Advertising best practice, evidence and insights

Article • WARC Best Practice, May 2019

Provides an overview of the complex topic of brand positioning, a marketing strategy that aims to make a brand occupy a distinct position, relative to competitor brands, in the mind of the consumer.

Greenhouse by Wells Fargo: An “endorsed brand” that mixes historic equity with startup energy

Article • Stephen Whiteside, Event Reports, Money 20/20, October 2019

Greenhouse by Wells Fargo, a financial-services offering centered around a mobile app, has based its approach on using digital tech to solve long-term consumer painpoints.

Taking a global brand local in Asia: Samsung’s Head of Corporate Marketing SEA, Olivier Bockenmeyer

Opinion • Gabey Goh, November 2019

This interview is part of the Marketer’s Toolkit 2020. Download the summary report here .

How Britvic turned around a ‘supertanker brand’

News • 15 November 2019

Britvic, the soft drinks company, took drastic steps to address a decline in sales and penetration at Robinsons, its leading dilutes brand.

Why Greggs is about more than sausage rolls

News • 13 November 2019

News that Greggs has lifted its profits forecast for the fourth time this year highlights the success of the transformation of the Newcastle-headquartered bakery chain that has been taking place over the past five years.

Why Greggs is on a (vegan) roll

Article • Brian Carruthers, Event Reports, Festival of Marketing, October 2019

Looks at how UK bakery chain Greggs has reinvented itself as major player in the food-on-the-go sector.

Why Monday nights are Fruit Cordial nights for Robinsons

Article • Brian Carruthers, Event Reports, Festival of Marketing, October 2019

Looks at how Robinsons, the dilutes brand, successfully repositioned itself to attract older consumers.

What Moxy can teach the wider Marriott stable

News • 29 October 2019

Moxy, the youth-oriented hotel brand, is committed to “living its truth” and in doing so has helped owner Marriott International understand the power of position – and the power of a voice – to create meaningful differentiation in the marketplace.

Moxy builds a hotel brand for a next-generation traveler

Article • Stephen Whiteside, Event Reports, Youth Marketing Summit New York, September 2019

Moxy, the hotel brand, is carving our a distinct niche in a category that can often be defined by undifferentiated experiences.

What we know about premiumisation

Article • WARC Best Practice, October 2019

Looks at the many different ways to execute premiumisation and how offerings need to pay attention to the details of product, packaging and messaging to satisfy premium consumer expectations.

How to create a compelling brand purpose

Article • Matt Carcieri, WARC Best Practice, October 2019

This article provides best practices for defining a brand purpose.

How e.l.f. re-engaged with consumers

News • 02 October 2019

The cosmetics brand drove numerous core brand metrics through a campaign that used a playful tone to engage with consumers, and featured almost 200 different assets.

How beauty brand e.l.f. tripled its growth rate through a refreshed marketing strategy

Article • Stephen Whiteside, Event Reports, Advertising Week New York, September 2019

Beauty brand e.l.f. had seen revenues decline and was closing several retail stores, but decided to boost its expenditure on brand building, with impressive results.

Poh Heng sidesteps the age trap with emotions

News • 30 July 2019

Poh Heng Jewellery has tapped into the emotions of different age groups to ensure it stays relevant for each new generation of Singaporeans amidst changing preferences and digitally disrupted channels of engagement.

How Singapore’s Poh Heng balances legacy and modernity in pursuit of longevity

Article • Gabey Goh, WARC Exclusive, July 2019

Poh Heng, the Singaporean jewellery brand, is mixing its storied history with a fresh perspective to retain relevance with consumers.

Does brand purpose really serve a brand purpose?

Article • Dr. Darren Coleman, WARC Exclusive, July 2019

Offers an alternative perspective and questions whether brand purpose serves a brand purpose.

How to grow via premiumisation

Opinion • Lena Roland, July 2019

This month’s Admap looks at how brands can grow via premiumisation. Having a premium offer within the portfolio is an important way for brands to drive sales growth and to engage with a wider range of consumers.

Why it’s hard to reposition a brand

Article • Peter Matthews, Admap, July 2019

Looks at how technology players, such as Amazon, have particularly impacted middle-market brands that often have not invested sufficiently to understand their customers.

Premiumisation strategy as a way to grow

Article • John Dawes, Magda Nenycz-Thiel, Charles Graham and Bruce McColl, Admap, July 2019

Explores the myths of premiumisation, adding evidence to the topic by identifying the appropriate growth strategy, as well as how to manage pricing and price promotions for the premium offer.

Direct Line Group sees value of brand investment

News • 11 June 2019

The UK insurance sector is often seen as being driven primarily by price, especially since the advent of price comparison websites, but a bold experiment by Direct Line Group suggests this is not necessarily the case.

Marketing lesson: The differentiation and distinctiveness debate

Article • Paul Dervan, WARC Best Practice, June 2019

Discusses the differentiation and distinctiveness debate, arguing that differentiation may not be necessary to be successful.

Lidl and Direct Line Group show how brand investment lifts long-term sales

Article • Jo Bowman, WARC Exclusive, Lessons from the WARC Rankings, May 2019

Examples from two brands showing how directing marketing investment towards brand building rather than activation built sales over the long-term.

Forum: A brand’s eye view of correspondence analysis

Article • Jake Hoare and Tim Bock, International Journal of Market Research, Vol. 61, No. 1, 2019, pp. 12-21

Correspondence analysis is widely used to create brand maps, which show the positioning of brands with respect to perceptual attributes.

How brands can bridge the ‘experience gap’

Article • Brian Carruthers, Event Reports, The Future of Brands, February 2019

Details ways in which brands can address the gap between the experience marketers think they are delivering and the one that consumers are actually receiving.

The risk of no comms strategy: A Huawei story

News • 22 February 2019

A continued inability to adopt a consistent communications strategy has seen the Chinese technology giant, Huawei, become extremely susceptible to political headwinds, while also leaving it unable to respond.

Brand positioning