The top-ranked campaign was the highly awarded ‘Share the Load’, developed by BBDO Mumbai and Mediacom Mumbai for Procter & Gamble’s Ariel detergent brand in India. The campaign film, in which men were encouraged to share the weight of household chores, was supported by campaign-specific packaging, and was spread across online, cinema and TVCs. As 1.57 million men pledged to ‘share the load’, Ariel more than doubled value and volume sales, which grew 106% and 105% respectively.
David Tiltman, Head of Content at WARC, says: “This year’s WARC 100 reflects an industry in flux. It’s clear from the rankings that TV-led, ‘big idea’ advertising, when executed well, is still highly effective. But we’re seeing a range of alternative approaches also capable of generating business results – from data-driven ‘moment marketing’ to stunts or events designed to focus consumer attention. One of the big questions in the industry at the moment is whether these alternative approaches build brands and deliver results in the long term as well as at the time of the campaign.”
Procter & Gamble is for the second year in a row the top advertiser for 2017, though its lead over Unilever has decreased since last year. With five campaigns in the top 100 versus Unilever’s three, the success of campaigns for its Ariel, Always and Old Spice brands have cemented P&G’s position as number one.
Vodafone takes for the first time the brand’s leading position while Adan&Eve, Starcom NY, PProximity London, BBDO Worldwide and WPP top the agency rankings.
By countries, USA ranks 1st, followed by UK and India.
This is the 4rth annual WARC 100. The ranking is built on a rigorous methodology, developed in consultation with Douglas West, Professor of Marketing at Kings College, London.
Find bellow the main findings in WARC 2017 edition.
Data-driven creative in the top ten group
Two of the top ten campaigns this year have seen success from the smart use of data to drive creative and media strategy.
The Economist used a targeted programmatic display campaign to reach new prospects with humorous and accessible tagline ads. The campaign hit 50% of target in 9 days, with a return on investment of over 25:1.
In sixth place, a big data campaign for Australian swimming pool builder Narellan Pools took a ‘moment marketing’ approach.
Customers were targeted at the precise times they were most likely to buy a pool, with focused creative motivating purchase decisions. The campaign increased direct leads by 11% and sales by 23% year on year.
Despite rising criticism on programatic, these campaigns show how, when used smartly, programmatic techniques can open up new creative and media opportunities.
Stunt or event-based and TV big budget campaigns rank high
Campaigns built around an event or stunt also ranked highly this year. ‘Rabbit Race’, a seasonal live event and stream involving rabbits racing for customers of Media Markt in Germany to win in-store prizes, was the fourth-ranked campaign of 2017.
More than 21 million people watched the races, prompting the electronics retailer to make the stunt an annual event, with consumers spending on average €8.60 more than the previous Easter.
The number-three campaign in the 2017 rankings was ‘Lucy the Robot’, a news-grabbing stunt in which Double Robotics, an American technology company, created a telepresence robot called Lucy to be first in line to buy a new iPhone 6s outside a Sydney Apple store. The stunt aimed to launch the company into the Australian market, and was covered in 4,000 news stories globally, resulting in more than 12,000 sales enquiries worth more than $44 million.
However, beating these two campaigns into the top two positions were Share the Load and John Lewis’ Christmas campaigns – both big-budget, big-idea,TV-led campaigns. There were plenty of other examples in the top 20 showing the power of TV-led work, including campaigns for Old Spice, Snickers, IKEA and Sainsbury’s.
Coca-Cola and McDonalds drop respectively from 1st and 2nd place for the first time
Vodafone has had an extremely consistent year in terms of award wins across campaigns and regions. With only two campaigns in the top 100, but multiple wins at fifteen separate awards competitions, the brand accrued enough points to take it into the lead.
For the first year since 2014, Coca-Cola and McDonalds do not grab this year the 1st and the 2nd spot in the brands ranking. Both have gone down the rankings in a year when neither had a campaign in the top 100.
New entries to the top 10 include: UK department store John Lewis on the 3rd place as a result of its series of highly effective Christmas campaigns; Dove, with its continued socially progressive stance; and Snickers, through campaigns including their big-budget TV campaign ‘You’re not you when you’re hungry’.
Adam&Eve, Starcom NY, Proximity London, BBDO Worldwide and WPP top the agency rankings
Adam&EveDDB climbs to the 1st spot in the 2017 ranking for creative agencies from the 41st place it took in 2016. AMV BBDO grabbs 2nd, followed by BBDO Mumbai, (reaches up to the 3rd place from the 47th spot in 2016) Grey London ( rises to the 4th place while 31st in 2016) and MullenLowe Lintas Group Mumbai new in the renking this year.
From 1st to 5th, Starcom NY, Mindshare NY, Atomic 212 Group, Mindshare Istambul and OMD Los Ángeles make the top 5 group in the media agencies ranking. Atomic and OMD enter for the first time in this ranking.
In the same order from top to bottom, Proximity London, Affinity Ketchum NY Trisec and R/GA NY top the digital specialists rnking in 2017.Three of them, Affinity, Ketchum and Trisec are newcommers.
From top to 5th BBDO Worldwide, Ogilvy & Mather Advertising, McCann Erickson, Starcom and Leo Burnett complete the top five agency networks. Leaving aside McCann and Starcom, that go up respectively to the 3rd and 4rth spot from 9th and 7th in 2016, all agency networks in this grup keep their place in the ranking.
From top to bottom WPP, Omnicom Group, Interpublic Group, Publicis Groupe and Dentsu take the 1st to 5th place in the holding companies ranking. All the holdings go up except Publicis Group that drops from 3rd in 2016 to 4th in 2017.
Image over the headline.- © WARC
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