Advertising best practice, evidence and insights

Article • WARC Best Practice, March 2020

Explores the current thinking and writing on the subject of customer-centricity, the ethos that places good service and customer-experience at the heart of a brand's strategy.

What we know about customer experience

Article • WARC Best Practice, June 2019

Explores how the way brands think about customer experience (CX) is changing as they compete hard for customers’ attention in an omni-channel world with more consumer touchpoints.

How to get customer feedback and what to do with it

Article • John Sills, WARC Best Practice, October 2018

Explores several strategies for companies wishing to utilise customer feedback, so they can make effective, ongoing improvements.

How to develop an effective customer experience strategy

Article • John Sills, WARC Best Practice, April 2018

Explores the importance of customer experience in creating long-term sustainable success for organisations and how to systematically deliver an experience that is valuable for the customer and the business.

Delivering effective digital customer experiences

Article • Jamie Brighton, WARC Best Practice, January 2018

Key tips on delivering effective digital customer experiences, an area of increasing importance as customers are putting less emphasis on the products they buy from brands and more on the experience they receive.

How to build an insight-led organisation

Article • Frank van den Driest, Steven Berkhout and Meghna Jain, WARC Best Practice, May 2017

This article examines ten drivers of successful customer-centric and insight-led organisations, with advice on how to optimise an insights strategy, and how to develop both organisational and individual insights capabilities.

How to develop a customer-centric organisation

Article • Jonathan Earle, WARC Best Practice, February 2017

This article explores how organisations can find new opportunities for business, and develop a stronger brand, by rallying around the needs and the data of consumers.

How to design a branded customer experience

Article • Stuart Crawford-Browne, WARC Best Practice, July 2016

This article considers best practices for not only providing consumers with products but with experiences that reflect the values, interests, and benefits of the brand in a way that is relevant and engaging.

Online clubbers drive booze sales in China

News • 07 April 2020

China may have recently had its lockdown lifted, but the stay-at-home message may well have long-term effects – and one phenomenon that’s likely to continue is the huge success of taking clubbing into the living room via livestreaming.

Behavioural economics: Habits, experiments and advertising creative

Article • Kate Waters, Richard Chataway and Owain Service, WARC Webinars, April 2020

Looks at how businesses and brands can become part of consumer habits or shift them from default biases or status quo decisions in their creative and content output.

COVID-19: Learnings from Australian and global trends

Research Paper • Daniel Bone, Research on WARC, March 2020

COVID-19 has brought into focus how the FMCG industry provides critical value on a daily basis for those in need of basic necessities.

Looking beyond the stars: A description of text mining technique to extract latent dimensions from online product reviews

Article • Frederik Situmeang, Nelleke de Boer and Austin Zhang, International Journal of Market Research, Vol. 62, No. 2, 2020, pp. 195-215

The purpose of this study is to contribute to the marketing literature and practice by describing a research methodology to identify latent dimensions of customer satisfaction in product reviews, and examining the relationship between these attributes and customer satisfaction.

Lululemon draws on core brand strengths in response to Coronavirus

Article • Stephen Whiteside, WARC Exclusive, March 2020

Lululemon, the athletic apparel manufacturer, is seeking to rely on its core brand strengths as it responds to the COVID-19 crisis.

Stimulating consumer community creation through a co-design approach

Article • Pia Storvang, Anders Haug and Bang Nguyen, International Journal of Market Research, Vol. 62, No. 2, 2020, pp. 176-194

Increased competition requires retail stores to increasingly focus on improving their customers' experiences.

Utilizing relative weight analysis in customer satisfaction research

Article • Michael S. Garver and Zachary Williams, International Journal of Market Research, Vol. 62, No. 2, 2020, pp. 158-175

For customer satisfaction researchers, key driver analysis is a common practice to understand what product and service attributes are most important in driving the overall customer experience, typically measured by overall satisfaction or the Net Promoter question.

Trend Snapshot: COVID-19 special – livestream commerce

Article • Alex Brownsell, WARC Trends, March 2020

Evaluates the potential of livestream commerce, already popular in China, to achieve mainstream adoption in Western markets during the COVID-19 crisis.

Nike’s four-step strategy to look beyond COVID-19 – and return to growth

Article • Stephen Whiteside, WARC Exclusive, March 2020

Nike, the sporting-goods manufacturer, has developed a clear playbook that is shaping its response to COVID-19 around the world.

How NPS can be more than just a recommendation

Article • Brian Carruthers, Event Reports, Qual360 Europe, February 2020

Net Promoter Score is used by many companies as a way of measuring their customer experience, but few make use of all the data collected.

Marketing under duress: How Toys “R” Us Canada emerged from the shadow of bankruptcy

Article • Geoffrey Precourt, Event Reports, DX3, March 2020

Toys “R” Us Canada faced the challenge of re-engaging consumers after separating from its previous parent company, which had entered into bankruptcy.

Four ways hard-hit retailers can overcome the coronavirus crisis

Article • Low Lai Chow, Event Reports

From handbags to hand sanitisers, the coronavirus impact on retail is challenging.

Will low-cost brands be more resilient against COVID-19? The case from Spirit Airlines

Article • Stephen Whiteside, WARC Exclusive, March 2020

Spirit Airlines, the air carrier, believes that its low-cost business model could be a benefit at a time of crisis, such as the spread of COVID-19.

General Motors’ CMO calls for the “return of the human beings” to marketing

Article • Reed Karaim, Event Reports, IAB Annual Leadership Meeting, February 2020

General Motors, the automaker, is aiming to blend digital data with a human-focused strategy in reaching consumers.

Why brands need to escape the inside-out perspective

News • 28 February 2020

Market research is often more focused on what matters to the business than what matters to the customer – and therein lies a major problem for many businesses that profess to be customer-led, according to an industry figure.

Accenture Interactive report – Unleash your marketplace superpower: Manufacturers and the new retail experience

Article • WARC Exclusive, February 2020

This report from Accenture Interactive analyzes how manufacturers can reinvent their approach indigital marketplaces.

How to deliver compelling shopper experiences without chasing people around the internet

Article • Andrew Hill, WARC Exclusive, February 2020

Andrew Hill, APAC client director at Edge by Ascential, makes the argument for reallocating attention to other parts of the shopper journey - such as working with retailers on optimising the product page.

Customer centricity & CX