warc branding case study

Lessons from WARC 2018: WARC reveals brand purpose strategy trends for effective marketing

Based on an analysis of the winners of the Effective Use of Brand Purpose category of this year’s international WARC Awards, a global search for next-generation marketing effectiveness, the report identifies common themes from marketing initiatives that have successfully embraced a brand purpose and achieved commercial success as well as a benefit for a wider community.

Says jury chair, Claudia Willvonseder, chief marketing officer, IKEA: “In 2018 so far, I have heard ‘purpose’ being discussed more often than ‘positioning’ in marketing circles. I expect that, in the future, this year will be seen as the tipping point when purpose went mainstream.

“Purpose, product and profit have a symbiotic relationship: they work together. There are more than enough studies now available that show how strong, purposeful brands enjoy positive results, not just in terms of profit, but also in terms of positive impact on the world.”

Following WARC’s analysis of the metadata of the entries, together with an entrants’ survey and contributions from the esteemed judging panel, four key themes have been identified around the Effective Use of Brand Purpose:

Purpose needs participation

Some of the top-performing initiatives were designed with people’s participation in mind, including Grand Prix-winner Bodyform/Libresse, which increased its share of voice in the feminine hygiene sector through having its message amplified by a vocal community supporting the brand’s boldness.

Says judge Jo Arden, chief strategy office, MullenLowe Group UK: “The intersection of purpose and participation is a powerful one which has been under-explored. There is a new mood in purpose-driven communications which is more confident, committed and clear-sighted.”

Exercise caution with ’empowerment’ campaigns

While campaigns that endeavour to ’empower’ women are undoubtedly prompted by the very best intentions, this route is now becoming well-trodden and differentiation is a challenge. Many judges agreed that female empowerment campaigns are now becoming so common that, in the words of Govind Pandey, CEO, TBWA\India: “Every brand is now trying to do something for women – they all blend into each other.”

Winning campaigns that took a more original approach included Microsoft’s #MakeWhatsNext in STEM, a plea for US high-school girls to stick with STEM subjects, and Grand Prix-winner Bodyform/Libresse with its #bloodnormal campaign.

Purpose that demonstrates dual impact

Purpose marketing is still under attack from many quarters of the industry, so case studies that could demonstrate ‘dual impact’ – a clear commercial benefit as well as a societal benefit – are crucial in proving that brand purpose is a sustainable business strategy.

“A purpose-led brand should benefit society in a way that is also of commercial benefit to the business,” says judge Dan Izbicki, Founder, Ethos. Winning papers that demonstrated this dual impact included Heineken-owned beer Tecate in Mexico, which grew its brand value and substantially increased calls to an NGO helping victims of domestic abuse.

TV is a popular channel choice for purpose

The reach and capacity for emotion offered by TV is still crucial in establishing purposeful campaigns. As judge Jem Fawcus, owner and group CEO, Firefish comments: “purpose-led campaigns from brands including Guinness in the UK and Vaseline in the US used TV to pack an emotional punch and, incidentally, listed ’emotion’ as their main creative strategy.”

While online video and social media played important supporting roles in the media mix, there was no denying that TV remains the preferred channel for brands looking to establish a purposeful position.

A sample of WARC’s Effective Use of Brand Purpose Report 2018 can be downloaded here . The full report is available to WARC subscribers and includes chapter analysis with views and opinions from the judges, as well as summaries – objectives, insights, strategies, results and takeaways – of the winning case studies.

Now in their third year, the WARC Awards 2019 are open for entries. The deadline for submissions is 19 February 2019. Free to enter, there is a $40,000 prize fund for the winning papers. View here for more information.

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WARC reveals insights from the 2022 Cannes Lions Creative Effectiveness winners

4 august 2022.

Consumer participation, a step-change in brand purpose, tech partnerships and agile solutions for new media habits lead to commercial success

4 August 2022 – WARC, the global authority on marketing effectiveness, has today released a report identifying trends and themes common to the award-winning campaigns of this year’s Cannes Creative Effectiveness Lions , which celebrate the measurable impact of creativity.

On the importance of rewarding creative effectiveness, this year’s jury president Raja Rajamannar, Chief Marketing & Communications Officer, Mastercard , commented: “Marketing as a discipline is living an existential crisis: it’s losing its credibility, its gravitas, its stature. CEOs and CFOs are perceiving marketing to be fluffy; they have very little confidence in their marketing teams being able to drive business growth.

