WARC 100

LESSONS FROMTHE WORLD’SBEST CAMPAIGNS

© Copyright Warc 2015. All rights reserved.

SAMPLE VERSION

© Copyright Warc 2015. All rights reserved.2 VIEW THE WARC 100

SCALE MATTERS

Campaigns from the Warc 100 – the best in the world, as judged in effectiveness and strategy competitions – tend to be ‘bigger’ than the ‘average’ campaign. They tend to have higher budgets, use more channels, with a longer duration. It is harder for short-term, low-budget activity to deliver breakthrough results.

DIGITAL-LED MODELS CAN BE EFFECTIVE

Campaigns using social media, earned media and online video prominently in the mix are over-represented in the Warc 100 case study set. This finding points to the emergence of alternative strategic models that use digital to deliver scale effectively and at low cost – – however, this remains a difficult feat to achieve.

TRADITIONAL CREATIVE APPROACHES STILL WORK

Emotion and storytelling overindexed as creative approaches among Warc 100 case studies. These ‘evergreen’ forms of creativity remain powerful marketing tools, regardless of the channel through which they are delivered.

THE BEST WORK DELIVERS ON A RANGE OF METRICS

Given that Warc 100 cases have led the field in effectiveness competitions, it is no surprise that they tend to list more success metrics than the total pool of case studies on Warc. It is clear, however, that ‘hard’ business results make a bigger difference than ‘soft’ intermediate results. The best campaigns appear to apply a broad range of KPIs in order to track success.

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Four ideas to take from this report

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Executive Summary

This report analyses the world’s best mar-keting campaigns to uncover shared cre-ative, media and measurement strategies

Its basis is the Warc 100, an annual ranking of campaigns based on their performance in 87 effectiveness and strategy awards from around the world. These campaigns have been judged to be the best of the best in terms of their impact on a client’s business.

At the same time, Warc publishes hundreds of effectiveness and strategy case studies from all over the world – it is the world’s larg-est database of marketing ideas that work.

The purpose of this analysis is to see whether the very best campaigns (those from the Warc 100) stand out from the rest of the case studies in Warc’s database in any mean-ingful way. In short: is there anything market-ers and their agencies can learn from the best campaigns in the world?

The Best vs The RestThe core of this report is a comparative data analysis, measuring Warc 100 campaigns against all of the other cases published by Warc in the same year. Criteria for compari-son include media channels used, campaign duration and budget, metrics measured and

the geographic origin of each case study. From this analysis, several trends and themes have emerged.

Generally, we found that scale matters: the ‘bigger’ the campaign, the more likely it is to win big at effectiveness and strategy awards, and get ranked on the Warc 100.

There is an over-representation for big-budget campaigns that run longer than three months in the Warc 100. These highly-awarded campaigns also tend to employ a wider variety of media touchpoints. It could be argued that campaigns need sufficient scale to deliver breakthrough results.

However, the analysis of the media used by Warc 100 campaigns reveals another trend. Social media and earned media are particularly prominent in the mix, suggesting that cost-effective digital channels are being increasingly used as a solution for spread-

ContentsExecutive Summary

1. The Best vs The Rest• The media mix• Creative approaches• Hard metrics• Soft metrics

2. Anatomy of a winner: The world’s top-ranked campaign

“We collect metadata from

Warc 100 case studies, and

compare them to all of the

other cases we published

that year

© Copyright Warc 2015. All rights reserved.4 VIEW THE WARC 100

Executive Summary

Warc 100 campaigns, when compared to the rest. Campaigns that aim to engage the view-er’s emotions, and storytelling-driven creative, are both strongly over-represented within the Warc 100. This suggests that, while successful campaigns innovate in their media choices, the ‘traditional’ brand-building narrative and emotion-driven approach still works.

Meanwhile, when it comes to measuring effectiveness, tracking and reporting on a broad variety of metrics seems to be a key way of winning awards.

Warc 100 case studies tend to report a

Case study summaries discussing Warc 100-ranked campaigns from brands including Hindustan Unilever, Foster’s and Dove are included in the full report

ing the word about a campaign. At the same time, while there is a tendency towards big-budget and long-duration work on the Warc 100, cases with a budget of zero, that there-fore depend entirely on earned media, are also over-represented.

This reflects the emergence of strategic models that build large-scale ‘buzz’ around relatively small-scale activity. However, this is a difficult feat to achieve, and low-budget work generally underperforms in the analysis.

