, McCann Worldgroup
  • Jean Lin, Executive Officer, Dentsu Group
  • Jose Miguel Sokoloff, President of MullenLowe Group Creative Council & Chief Creative Officer, MullenLowe Group UK
  • Lauren LaFranz, Executive Director, Global Creative Operations, VMLY&R
  • Liz Taylor, Global Chief Creative Officer, Ogilvy
  • Malcolm Poynton, Global Chief Creative Officer, Cheil Worldwide
  • Rob Reilly, Global Chief Creative Officer, WPP
  • Stephane Xiberras, President and Chief Creative Officer of BETC Paris & Head of Global Creative Council, Havas
  • Susan Credle, Global Chair & Global Chief Creative Officer, FCB Global

History

The WARC Rankings subsumed The Gunn Report in 2019. The Gunn Report was founded by Donald Gunn in 1999, after a career of more than 30 years at Leo Burnett where he was latterly Director of Creative Resources Worldwide.

Existing Gunn Report subscribers will have access to the WARC Rankings and the historic Gunn Report case studies as part of their current subscription. The previous Gunn Report website is also still available at archive.gunnreport.com.