The latest content highlights on warc.com feature a critical theme for 2013 - innovation - and come courtesy of a special Admap focus. This will make great reading for anyone entering the Warc Prize for Innovation. We also start the New Year with a range of pieces sizing up the trends and challenges that lie ahead.
To receive content updates like this by monthly email, visit: Your Warc > Email Alerts.
Innovation
In a short space of time, technology and economics have driven innovation from an aspirational add-on to an imperative for business survival, let alone success. The latest issue of Admap makes a timely examination of innovation in its many guises.
Learn to innovate from start-ups (open access) describes Wieden+Kennedy's Portland Incubator Experiment, a collaboration with new business ventures that offers the agency and its clients valuable lessons.
Pervasive creativity introduces a term developed by another agency, Ogilvy and Mather, to outline how creative innovation needs an environment that awakens the creativity of everyone in an organisation.
Beyond product innovation argues that it’s not all about NPD – a reworking of existing products, or their communication, promotion or packaging, can be a lower-risk, effective strategy.
Disruptive innovation, however, maintains that agencies need to go beyond incremental tweaks to communications and outlines a series of opportunities ranging from client briefs to products.
Other articles from Admap include the grocery shelf wars being waged in European supermarkets, the growth of repertoire shopping in China and the importance of culture mapping if brands are to resonate with consumers.
Browse the full issue at warc.com/admap.
All of this will make good reading for anyone wishing to enter the 2013 Warc Prize for Innovation, which is looking to award $10,000 for the best case study demonstrating innovation in communications.
Entry is free and open to campaigns involving any country, communications discipline, sector or budget. For full details, including free content to inspire your thinking, visit warc.com/prize.
Trends for 2013
Warc will soon be launching its 2013 Toolkit, designed to help brands respond to this year’s biggest marketing challenges. In the meantime, we have a selection of other new pieces that size up the issues and tasks of the coming 12 months.
10 trends in 2013 sees The Futures Company’s J Walker Smith outline an eclectic range of issues, from the growth of ‘Robin Hood’ activisim and the rise of 'Nordicool', to recession-weary young people adopting an entrepreneurial spirit.
In the similarly-titled 10 trends for 2013, Dan Calladine of Aegis Media presents a more tech- and media-centric list of priorities, including online to offline, digital scarcity, targeting and new currencies.
Finally, in 2013 and beyond, MediaCom's Joseph Chan presents the five media trends demanding marketers’ attention, including fragmentation, personalisation and emotional currency.
Admap Prize 2013
The Admap Prize 2013, inspired by KANTAR, is seeking thought-leading essays on the question: Can brands maximize profits and be a force for social good?
The winning entrant will receive a $5,000 cash prize. For further details visit warc.com/AdmapPrize2013 – but hurry, entry closes at the end of the month.
Next Generation Research
Just a handful of places still remain for Warc's Next Generation Research conference (London, 17 January), sponsored by Research Now in association with Google Consumer Surveys.
For a taster of what’s to come, watch a video interview with decode marketing’s Phil Barden, as well as other speaker interviews with EMI and Brainjuicer.
If you can’t make the event, you can watch Google Consumer Surveys' presentation via a live stream at 11.45am on the day itself (you'll need a Google+ account).
MAP 2013
Warc's Measuring Advertising Performance conference (London, 12-13 March) will focus on the commercial application of both core and new-wave measurement techniques.
Confirmed speakers include Mondelez International, Drinkaware, MediaCom, NeuroStrata, Thinkbox and many more.
Book by this Friday (11 January) to save £200/ €260/ $320. Additional discounts apply for Warc subscribers.
