The Marketer’s Toolkit: what marketers need to know to succeed in 2023 

Ninety-five percent of marketers globally expect to be affected by economic recession, according to a survey for WARC’s Marketer’s Toolkit 2023, an annual report that identifies the most important market trends that marketers should focus on to help drive their business in the year ahead. 

Context 

End-of-pandemic optimism at the start of 2022 faded quickly as the war in Ukraine turned the world on its head. The invasion has had a transformative impact on energy prices, inflation and the cost of living around the world. The IMF is forecasting the weakest growth in twenty years, except for the global financial crisis and the worst phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Five themes for 2023

The following key themes emerged from WARC’s survey of 1,700 marketers worldwide for The Marketer’s Toolkit: Global Trends Report:

1. Marketing in a cost of living crisis: While almost all marketers are concerned about the impact of the economic crisis, more respondents are planning to increase spend than last year, across both brand and performance. However, 36% are planning to cut marketing investment, despite evidence from prior downturns suggesting they should maintain spending levels.
2. Price vs. planet: a false dichotomy: 37% of represented companies expect to continue with their sustainability objectives despite the economic situation, while 35% foresee only “some small compromises.” Brands are also challenging the idea that eco-credentials necessarily result in price increases, with examples of local sourcing and use of the circular economy potentially lowering costs.
3. A reckoning for Big Tech: The majority of advertisers (62%) agree that a range of changing market dynamics are forcing strategic shifts from the tech giants, and respondents concerned about the dominance of the ‘duopoly’ have halved over the past two years. More respondents plan to decrease investment in Facebook than increase it for the first time in six years, which suggests that brands are resetting their relationships with Big Tech.
4. The clash of demand, delivery and disruption: Supply chain disruptions are expected to hit brands in 2023, but not evenly. Sixty percent of marketers anticipate non-trivial supply chain disruptions, but just 26% expect they will be significant or severe. This rises to one in three amongst European respondents. And 52% felt challenger brands would be the hardest hit, as they struggle for profitability. Marketers have an important role to play in managing and minimizing supply chain disruption
5. The era of ‘bubble up’ culture: Media and audience fragmentation was the second biggest concern in our survey, with 34% of respondents picking it. Among North American respondents, it was the highest ranked. Two-thirds of marketers expect to focus more on platforms that allow them to stitch together interest-based communities to create reach in a fragmented media world. Other channels with deeply embedded communities such as gaming and influencers/social media content are also set to attract more investment from advertisers next year.

A sample version of the global report featuring the first chapter, is available to read here.

The full series, available to WARC subscribers, will include the following reports:

• The Future of Digital Commerce (launching December 2022)

• The Future of Media Report (launching January 2023)

• The China Toolkit (launching January 2023)

The reports will be complemented by a series of podcasts. 

Why TikTok's huge US data investment matters

TikTok’s CEO made a rare appearance in New York this week to explain the platform’s “Project Texas” – a migration of physical data centers to a cloud infrastructure administered by a US company – at a time of significant pressure on the company to better protect user data. 

Why it matters

Owned by ByteDance, headquartered in Beijing, questions about how user data passes through TikTok have whirled for years. US authorities and legislatures have voiced concerns – and even calls for an outright ban – because of the potential for American data to flow to a geopolitical rival.

TikTok’s popularity among users is well documented. Meta’s internal research indicates that TikTok clocks up 10x the watch time of Instagram’s Reels product. But TikTok is under increasing pressure to explain its data processes in order to protect its business.

Talking to corporate America 

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew took to the stage at The New York Times DealBook conference, with his comments detailed in The Verge. Though he spent much of the interview talking up the benefits of community, the interesting part concerned questions about possible Chinese government interference.

“We are ahead of the curve on data localization,” explained Chew, as he divulged further details about Project Texas. As part of the project, TikTok will migrate US user data out of Singapore and Virginia and to an Oracle-run cloud infrastructure, where only a team of US residents will have access.