Separately, there also appears to be a divergence in the creative approaches of

greater number of both hard and soft met-rics, compared to the rest. The divergence between the Warc 100 and the rest is particu-larly wide for hard metrics, suggesting that the best campaigns set a range of commer-cial KPIs to make sure they are succeeding.

Anatomy of a winnerThere is no single ‘right’ way to achieve suc-cess. Each marketing campaign has its own cultural context and strategic challenges.

This is demonstrated by ‘Kan Khajura Tesan’, a campaign from Unilever in India

© Copyright Warc 2015. All rights reserved.5 VIEW THE WARC 100

Executive Summary

Notes on the data analysis

In 2014, Warc published 75 case studies from campaigns ranked in the Warc 100, plus 660 other case studies. In 2015, Warc published 89 Warc 100 cases, and 839 other cases. These case study sets are the basis of our comparative analysis.

Unless otherwise stated, all bars on charts appearing over the following pages are expressed as a percentage of this total. For example, if 45 of the 89 cases measured for the Warc 100 use a certain creative approach, the bar appears at 50% within the chart.

Bars in charts may not add up to 100% for three reasons.• For clarity, many of the charts display only

selected criteria.• Some cases will have been assigned multiple

creative approaches, media channels, and so on.

• Other cases might not have all of the meta-data included, missing details of campaign duration, budgets and so on.

Unless otherwise stated, all of the following charts refer to the latest (2015) set of Warc 100 data.

“Great case studies are not

created in a vacuum. Com-

panies wishing to create

highly-awarded campaigns

need an ‘effective culture’

that took the number one spot in the 2015 Warc 100, which provided a unique strategic solution based on its specific cultural context.

The campaign involved the creation of a feature phone-based channel that reached ‘media dark’ audiences in rural India with entertainment content and ads.

For those that worked on the campaign, Kan Khajura Tesan provides a standout example of “frugal innovation”. The team worked from a very tight brief to deliver a completely new solution.

They also developed a clear, simple cre-ative strategy, optimised the entertainment channel in real time, and measured big increases in brand awareness for Unilever.

Views from the C-SuiteGreat case studies like ‘Kan Khajura Tesan’, and all of the other case studies in the Warc

100, are not created in a vacuum. Companies wishing to create highly-awarded campaigns need to have an ‘effective culture’.

That’s a major argument from a series of interviews we conducted earlier this year with a panel of CEOs and Chief Strategy Officers.

For these agency network executives, get-ting the talent mix within the agency right, whether from hiring, retention or acquisition, is a major driver behind delivering results for clients. And, as many marketing companies have international offices and a global reach, making sure this company culture extends across borders is also key.

Showcasing successful campaigns, both to clients and awards juries, also matters. Prac-tical tips for agency people wanting to win at these awards include:• Document everything you do during the

campaign, as material for the case study;• When writing the case, pass your story to

others to make sure it’s compelling;• Make sure you tie your results back to the

campaign;• Keep a human insight at the core of the

case study.And, with enough award wins, it’s likely that a campaign that follows these tips will be ranked on a future Warc 100.

© Copyright Warc 2015. All rights reserved.6 VIEW THE WARC 100

Views from the C-SuiteWhy the Warc 100 matters

“The Warc 100 is one of the most respected metrics when it comes to awards.”

Carter Murray, CEO, FCB

“It’s confirmation of what we’re doing, which is disruption as a strategy, which will then drive results.” Troy Ruhanen, CEO, TBWA Worldwide

“It’s a meaningful thing for us. It’s great proof that creativity can have an impact on the marketplace.”

Stuart Hazlewood, CSO, DDB NY

“To be in the Warc 100 is a thrill, an honour and a privilege. It proves our mantra of ‘we sell or else’.”

Lou Aversano, CEO, Ogilvy New York

“We aim to win it every year. The best proxy we have for measuring our performance is these awards.”

Andrew Robertson, CEO, BBDO

“When we are ranked top five on something like this, it tells us that our push for effectiveness is working.”

Suzanne Powers, CSO, McCann

MORE FROM THE PANEL: VIEW VIDEO

© Copyright Warc 2015. All rights reserved.7

1. The Best vs The Rest

The core of this report is a comparative data analysis,

measuring Warc 100 case studies.

We have collected the metadata from all of the Warc 100

case studies we have published for the 2014 and 2015 rank-

ings, and compare the data to all of the other case studies

we published on the equivalent year.

