Buzz and social media dominant in soft metrics in IPA Effectiveness Awards

Catherine Driscoll

Catherine Driscoll, content development manager at Warc, says, “We’ve made a comprehensive data analysis of the entries to the 2016 IPA Effectiveness Awards, which are renowned for their rigorous judging process.

“As media usage changes, metrics adapt and creative approaches differ, our report provides detailed and valuable insights, trends and lessons to the industry of advertising that works.”

Key insight, marketing trends

• Television remains top effectiveness driver: many successful entrants used a significant rise in the use of emotion as a creative approach, suggesting a long-term brand building strategy. While digital media channels are an important part of these campaigns, the findings show that television-led campaigns are still extremely successful at generating ROI for a brand. Social media was used less as a lead channel, but more as a supportive and amplifying medium.

• Brands increasingly look to profit and penetration: whilst sales has been a reliable indicator for proving the payback on marketing investment, in 2016 there has been a notable swing towards profit and penetration, as the most important business measures. Buzz and social media measures have become the dominant soft metrics and as marketers act on advice to drive fame rather than awareness, there is a strong increase in PR value.

• There is no one-size-fits-all model of effectiveness: a test and learn approach to drive improvement is now a common theme in effective brand marketing. A wide range of strategies - multi-market television advertising, agile online programmatic and tight data-driven targeting - are now used with the return on investment achieved by both small and large budget campaigns providing inspiration for brands of all types as well as opportunities for new learnings from the different approaches.

• Purpose marketing comes to the fore: purpose-driven marketing has been a key trend in the industry and can lead to commercial success. Purpose should be fully integrated across the company and be a good fit for the brand. Campaigns that involved consumer participation were also a key theme to help build momentum and engagement. The most successful can cross geographical and cultural barriers and can resonate beyond its original target.

For more information, go to www.warc.com.