Chew explained that it’s “expensive to build” and challenging to execute. These comments build on the CEO’s June letter to Republican senators, in which he sought to answer questions raised by a Buzzfeed News story reporting that some China-based employees had access to US user data.

“The broad goal for Project Texas is to help build trust with users and key stakeholders by improving our systems and controls, but it is also to make substantive progress toward compliance with a final agreement with the U.S. Government that will fully safeguard user data and U.S. national security interests,” Chew wrote at the time. 

Sourced from The Verge, TikTok, WARC

WARC Awards for MENA Strategy 2022 – shortlist announced

A total of 12 campaigns for a variety of product categories and markets have been shortlisted for the WARC Awards for MENA Strategy 2022, a search for the best strategic marketing thinking that has driven results in the Middle East and North Africa.

Local brands, such as Jibnet Abu Al Walad, Barakat, Saudi Telecom and The National, are included alongside global brands such as adidas, Castrol and Hilton

Havas Middle East, Dubai, leads with five entries shortlisted. Wunderman Thompson, Riyadh, follows with three. TBWA\RAAD, Dubai, has two; and FP7 McCann, Cairo, and VMLY&R, Dubai, each have one shortlisted campaign.

The jury panel of ten leading industry experts chaired by Lianne Braganza, Chief Marketing Officer, Middle East and Africa of Cigna, have shortlisted the following campaigns: 

• Waitographer · Hilton · TBWA\RAAD, Dubai
• Ending Virginity Tests · M.A.L.I. · TBWA\RAAD, Dubai
• Meet Sarha · Saudi Telecom Company · Wunderman Thompson, Riyadh
• The Unexpected Route · Saudi Telecom Company · Wunderman Thompson, Riyadh
• Blast to the Past · Hungerstation · Wunderman Thompson, Riyadh
• Every Story has a Beginning · Palm Hills Developments · FP7 McCann Cairo
• Castrol’s Portraits of Glory · Castrol · VMLY&R, Dubai
• The Ghaf Tree · The National · Havas Middle East, Dubai
• The Original Taste · Jibnet Abu Al Walad · Havas Middle East, Dubai
• Liquid Billboard · adidas · Havas Middle East, Dubai
• Read the Label · Barakat · Havas Middle East, Dubai
• I’m Possible UGC Billboards · adidas · Havas Middle East, Dubai

The winners of the Grand Prix, Gold, Silver and Bronze accolades will be announced in January 2023. 

The WARC Awards for MENA Strategy are part of a suite of WARC Awards, which also include the global WARC Awards for Effectiveness, the WARC Awards for Effectiveness North America and the WARC Awards for Asian Strategy. 

More information about the 6th WARC Awards for MENA Strategy and the shortlisted entries is available here.

To creativity and beyond

Current industry definitions of creativity are too narrow, according to research from the European Association of Communications Agencies (EACA).

CROSSING THE CHASM: How True Creativity Enables Great Leaps in Effectiveness* offers up four new definitions of creativity that have inspired commercially effective campaigns, based on the analysis of Effie Awards Europe winners from 2009 to 2022.

Why it matters

Creativity is a vital ingredient in driving marketing effectiveness but, paradoxically, the definition of creativity has tended to be tightly defined. This research quantifies four new useful definitions of types of creativity that drive effectiveness in different ways. 

Four new definitions of creativity 

1. Persuasive Creativity: rational, informational and persuasion-driven, creating clear value add for brands and strong short-term sales effects.
2. Fame-Building Creativity: a broad reach, emotional, memorable and social approach that drives penetration, efficiently.
3. Experiential Creativity: a digital-first and tech-driven building of brand ecosystems, engaging people at the right time, in the right place, in new ways. With the benefits of driving share of wallet and value sales.
4. Market-Building Creativity: a more profound approach creating new behaviours, activating new audiences, and forming new occasions. The most impactful in the long term with the greatest effect on profit.

*Crossing The Chasm is a white paper by EACA and Effie Awards Europe, produced in collaboration with The Effectiveness Partnership.