Advertising best practice, evidence and insights

Article • WARC Best Practice, December 2018

Summarises the insights from a series of key papers on engagement – broadly speaking, eliciting feelings and emotion from consumers – although it is difficult to define precisely due to the ever-changing social and technological context in which marketers are trying to achieve and measure it.

What we know about dwell time

Article • WARC Best Practice, November 2018

Provides guidance and information on a much discussed and increasingly relevant topic of dwell time, or the length of a user's exposure to content.

MMA: How three “growth stacks” now define successful marketing organizations

Article • Geoffrey Precourt, Event Reports, MMA Impact: Build the future, March 2019

Research funded by the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) has highlighted three core pillars of marketing, or “stacks”, for brands to consider.

How to use audio to build rapport and drive action

Article • Brooke Hemphill, Event Reports, Mumbrella Audioland, May 2019

By optimising their creative approach, brands can improve the effectiveness of audio ad campaigns.

Turn of the century: Lessons in winning traction with TV campaigns

Opinion • Aaron Goldman, May 2019

British Airways and Tesco have produced two of the UK’s best performing TV ad campaigns of the year to date.

Hear and now – how situational relevance can bolster radio ad effectiveness

Article • Mark Barber and Heather Andrew, Admap, June 2019

Reveals insights and findings from Radiocentre and Neuro-Insight's research into the effects of editorial context on radio advertising effectivness.

The impact of airing Super Bowl television ads early on social media: Benefits and drivers of watching, liking, and sharing advertisements on social media

Research Paper • Jennifer Lee Burton, Kristen M. Mueller, Jan Gollins, and Danielle M. Walls, Journal of Advertising Research, Digital First, May 2019

Every year, executives debate whether to release their Super Bowl advertisements early on social media or whether this early release will hurt the surprise and impact of being seen for the first time during the most viewed televised sporting event in the United States.

How the Financial Times shows the value of membership

News • 21 May 2019

Following the news that the Financial Times, the business newspaper title, has gained one million subscribers, the wider publishing industry is now witnessing the power that an engagement-focused membership model now holds and assessing where else ...

How measuring engagement gained the Financial Times 1 million subscribers

Article • Brian Carruthers, Event Reports, The Digital Transformation Conference, May 2019

The Financial Times has successfully built a digital subscription business around driving engagement.

How CNN is tapping digital data

Article • Stephen Whiteside, Event Reports, SXSW Interactive, March 2019

CNN, the news brand, is tapping the power of digital data to help it make smarter choices and better serve its audience.

Cinema ‘turbocharges’ channel planning in combination with TV and online media

Article • Alex Brownsell, WARC Exclusive, April 2019

MESH Experience, the market research company, presented new research into cinema media in a WARC Webinar alongside National CineMedia and Screenvision Media.

Cinema as a superhero medium

Article • Fiona Blades, Doug Pulick and Sarah Barasch, WARC Webinars, March 2019

Fiona Blades, president and chief experience officer at MESH Experience, Doug Pulick, SVP of research at National CineMedia and Sarah Barasch, SVP of insights and measurement at Screenvision Media, analyse how cinema compares to all other touchpoints.

Cutting the cord that engages us: strategies for re-engaging audiences amid the decline of ad-supported TV

Article • Engagement Labs, Research on WARC, March 2019

The decline of ad-supported television is driving down audience engagement with brands – but there are solutions available for smart marketers.

Strategies for Creating Successful Soundless Video Advertisements: Speaking Volumes through Silence

Article • Colin Campbell and Erin Pearson, Journal of Advertising Research, Vol. 59, No. 1, 2019, pp. 85-98

Video advertising is increasingly prevalent, appearing in more and more places across the web and on social media.

The Interactive Ad Effect: CTAs in Mobile Video Shoppable Ads

Research Paper • IAB, October, 2018

Exploring shoppable mobile video ads and how consumers in the US interacted with them, focusing on video-based interactive ads in a mobile web environment with the goal of understanding what initial calls to action work best.

Digital Video Viewers and Brand Connection

Research Paper • IAB, April, 2018

IAB Video Center conducted a primary consumer research study to gain a deeper understanding of digital video viewers and their connection with direct brands in the US, which found that:

Advertising repetition: How it impacts emotions, cognitions and ultimately increases purchase intention

Research Paper • Jennifer L. Burton, Jan Gollins, Linda McNeely and Danielle Wallis, Admap, March 2019

Examines the link between advertising repetition and consumers’ purchase intentions, calling into question current advertising practices that suggest that anything more than 10 exposures is excessive.

Why three exposures may be enough

Article • Herbert E. Krugman, Journal of Advertising Research, Vol. 12, No. 6, 1972, pp. 11-14

This article argues that two or three exposures to an ad are much more important than a single or multitude of exposures.

Verizon Media ‘reinvents’ native ads with a new approach to measurement

Article • Alex Brownsell, Event Reports, The Big Bang, February 2019

Native ads offer an effective alternative to banner ads, which most consumers now routinely ignore if they aren’t actively blocking them.

The power of everyday influencers in driving business outcomes

Article • Ed Keller, Brad Fay and Matt Dodd, Admap, February 2019

Highlights the opportunity for marketers to cultivate strategies that would put the power of everydayinfluencers to work on their behalf.

The Higgs boson of creative effectiveness

Article • Orlando Wood, WARC Webinars, January 2019

Orlando Wood, chief innovation officer at System 1 Group, shares how brands can predict the market share growth associated with advertising over the long-term.

Marketers using wrong measures to judge content campaigns

News • 09 January 2019

Marketers appear to be confusing metrics when it comes to measuring the success of content campaigns, new research has concluded.

Get your sequencing right

News • 07 January 2019

If marketers apply the right sequencing to a campaign involving out-of-home media and including editorial elements, advertisers can expect to see a significant boost in effectiveness, research has shown.

How content and sequencing boost out-of-home effectiveness

Article • Brooke Hemphill, Event Reports, Mumbrella MSIX, November 2018

New research indicates that smart content and optimal sequencing can significantly boost the effectiveness of out-of-home campaigns by more than 30%.

Look beyond reach for video ads

News • 12 December 2018

As the popularity of video explodes across Asia, video advertising is growing fast too – but marketers need to look beyond simple reach and consider whether viewers are emotionally engaged, an industry figure has warned.

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