Discover the latest and most impactful research on teams, talent, training and organizational design here. All the research listed comes from the ARF or one of its subsidiaries: The Journal of Advertising Research (JAR), the Marketing Science Institute (MSI) or the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM). Feel free to bookmark this page, as it will be updated periodically.
Data-driven marketing presents opportunities but also many challenges for managing creativity and creative teams. A new study offers a roadmap for managers at agencies to be more strategic in the creative integrated marketing communications process by rethinking the distribution and valuation of creativity.
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The 2020 US census revealed that the United States is far more diverse and multiracial today than ever before in its history. Approximately 38% of the population belong to racial minority groups. The trend is expected to continue, which has resulted in companies increasing their focus on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), both internally and in their marketing efforts. In order to inform member companies of where we are as an industry, as well as to offer best practices and actionable insights in their own DEI efforts, the ARF has put together The Diversity Report. The report is available for purchase, as a fundraising effort to support ARF WIDE.
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Does the digital environment support or constrain advertising creativity? The answer is both. But how? Researchers in Australia relied on two seminal methods—the rigorous Delphi recruitment method through which research queried creative experts worldwide, and the Four P’s model of creativity. These were applied to investigate “place” (the digital environment) and its impact on the remaining P's: process, person and product. What they found was that technology both enhances and represses creativity.
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Which is more efficient when it comes to advantageous decision outcomes, marketing-mix metrics or financial metrics? Researchers in this award-winning MSI working paper investigated this question, basing their research on a behavioral framework and statistical model. On average, according to their sample, marketing-mix metrics are more effective than financial. Even so, managers seem more eager to use financial metrics, possibly, because they are easier to understand across the organization.
Member Only AccessOutlines the key challenges, state-of-the-art remedies, best practices, and corresponding standards for evaluation for web scraping in consumer research. Provides a structured workflow designed to achieve consistency and standardization in how web scraping is conducted, documented, reported, and evaluated in both the research and peer review process. The authors propose four interdependent facets necessary for generating credible scientific findings from web scraping-based research: (1) design transparency, (2) analytic reproducibility, (3) analytic robustness, and (4) effect replicability and generalizability. Read the Working Paper.
The Organizational Benchmark Survey investigates the changes in advertising and marketing research over the past year. This is the first of an annual series. The consultancy report covers a variety of subjects, including the names of their research departments and their structures, whether they are centralized or decentralized, their spending and KPIs, what skills researchers need and what tools they employ, and how satisfied they are with their department.
Member Only AccessEmploys large-scale data from more than 9,000 companies in the U.S. and China over four years to investigate (1) how AI marketing investment affects firm performance, (2) which mechanisms enable those effects, and (3) which factors moderate those effects. Read the Working Paper.
Ask any ad-agency creative professional whether their best ideas ever see the light of day, and the answer likely will be “no”. That outcome is a function of a highly contentious, early-stage evaluation and selection process . Researchers in Australia and New Zealand reexamined the process and offered takeaways for moving great ideas forward. Read the JAR article.
We have access to more data and research than ever before. But how well are they being used? It’s apparent to many in the advertising industry that there’s a gap between the research/data and creative/strategy communities, in terms of using data and insights effectively. To investigate this divide, the ARF Creative Council conducted a quantitative and qualitative research project, which has led to the publication of a new white paper titled: How to Get Better Creative from Better Insights.
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Technology is omnipresent in today’s world. Yet, it’s become more difficult to determine what is the best way to utilize it. Businesses want to provide topnotch customer experiences, while maintaining operational efficiency. Customers, meanwhile, require a convenient, responsive, personal experience. So how can companies strike a balance and create the ideal symmetry between employees and technology? The ARF’s Knowledge Center was recently challenged with this question. Here are its findings.
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