SAMPLE VERSION

© Copyright Warc 2015. All rights reserved.8 VIEW THE WARC 100

The media mix Social media is the most-used overall

• Warc 100 cases use more channels over-all, with 7.4 on average against 6.5 for the rest of the cases. This suggests that using a broader range of touchpoints can pay off.

• While the variety of media channels available to today’s marketers makes the overall picture complex, there is a clear tendency towards social media in both the overall case set (71% of the total) and within the smaller set of top-awarded Warc 100 cases (76%).

• A major over-performer in individual channels used is for online video, employed by 61% of Warc 100 cam-paigns, but just 43% of the rest.

• TV is consistently in the mix in both the overall case study set and the Warc 100 cases (46% and 43% respectively).

• Otherwise, there is anoverperformance for earned media and outdoor as chan-nels in the Warc 100 vs the norm.

MOST-USED MEDIA CHANNELS ‘IN THE MIX’

AVERAGE NUMBER OF CHANNELS USED

Number of channels used per campaign, 2015

71%

43%

76%

61%

37% 37%

55%

49% 47%48%

32%

46% 46%43%

28%

42%

32%37%

25%

36%33%

31%

24%28%

Social media

Online video

Earned media

Public relations

Micro-sites

Out-of-home

TV Word of mouth

Online display

Events/experien-

tial

Mobile Newspa-pers

Overall

Warc 100

Warc 100

Overall 6.5

7.4

© Copyright Warc 2015. All rights reserved.9 VIEW THE WARC 100

Creative approaches Emotion and storytelling remain effective

• Emotional, storytelling and humourous creative approaches are consistently more likely to be used in Warc 100 cases. than in the others. This can be seen both in the 2014 and 2015 data.

• Indeed, emotion was the second most-popular creative approach in the latest year’s Warc 100 data, compared to fourth most popular for the rest.

• User participation/UGC is a consistently popular choice in advertising campaigns across the board, but is not significantly more widely-used in Warc 100-ranked cases.

• Despite much marketing industry hype around using personalisation as a cre-ative approach, in reality it is rarely used among the total pool of effectiveness and strategy cases, and also underperforms among the Warc 100 cases.

MOST-USED CREATIVE APPROACHES

% of case studies using each creative approach, 2015

% of case studies using each creative approach, 2014

Parti

cipa-

tion, U

GC

Storyte

lling

Storyte

lling

Emoti

on

Emoti

on

Info

rmativ

e,

educa

tional

Info

rmativ

e,

educa

tional

Partn

ersh

ips,

affilia

tion

Partn

ersh

ips,

affilia

tion

Humou

r

Humou

r

Advoca

cy

Advoca

cy

Celebrit

y

Celebrit

y

Perso

nalisatio

n

Perso

nalisatio

n

25%

18%

11%9%

20%

16%12%

9%7% 6%

17%20%

27% 27%

20%17%

19%22%

Overall

Warc 100

Overall

Warc 10019%16%

23% 23%

16%

21%

14%

21%

13%16%

12%15%

8%12%

14%

7% 6%4%

Parti

cipa-

tion, U

GC

© Copyright Warc 2015. All rights reserved.10 VIEW THE WARC 100

• Warc 100 campaigns were significantly more likely than the norm to report hard metrics in the case study. The highly-awarded cases reported an average of 1.5 metrics of this kind, vs 1.1 overall.

• This is unsurprising, given that many of the competitions tracked by the Warc 100 focus on effectiveness.

• Sales effect was by far the most widely-reported hard metric in Warc 100 case studies, at 48% of the total. In the other cases, this was reported in just 40%.

• Other significant over-performers were revenue (22% vs 15%) and behavioural change (19% vs 7%). Behavioural change is used primarily in cases for non-profit brands.

• Nine of the 10 most frequently-used hard metrics were used more often in Warc 100 cases than they were in the rest of the case study set. This demonstrates the preference of awards judges for case studies that cite a range of hard metrics.

Hard metrics Top campaigns report more metrics, especially sales

MOST-USED HARD METRICS

% of case studies using each metric, 2015

AVERAGE NUMBER OF METRICS USEDNumber of metrics used per campaign, 2015

Sales Revenue Behavioural change

Market penetration

Market share

Attitude change

Customer loyalty

Profit

40%

48%

15%

22%

7%

19% 19%17%16% 16%

3%6% 6% 4% 4%

2%

Overall

Warc 100

Warc 100

Overall 1.1

1.5

© Copyright Warc 2015. All rights reserved.11 VIEW THE WARC 100

• In common with the findings for hard metrics, Warc 100 cases showed a greater number of soft metrics than the norm, at 2.4 versus 2.2.