"With some companies even disposing of CMO roles, the marketing function is getting fragmented. This is why it’s important to focus on creative effectiveness: proving marketing’s impact and ROI for businesses will bring it back to the C-suite table and give it the gravitas and stature that it deserves"

Commenting on the report, Chiara Manco, Commissioning Editor, Case Studies, WARC, says: “Findings in this study are critical to understanding how marketers are driving business performance. We’ve analysed data from all the entries, interviewed jurors and spoken to winners to unearth insights into how the creative has led to demonstrable results."

The four key themes highlighted in “Insights from the 2022 Cannes Creative Effectiveness Lions winners” are:

1. Tapping into fans supercharges creative ideas

Fan-first approaches can drive engagement with specific fandoms while being the starting point of mass-reach campaigns. Cheetos, Michelob and McDonald’s explored the potential of engaging fans, which is reflected in an increase in ‘participation’ as a creative strategy this year.

Jury member Jennifer ‘JJ’ Healan, VP, US Marketing, Brand, Content and Engagement, McDonald’s , said: “Fan truths’ were key to unlocking our brand voice. They help us show McDonald’s through the eyes of a fan and are now at the heart of all our creative strategies.”

2. Ecosystems for change are brands’ new growth engine

As the discourse around purpose evolves, there is a new focus on long-term platforms able to deliver business growth while tackling systemic issues. Renault and Three created ecosystems to show their products in action, and Michelob transformed its supply chain to help farmers transition to organic.

Jury member Patricia McDonald, Global Chief Strategy Officer, Dentsu Creative , commented: “We’ve seen a clear shift from effective campaigns to platforms and ecosystems for growth. Brands are not just raising awareness of an issue, but really making a difference and accelerating business growth through good.”

3. TV returns to fuel visually arresting creative

With lockdowns leading to shifts in media consumption, TV became a trusted companion for at-home audiences. Data shows TV was the lead media for 47% of the shortlist, and winners used it for powerful visual executions.

Michelle Morgan, Strategy Director and Dan Eckrote, Strategy Managing Director at Mindshare New York , the media agency behind Dove’s Gold winning campaign Courage is Beautiful said: “We strategically amplified our message via COVID-related TV programming. Additionally, we leveraged placement within news programming, which aligned with consumers’ increased viewership of networks such as CNN and MSNBC… With this work we showed how you can creatively tap into mass-reaching channels for a laser-focused strategy.”

4. Brands explore AI-driven creativity

Be it to repair fractions in society or for entertainment reasons, winners experimented with creative AI applications. For Michelob and the Canadian Down Syndrome Society, partnering with a tech giant was key to the success of the initiative. Reflecting this trend, partnerships rose in popularity this year: 40% of shortlisted campaigns used partnerships, up from just 1% last year.

Jury member Rosie Collins, Head of Strategy, BBH London , said: “In their applications of AI, brands were trying to stretch beyond driving their own business impact: they were actually investing in new approaches that other brands could also replicate. There was a real generosity emerging in the work.”

Summing up, WARC’s Chiara Manco added: “Uniting all of this year’s winners is ‘evolution’. A forward-facing attitude and willingness to embrace change and transformation. From shifts within the media landscape to technology applications and approaches to purpose, winners adapted and evolved to take new challenges head-on.”

Included in the “Insights from the 2022 Creative Effectiveness Lions winners” report are:

• Top tips for effectiveness entries, including judges’ advice to future entrants and best practice examples.
• In-depth exploration of the themes, including expert commentary, behind-the-scenes features and infographics.
• A neuroscientific analysis of the winners to uncover the inner workings of creative effectiveness.
• Summaries of winning case studies including results, takeaways and judges’ comments.
• Data analysis covering campaign objectives, creative strategies, media mix, hard and soft metrics, budgets and durations.

A sample of the report can be downloaded here. The full report is available to WARC Creative and WARC Strategy subscribers .

Tune in for a WARC Cannes Creative Effectiveness podcast , to be released at the end of August, featuring the strategists behind two of the winning entries.

The Creative Effectiveness Ladder

A guide to maximising creative effectiveness.

How can we, as an industry, become more consistently successful at highly effective creative marketing? Cannes Lions and WARC sought to understand how our global community could better share what they have learned about effectiveness, for the sake of continuous creative improvement. This is our answer.

