Advertising best practice, evidence and insights

Article • WARC Best Practice, September 2020

This article explores the current sources informing how brands and agencies can use cultural insight, the ideas, customs and behaviour of particular people.

What we know about bricolage and semiotics

Article • WARC Best Practice, September 2020

Summarises the insights from key papers on the topic of bricolage (how different materials are used in the creative process of understanding) and semiotics (the study of signs and symbols) – techniques used by qualitative researchers to deliver cultural insight.

The future of marketing to womxn

Article • Research on WARC, September 2020

Brings together fresh new qualitative research, quantitative data and A/B testing from communities to better understand what Gen Z womxn want from to see from brands.

Why brands need a different approach to online communities

News • 18/09/2020

Emerging platforms are creating new dynamics in the way people interact with and influence each other, and consume and distribute content, consequently impacting how brands should approach online communities.

Harpic: Overcoming India's Toilet Divide

Case Study • Jitender Dabas, Kush Anand, WARC Prize for Asian Strategy, Shortlisted, 2020

Toilet-cleaner brand Harpic used a multi-channel campaign to encourage behaviour change and unlock demand for the brand in rural India.

Fortis Hospitals: Honor the Donor

Case Study • Saumya Tyagi, Ankit Singh, WARC Prize for Asian Strategy, Shortlisted, 2020

Fortis, the chain of hospitals, launched the first ever organ donor symbol to tackle the cultural taboo against organ donation in India.

Pantene: Break-Up Salon

Case Study • Owen Smith, WARC Prize for Asian Strategy, Shortlisted, 2020

Hair care brand Pantene leveraged China's Singles' Day shopping event to get consumers' attention with their Breakup Salon brand experience.

The new shape of online communities

Article • Florencia Lujani, WARC Exclusive, September 2020

The way people interact and influence each other online, and the way they consume and distribute content, are bringing new challenges for brands interested in creating communities with business impact.

PLAY NZ: How to gamify a country and playfully disrupt tourism marketing

Article • Matthew Moran, WARC Exclusive, September 2020

TBWA’s Matthew Moran offers a walkthrough of Tourism New Zealand’s PLAY NZ campaign and explores how tourism marketing can embrace new ways of storytelling.

Game-on: How brands can unlock the potential of gaming in Asia

Article • Michael Fegan and Jamie Lewin, WARC Exclusive, September 2020

Best practice advice for brands exploring gaming and esports as a marketing channel in Asia.

The Campbell Soup Co.’s recipe for meaningful brand purpose

News • 02/09/2020

The Campbell Soup Co., the food manufacturer, is mixing a series of “non-negotiable” principles that apply throughout its operations with brand-specific strategies as it develops purpose-driven efforts.

The priming effect of competitor product information on advertising creativity

Article • Mark Brown, Roop Bhadury, Nitin Bansal, Ellen Bloxsome, International Journal of Market Research, Vol. 63, No. 5, 2020, pp. 633-648

This article examines the manner in which advertising creativity may be influenced by "near" primes in the form of competitor product information that is presented at the briefing stage of engagement with a client.

Campbell Soup Co.’s CEO: Brands can help drive social change

Article • Geoffrey Precourt, WARC Exclusive, September 2020

The Campbell Soup Co, the food manufacturer, is seeking to embody values such as authenticity and transparency as it responds to the imperative push for social change.

Postmodernism, ethnicity, and celebrity culture in women’s symbolic consumption

Article • Ayantunji Gbadamosi, International Journal of Market Research, Vol. 63, No. 5, 2020, pp. 561-577

Although postmodernism and celebrity culture are closely linked, research attention on this has not been adequately synthesized with ethnic minority groups.

Rise of Chinese retailers offers blueprint for post-COVID retail in APAC

News • 27/08/2020

Asia-Pacific will remain the retail industry’s growth engine in the post-corona world, but retailers will need to make investment and changes in several areas to keep pace with changing consumer demands, according to a new Bain & Company report ...

Representation of Asians in advertising images still lacking

News • 26/08/2020

More needs to be done to capture and represent Asian culture in advertising images, with consumers expecting companies to do a better job of capturing people’s true lifestyles and cultures, according to a study from Getty Images and YouGov.

Avoiding myths and winning with the English language first (ELF) Hispanic cohort

Article • Maria Twena, WARC Exclusive, August 2020

Examines how marketers can reach the bilingual, bicultural English Language First (ELF) Hispanic market in the US.

Balenciaga feels the heat in China

News • 13/08/2020

Luxury fashion brand Balenciaga has faced a tidal wave of criticism in China over promotional pictures of products it has created for the Qixi festival, but some observers suggest people are too ready to find fault with western brands.

How Bevel builds an authentic grooming brand for Black men

News • 12/08/2020

Bevel, a grooming brand made by Walker & Co. to address the personal-care needs of Black men, has built equity with its target audience through a focus on authenticity, passion and purpose.

Content-led marketing strategies are more effective than ever for brands

News • 11/08/2020

During lockdowns there has been a voracious appetite for good content; a new WARC report shows how a well thought-out content strategy can pay off for brands.

2020 Content Strategy Report: Insights from the WARC Awards

Article • WARC Exclusive, August 2020

Analysing trends in content strategies with lessons for marketers drawn from the 'Effective Content Strategy' category of the 2020 WARC Awards.

Donner Sang Compter: Blood Unity

Article • AME Awards, AME Awards, Platinum, 2020

Donner Sang Compter, a brand that links potential blood donors with patients, innovated an outdated and irrelevant sect-driven ritual in Islam and made it relevant to modern day to encourage blood donations in Lebanon.

McDonald’s breaks with history to march boldly in support of Black Lives Matter movement

Article • Geoffrey Precourt, Event Reports, ANAAgile Marketing in the New Normal, July 2020

McDonald’s, the quick-service restaurant chain, became a high-profile supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement with a series of commercials that spread authentic, powerful messages.

Bevel grooming products stand up to specific needs of Black male consumers

Article • Geoffrey Precourt, Event Reports, ANA Brand Building Conference, July 2020

Bevel, the grooming brand made by Walker & Co., successfully tapped into a gap in the market when it came to meeting the distinct personal-care needs of Black men.

Staying in the middle or avoiding extremes? A test of the effect of rating scale length in advertising research with Chinese consumers

Article • Cong Li, Gunwoo Yoon, and John Petit, International Journal of Market Research, Vol. 63, No. 4, 2020, pp. 418-431

Given the rapid growth of many Asian economies in recent years, Asian advertising research is attracting increasing attention.

Cultural insight