• When comparing these totals to the number of hard metrics reported (see previous page), this suggests that case studies tend to report a higher number of soft metrics than hard metrics.

• That said, the degree of difference between the Warc 100 set of case studies and the overall set of case studies is less pronounced for soft metrics. This in turn suggests that listing hard metrics is a key differentiator in awards success.

• Social buzz was the most-cited soft met-ric, at 63% of Warc 100 cases and 55% of the rest of the case study set. This may reflect the relative prominence of social media and earned media in the Warc 100 cases.

• Awareness was also a significant over-performer, at 46% vs 39%.

MOST-USED SOFT METRICS

% of case studies using each metric, 2015

AVERAGE NUMBER OF METRICS USED

Number of metrics used per campaign, 2015

Soft metrics Social buzz and awareness most-used overall

Social media, buzz

Awareness PR value Web traffic Consumer participation

Brand-specific measures

Search performance

Brand health/equity

55%

63%

39%

46%

27%

37%

26% 28% 26% 25%19% 18% 18%

12%

6%9%

Overall

Warc 100

Warc 100

Overall 2.2

2.4

© Copyright Warc 2015. All rights reserved.12

2. Anatomy of a winner: The world’s top campaign

This section focuses on the number-one ranked campaign in the last Warc 100: Kan Khajura Tesan, from Hindustan Unilever in India.

As well as a general case study summary, including the

campaign’s strategy and results, we have also included

insights from the creative agency behind the campaign,

and comments from the marketing industry, both client side

and agency side, about why Kan Khajura stands out as an

exceptionally good marketing success story.

SAMPLE VERSION

© Copyright Warc 2015. All rights reserved.13 VIEW THE WARC 100

Kan Khajura Tesan Case study summaryThe number one ranked campaign on the last Warc 100 was Kan Khajura Tesan, a campaign from Hindustan Unilever in India. This case study both showcases and challenges some of the shared tendencies in top-awarded cases revealed by the data analysis

CHALLENGE

While most of the world is now con-nected, even spoilt, by an overload of entertainment via regular media, Bihar

and Jharkhand remain two of India’s most media-dark regions.

Residents of these regions gener-ally have no electricity for 8-10 hours every day. However, with a population of 130 million these regions remained key growth markets for Unilever. The advertiser had to find a way to reach out to them.

SOLUTION

The answer lay in the only electronic

equipment that people there always kept on – a rudimentary mobile phone, and there were 54 million people that possessed one. By transforming their basic phones, Unilever was able to give them something they didn’t have: an entertainment channel.

This was Kan Khajura a 15-minute, free on demand entertainment channel that worked on mobile phone.

The moment anyone called in, their call would be disconnected and an automated callback was then gener-ated that contained 15 minutes of music, jokes, news and promotions from certain brands. This assured listeners that the service was free, as incoming calls are free in India.

RESULTS

The service reached 25.5% of the popu-lation and grew spontaneous aware-ness for Unilever brands. At its peak, the campaign’s subscription base was expanding at a rate of 45,000 daily.

So far, the station has served 200m minutes of content, and 100m ad impressions.Read the full case study

BrandHindustan Unilever

AgencyLowe Lintas / PHD

LocationIndia

CategoryHousehold & Domestic

Warc 100 position1st

Case study sourced

from the Warc Prize

for Asian Strategy

The new radio station offered up to 15 minutes of free content via the user’s mobile phone

© Copyright Warc 2015. All rights reserved.14 VIEW THE WARC 100

Kan Khajura Tesan The strategic approachAnaheeta Goenka, executive director at Lowe Lintas, the creative agency behind Kan Khajura, and Deepa Geethakrishnan, the agency’s president of creative, participated in a Warc Webinar in 2014. Here, in their own words, is the story behind the campaign

CULTURAL INSIGHT

“This is a country that thrives on entertain-ment,” Geethakrishnan said. “We are an oral tradition. We like stories, we like songs. But we had an audience starved of entertainment.”

The make-up of the 15 minutes of entertain-ment contained in a Kan Khajura call was carefully pre-planned. “There was a lot of content from movies and songs, but there were also some jokes, stories and news,” Geethakrishnan said. “So it was a rewarding experience for them. There was no limit on how often they could call, and it was all free.”