Introducing the Creative Effectiveness Ladder

The Ladder unlocks a shared language for people in the business of creativity who aim higher. It’s a way for the industry to identify the very best work and understand how to utilise creativity to drive specific marketing outcomes. Cannes Lions and WARC's vision is that marketers will turn their version of the Ladder into a critical, continuous tool for improvement - adopting the framework and making it their own.

The WARC Awards for Effectiveness

The WARC Awards for Effectiveness in association with LIONS, are a worldwide competition that integrates the Creative Effectiveness Ladder and promises feedback from judges to all shortlisted entrants and winners across the six categories. Papers will be accepted from 15 February until 01 April. The six shortlists will be announced in May and the winners will be announced at Cannes Lions in June.

Download the Creative Effectiveness toolkit

Download the white paper and a ‘how to’ guide for each level of the Ladder.

Dig into the metrics and case studies that show us best practice at each level. Learn how and why they’ve worked.

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WARC Asian Strategy Report: Staying relevant amidst changing tides

The WARC Asian Strategy Report features insights and themes from the winners of the 2022 WARC Awards for Asian Strategy, an annual case study competition showcasing the best strategic thinking from the region’s marketing industry.

This year’s entries showcase the different ways that brands are changing their strategies to remain relevant amidst a post-pandemic landscape, and the changing tides of consumer behaviour and the media landscape it accelerated in its wake. 

From campaigns that had to rebuild value perceptions for e-commerce shoppers to taking the non-advertising route to win over Gen Z consumers, the overarching theme of this year’s submissions is clear: to keep up, brands must change tactics. The report includes

• 5 themes: Go local or go home, Experimenting with Gen Z, Bringing omnichannel into marketing, Sustaining relevance, and Sustainability on the rise
• Judges' insights into the winning work
• A behind-the-scenes look at this year’s Grand Prix winner
• Summaries of winning case studies
• Supplementary best practices from WARC Sustainability Hub and Regional Spotlights. 

Complete the form and get free access to a sample of the report.

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WARC’s summary of trends and themes for effective media strategies

Media strategy report 2020 – insights from the warc media awards.

Following an analysis of the shortlisted and winning entries across the four categories – Effective Channel Integration, Effective Use of Tech, Effective Use of Partnerships and Sponsorships, and Best Use of Data – the key insights are:

1. Influencers are becoming a more trusted component in the media mix. Brands are turning to micro influencers in particular, combining their followers to achieve further reach. The collective clout of credible influencers and what they can bring to the mix is increasing: brands are expected to spend $10bn globally on influencer marketing in 2020, according to Mediakix. What’s more, as many people across the globe are now based entirely at home, there’s been the emergence of what the Financial Times has dubbed the ‘lockdown celebrity’, influencers in relevant areas such as fitness, education and food preparation.

2. AI is being deployed in different ways that show off its range and flexibility. Artificial Intelligence has progressed beyond being a bolt-on or a gimmick designed to generate PR, and instead is at the core of transformational ideas that are firmly rooted in commercial objectives. Data is key to encouraging behaviour change.

Among this year’s winners were three stand-out uses of AI: a wicket predictor that enhanced the viewing experience of cricket fans in Australia, a hands-free smart speaker to help new parents in China and a video-insertion tool to embed ads within a popular Hong Kong sitcom.

3. Brands are exploring innovative angles and approaches when leveraging passion points such as sport and music. Audiences are receptive to original ways that brands choose to engage with them. Connecting with people through their passion points can be a useful way to hit the right target audience at a time when they are already highly engaged.

Yet effectiveness remains a tricky area. Sport is a popular passion point, though many marketers admit to being uncertain about its effectiveness: $666bn is invested annually in sports sponsorship, yet in a recent Kantar study, 44% of marketers admitted that it was one of their least understood channels in terms of ROI.

Other areas which were popular among the winning papers included gaming, cycling and running. This year, of course, sponsorship will also bear huge losses because of COVID-19.

4. A combination of innovative and creative touchpoints can cut through and engage with audiences at all points throughout the customer journey. Approaching touchpoints in a lateral way that considers the customer journey beyond traditional media can be a highly effective way to capture attention.

