brands & branding

Navigating the Evolving Media Landscape

  • OTT 2023

The media landscape continues to evolve, arguably at a faster rate than ever. Leading media and measurement experts presented research-based insights on how viewers use different forms of TV/video on various platforms. Attendees joined us at the Warner Bros. Discovery Studios in California and via livestream to understand the latest data and discussions of the data’s implications.

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How Best to Advertise During a Recession

  • ARF Knowledge at Hand, CMO Brief

Even though the U.S. economy has some bright spots, economists warn a recession is still possible due to stubborn inflation. Advertisers want to be prepared as a result. While there is no failsafe advertising playbook to follow, as individual brands and businesses have nuanced needs and branding, there are some best practices and guidelines, which the following ARF Knowledge at Hand report gleans from some of the best research on the topic. The report covers the impact of “going dark,” the often-overlooked opportunities a recession can bring, how to maximize media spend effectiveness and how to frame appeals that are most attractive to customers during tough economic times.

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How Do You Stimulate Great Creative and Measure It?

  • CREATIVE EFFECTIVENESS 2023

At our second annual Creative Effectiveness event, industry visionaries discussed the perspectives, theories, and resources they employ to develop and measure great creative. Attendees joined us in New York City or via livestream to hear fresh insights on the advertising landscape: from using AI as a stimulus for creative to extracting behavioral data and using that to try and inspire creative. Immediately after, we honored the teams behind insights-driven advertising with the ARF David Ogilvy Awards ceremony and dinner. The Gold, Silver and Bronze winners were announced, as well as the reveal of this year’s prestigious Grand Ogilvy Award recipient.

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More Product Placements?

Recent reports predict an increase in product placement and product integration spending. Research shows how to make them more effective.

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How to Measure Trust in Brands

A new study indicates that most measures of brand trust are flawed because they are based on questionable assumptions about consumers’ understanding of “trust”.  Read more »

ATTENTION 2023

On June 7, 2023, attention economy experts came together in NYC to share case studies and participate in engaging discussions on the attention measurement landscape. Plus, attendees heard a recap of the issues debated at AUDIENCExSCIENCE and an update on Phase I of the ARF Attention Validation Initiative, an empirically based evaluation of the rapidly developing market for attention measurement and prediction.

What the Metaverse Means for Marketers

On September 21, 2022, speakers from Kantar, Meta, Next Media Partners, Snap, VMLY&R, Wunderman Thompson Intelligence and XRGuild shared insights into how the Metaverse will impact marketers. They discussed implications for interoperability as well as paid advertising.

Ad-Spend Cues, Deepfakes/A.I., Badass Endorsers and Influencer KPIs

At this Insights Studio, authors from three different continents showcase their recently published work—including the JAR Best Paper 2022 on how advertising expenditures drive consumers’ perceptions of ad and brand quality. Also featured are studies on deepfakes and AI reshaping the advertising industry, the success of using product endorsers who are actors known for roles portraying despicable characters, and KPI patterns of social media influencers across several platforms. Talking points in the concluding Q&A span the future of AI in advertising and influencer marketing, machine-driven decisions for choosing endorsers, and factors (product- and economic-related) affecting consumer perceptions of quality in TV ads and engagement in user-generated content.

An Economic Analysis of TV Advertising Profitability

Professor Anna Tuchman of Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management presented an economic analysis of the effectiveness of a major portion of the U.S. linear television advertising spend, worth $66B in 2019. The study, conducted with Bradley Shapiro and Günter Hitsch of the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, investigated the elasticity of actual sales for 288 distinct CPG brands on the basis of brand-specific ad spend as captured by Nielsen store and household panels along with Nielsen Ad Intel data. They used log-log regression and flexible machine learning algorithms. Their goal is to help firms evaluate ad campaign effectiveness with the hope their measurement will help make better ad spend decisions.

Attentive Reach: The Case for Human Attention in Brand Advertising

Realeyes uses software solutions for measuring human attentional and emotional response to advertising. Max Kalehoff explained the importance of attention measurement as a gauge of brand performance. He urged companies, particularly those with latent sales, to incorporate it into their business models.