Advertising best practice, evidence and insights

What we know about social listening and real time research

Article • WARC Best Practice, December 2019

Summarises knowledge and offers guidance and reading on social listening and real time research, the process of gathering data from audience conversations across social media platforms and processing into structured insights.

What we know about mobile research

Article • WARC Best Practice, December 2019

This paper summarises knowledge and offers guidance and reading on mobile research, encompassing both the methodological use of mobile devices and technologies in the research process, and the research of consumer mobile habits.

What we know about online communities

Article • WARC Best Practice, March 2019

Explores how online communities have emerged as an alternative to online panel research, being an effective way of interacting with and sourcing customer insight.

How to gain insight from social listening

Article • Will McInnes, WARC Best Practice, July 2017

This article provides a best practice guide to social media listening – the process of capturing mentions of brands on the internet – and how marketers can better understand and respond to their audiences’ feelings and sentiments.

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, Vol. 59, No. 4, 2019, pp. 391-401

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 brands can use dark social in their marketing campaigns

Article • Stefano Maggi, WARC Exclusive, December 2019

While social media analytics are easily trackable, a huge amount of sharing traffic is ‘dark’ and shared person to person.

How Black Swan predicts the future for PepsiCo, Unilever, and Danone

News • 03 December 2019

Whether attempting to capitalise on a short-term fad, or redirect investment toward a long-term trend, a startup has developed a technique to find the signals in vast quantities of unstructured social data that claims 90% accuracy at a six-month ...

The University of Warwick: Helping businesses improve productivity through better mental health practices in the workplace

Case Study • MRS Awards, Finalist, MRS Award for Business-to-Business Research, 2019

The University of Warwick, a university in the UK, developed its mental wellbeing audit to help employers listen to their employees and give them relevant insights to help accelerate change.

Barclays UK: Customer Experience research programme

Case Study • MRS Awards, Finalist, MRS Award for Insight Management, 2019

Barclays UK, a banking brand, built upon its existing customer experience research platform to revolutionise the insights it provides through customer feedback dashboards in the UK.

PwC: The Future of Government

Case Study • MRS Awards, Finalist, MRS Award for Public Policy/Social Research, 2019

PwC, a multinational professional services network, launched the Future of Government project, an ambitious effort to ask serious questions about what kind of a society we want Britain to be.

Bayer: The Patient Empathy Workshop

Case Study • MRS Awards, Finalist, MRS Award for Healthcare Research, 2019

Bayer, a pharmaceutical company, increased understanding of chronic pain sufferers in the UK by launching a Virtual Reality study and a Patient Empathy Workshop.

Unilever: PDC Comparative Language Analyser

Case Study • MRS Awards, Winner, MRS Award for New Consumer Insights, 2019

Unilever, a consumer goods company, created a language analyser which used machine learning to analyse the language of various consumers in the UK to gain evidenced insights for informing demographic-dependent brand strategies.

Formula 1: Creating a near-real-time picture of the scale and context of F1 fan response

Case Study • MRS Awards, Finalist, MRS Award for Innovation in Data Analytics, 2019

Formula 1, the highest class of single-seater auto racing, developed a robot that created a near-real-time picture of the scale and context of fan activity in the UK, which the brand used to uncover what excites fans most about F1.

How Twinings infused a new kids’ drink with real-life needs and parents’ expertise: New consumer insights delivering commercial success and health benefits for kids

Case Study • MRS Awards, Finalist, MRS Award for New Consumer Insights, 2019

Twinings, a tea brand, created an agile and innovative research project that delivered one of the most successful new drinks concepts ever tested – while ultimately aiming to make children healthier in the UK.

BBC World Service: Fake News – Addressing the global disinformation problem

Case Study • MRS Awards, Winner, MRS Award for International Research, 2019

BBC World Service, an international broadcaster, delivered ground-breaking research that continues to play a key role in addressing the global disinformation problem of fake news.

Thinkbox: Understand TV’s place in the transforming video world

Case Study • MRS Awards, Finalist, MRS Award for Media Research, 2019

Thinkbox, the marketing body for the main UK commercial TV broadcasters, launched a combined primary and secondary data study to help marketers understand evolving viewer habits.

WWF: Enhanced brand reputation study using AI image analysis

Case Study • MRS Awards, Finalist, MRS Award for New Consumer Insights, 2019

WWF, a non-governmental organisation for wilderness protection, used AI image analysis across social media to understand consumer attitudes towards the brand in the UK.

How Aldi made saving feel amazing

Case Study • Case Studies on WARC, 2019

Aldi, the budget supermarket, grew its penetration in the face of resurgent price cutting from its competitors in the UK.

Black Swan: How one startup finds signals of the future in the digital noise

Article • Sam Peña-Taylor, WARC Exclusive, November 2019

British startup Black Swan analyses massive amounts of social data to identify trends with as much as a 90% prediction accuracy.

Clear: Shopper Pulse

Case Study • Abhishek Gupta, Kitty Faustino, Michael Alegre, Carlos Corrales, Martha Gonzalez, WARC Media Awards, Entrant, Best Use of Data, 2019

Unilever-owned dandruff shampoo Clear ran a data-led mobile campaign to carve out market share in the Philippines.

Booking.com: Data-proofed social campaign

Case Study • Camille Lin, Linda Qin, Doris Xu, Nicholas Short, WARC Media Awards, Bronze, Best Use of Data, 2019

As a newcomer in China, Booking.com sought to build strong audience connections in what is a fiercely competitive online travel industry.

OMO: Express it, don't text it

Case Study • Uyen Nguyen Diep, Soumya Ranjan Panda, WARC Media Awards, Shortlisted, Best Use of Data, 2019

Laundry brand Omo launched a one-day, data-driven digital and social execution to build relevance for a new product variant on Mother's Day in Vietnam.

Pond's X Maudy Ayunda

Case Study • Avitasya Febryani, Fadila Hafsah, Mikhal Anindita, WARC Media Awards, Entrant, Best Use of Data, 2019

Skincare brand Pond's took a precision-marketing approach to support an influencer partnership, in a bid to revamp its image to halt declining market share among young women in Indonesia.

Wall's: Gold Spirit

Case Study • Apoorva Shetty, Sumeet Parab, Larry Asalim, WARC Media Awards, Shortlisted, Effective Use of Partnerships and Sponsorships, 2019

Ice-cream brand Wall's created a multimedia campaign around its sponsorship of the national team, to drive visibility and sales during the Asian Games in Indonesia.

Clear Men: Data Driven Emotion Mapping

Case Study • Soumya Ranjan Panda, Ha Tran, WARC Media Awards, Entrant, Best Use of Data, 2019

Shampoo brand Clear Men conducted a TV, digital and out-of-home campaign, #BeYourOwnChampion, built around the 2018 FIFA World Cup, to connect with men in Vietnam.

Online & mobile research