Insights from the WARC Media Awards
WARC, the global authority on advertising and media effectiveness, has today released its 2019 Media Strategy Report, highlighting key trends and themes for an effective media strategy. The insights are drawn from the winners of the global WARC Media Awards, recognising communications planning which has made a positive impact on business results.
Following an analysis of the shortlisted and winning entries spanning 31 countries, the key insights are:
Imaginative phasing can reach elusive audiences
Effective Channel Integration winners in the 2018 WARC Media Awards show how to reach elusive audiences through imaginative phasing and leveraging the right combination of paid, owned and earned media. Grand Prix winner, Droga5’s ‘Dundee’ campaign for Tourism Australia, shows how a massive media moment can be successfully leveraged and how a breakthrough creative concept, when combined with a full-funnel, orchestrated approach, can unlock true effectiveness.
TV is a flexible tool for successful partnerships
TV proved to be an agile channel in the Effective Use of Partnerships and Sponsorships category. In its quest to appeal to millennial women, the Grand Prix winner, ‘Suzuki Ignis: An Ignis Adventure’, by the7stars London, created an entire TV show from scratch when it couldn’t find the right programme to partner.
Tech can create new channel opportunities
Tech is entering new territory, enabling brands to communicate their unique propositions. And context is playing a key role. Grand Prix winner The National Safety Council’s ‘Prescribed to Death’ initiative by Energy BBDO used 3D printing to put the faces of real victims of opioid overdoses onto pills – but then used a memorial as the backdrop for a compelling art installation.
Data is key to encouraging behaviour change
Many Effective Use of Data winners showed the vital role for data in instigating positive behaviour change. Grand Prix-winning ‘Lifebuoy: The Adaptive Data Lighthouse’ by Mindshare Mumbai, used a data-driven algorithm to promote hand hygiene and increase sales in rural India.
Summing up, Lucy Aitken, Managing Editor, Case Studies at WARC, says: “Against a backdrop of greater automation in the media landscape, the rise in search budgets and the inexorable rise of Amazon as an ad platform, the 2018 WARC Media Awards winners were an impressive combination of data-driven insight, precision targeting and well thought-out strategy.”
The full report is available to WARC subscribers on warc.com. The report includes chapter analysis for each of the four awards categories, guest essays, data charts, and summaries of all the winning case studies from the 2018 WARC Media Awards.
The WARC Media Awards examine the insight, strategy and analytics that power effective media investment. The Awards are free to enter and there is a $40,000 prize fund for winning entries. Case studies are welcomed from any territory or discipline. The WARC Media Awards 2019 will launch in early May and close in late September.