Among this year’s winners were several brands that found highly original and engaging touchpoints to communicate their message more powerfully: for its World Without Walls campaign, Middle Eastern children clothes retailer Babyshop invested in a song, a children’s book and immersive in-store experiences. Chocolate bar Oh Henry! targeted a new audience by using macro-influencers married with a pop-up store; and no-frills New Zealand telco Skinny, wrapped convenience stores in Skinny branding.

“We hope that the insights outlined in our Media Strategy Report 2020 will provide some guidance to media planners and strategists during these unprecedented times.”

The report, available to WARC subscribers on warc.com , includes an exploration of the four themes, summaries of the winning case studies, data and infographics, as well as key takeaways and what these mean for brands, media owners and agencies.

The WARC Media Awards examine the insight, strategy and analytics that power effective media investment. They are free to enter and there is a $40,000 prize fund for the top winning papers. Case studies are welcomed from any territory or discipline. The WARC Media Awards 2021 will launch in early May and close in late September.

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Case Study | How to Create the Perfect E-Commerce Site

• Brian Baskin

Key insights

• A website should accomplish two goals: tell a brand’s story, and sell its products. It's often difficult to strike this balance given the constraints of the e-commerce format and conflicting visions within companies.
• The homepage remains the ideal place for storytelling, but most visitors now come in through the product page, where they expect to find appealing imagery and easily accessible information on sizing, shipping and other key details.
• Recommendations and personalisation can help to drive sales and shape customers’ understanding of a brand. Different parts of a website can be tailored according to broad consumer segments or even individual shoppers.

A brand’s website needs to perform one of retail’s most delicate balancing acts. Ideally, it should tell a brand’s story and simultaneously maximise e-commerce revenue with a convenient and intuitive product-discovery and checkout process.

In reality, brands rarely manage to accomplish both of those missions. Often, fashion e-commerce sites lean too heavily in one direction or the other: Lush graphics, videos and immersive storytelling might captivate and inspire one customer while alienating another who wants to quickly find and purchase a dress to wear to their sister’s wedding. Swing too far in the other direction and brands risk limiting their digital homes to Amazon-style online experiences with little in the way of personality.

“The website very much does need to tell the brand story and to bring people into the world of the brand,” said Tammy Smulders, chief executive at Trends&Culture, a creative agency that has designed websites or apps for Bottega Veneta, Off-White, Ganni and other companies. “But at the same time, for most brands, the website is their single biggest store.”

To further muddy the waters, where brands once viewed their site as the centre of their online world, today they are far more likely to make their deepest connections with consumers on social media. Rather than being where customers start to learn about a label, the site is now the end of their journey through a brand’s universe — a journey that ideally ends with a sale.

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Meanwhile, the commerce side of the website has become more and more central. Shoppers frequently arrive at brands’ and retailers’ sites through side doors, like Google searches and social media, that take them directly to product pages. Perhaps one in five site visitors actually type a brand’s URL into their browser, Smulders said (though she added that for a buzzy, well-known label the share could be as high as 50 percent). For many customers, the product page may be their first or only impression of the brand, and where a rising share of consumers decide whether or not to make a purchase.

In the US, 38 percent of apparel sales took place online in 2023, up from 27 percent in 2019, according to Euromonitor. That figure is even higher in parts of Asia.

Yet despite the critical importance of a brand’s website, many companies are still failing to provide shoppers with the best experience. Baymard Institute, a research and consulting firm specialising in web design, found that 94 percent of e-commerce sites fall short in at least one of five key areas, such as search and navigating product pages. Those remaining 6 percent can’t rest on their laurels; today’s best practices when it comes to both aesthetics and the user experience start to look “dusty” within three years, and require a total overhaul within five, Smulders said.

This case study will break down the two site missions — storytelling and commerce — into their components and explore how an organisation can achieve success on each front, focusing on the customer journey up until checkout (for more on that crucial last element, please see BoF’s December 2022 case study, “ How to Take the Friction Out of Commerce ”).

For insight, The Business of Fashion consulted leading web design and branding experts who have worked with companies in every corner of the industry, from fast fashion to luxury, apparel, accessories and even beauty. This report will also example how one company, J.Crew, approaches fundamental elements of its website, including discovery and the all-important product page.

Brian Baskin is Executive Editor at The Business of Fashion. He is based in New York and oversees BoF's beauty, retail, direct-to-consumer, technology, marketing and workplace verticals.

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