Within the mix were three or four 15-second ad “capsules”. With such a strict time limit, messaging was kept “sharp and direct”.

CREATIVE STRATEGY

But of course, if the ads were to be heard at all, people had to call the station. “So we just

based our creative strategy around popular-izing the number,” Goenka explained. “The number was on every single banner.”

In most of the campaign creative, the num-ber was promoted via the station’s mascot: a cartoon centipede with the Kan Khajura sta-tion’s number spelt out on its body segments. “We chose a centipede because it’s a very common creature in rural India, people see it on the floor, but they know it’s totally harm-less. It’s part of the culture, too.”

MEASUREMENT

Real-time measurement was important in order to optimize the campaign content. This led to tweaks being made on the fly. For example, the team soon learned that a lot of people hung up on local dialect content. So they switched to Hindi – the “Bollywood language” – and call length improved. “They wanted new Bollywood songs, the big celebrities, not local things,” Goenka said.

Brand awareness was a key metric in measuring ultimate success. “We saw an increase in spontane-ous awareness – more than we expected because when we started

this medium, it had never been done, we had no benchmarks to go on,” Goenka explained.

LEARNINGS FOR OTHERS

But how can others leverage Kan Khajura’s success? “What we’re most proud of is that we took a rudimentary mobile phone, and made the best we had of it,” Goenka said.

The cultural context plays its part. “Gener-ally, in India we only have one or two media on the brief,” she added. “And that leads to greater strategic acuity. Planning here has to be very, very customer-centric. As marketers, if we concentrate on what we do have and we maximize it, we find out new things. Frugality drives innovation.”Watch the full Webinar

The campaign mascot, a centipede, was carefully chosen

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Kan Khajura Tesan Lessons from the campaign

“It’s using what is seen in many places as ‘old tech’ in a new and interesting way. And it’s solving a problem on quite a massive scale. It’s caught the public’s imagination in India and we’re very pleased to see it catching the imagination of people around the world as well.”

Mihir Warty, Managing Partner, Lowe Counsel

“For me, it’s like when a man is pushed against a wall, they fight back. The brand saw people who they couldn’t reach, but rather than giving up and saying there was nothing they could do, they created a new channel through mobile.”

Shahvez Afridi, head of strategy for P&G APAC, Grey Group

“Kan Khajura started from rich media insights of the consumer in India. It worked out how to reach a consumer who does not see a lot of the media that are out there.”

Freddy Bharucha, VP Health Care, P&G Teva Asia-Pacific, China, Middle

East, Africa

“It’s a classic example of where it’s hard to find the line between strategy and creative because it’s such an original and strong thought. It takes a negative – people who don’t have access to media – and comes up with something that works. It’s such a wonderful original thought.”

Robin Nayak, Chief Strategy Officer, TBWA Asia Pacific

© Copyright Warc 2015. All rights reserved.16

About the full report

The full version of this Warc 100 offers an in-depth look at the comparative data, as well as additional case studies and analysis. It includes:

• Extra data comparisons between the Warc 100 and the rest of the case study sets for campaign budgets, duration and geographies;

• Case study summaries from British Airways, Reddi-wip, Foster’s, Virgin Mobile and Dove;

• Additional context from our panel of CEOs and CSOs, including tips for building an effective culture.

The full report is available to download by subscribers of www.warc.com.

Not a subscriber? Take a free trial.

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About the Warc 100

The Warc 100 is an annual ranking of the world’s best marketing campaigns and companies, based on their performance in effectiveness and strategy competitions.

• It focuses on marketing that makes a difference, driving business performance or changing consumer behaviour.

• It is a benchmark for commercial creativity, allowing brands and agencies to compare their performance with their peers.

• It is a showcase for the world’s smartest strategies, and the people and organisations behind them.

The rankings are compiled based on the winners of 87 effectiveness and strategy awards from around the world.

Find out more by visiting warc.com/warc100

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CASE FINDER

You can find all Warc case studies, including those cited in this report, by searching our unrivalled database, which is organised by campaign objective, country, industry sector, audience, media channels, budget and campaign duration. Find a case.

ABOUT WARC

Warc.com is an online service offering advertising best practice, evidence and insights from the world’s leading brands. Warc helps clients grow their businesses by using proven approaches to maximise advertising effectiveness.

Warc’s clients include the world’s largest advertising and media agen-cies, research companies, universities and advertisers.

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