COVID-19

Consumer Behavioral Shifts: Why Your Marketing Measurement Must Adapt in 2022 and Beyond

• Posted: June 21, 2023

Consumer behaviors have changed dramatically creating new challenges for brands and their marketing measurement. During this Insights Studio, we explored the measurement challenges brands have faced in the wake of significant consumer changes. We also discussed best practices brands should be using to ensure their marketing measurement is set up for future success as consumers continue to react to major societal change. Executives from OptiMine, an agile marketing analytics provider, Kepler, a global digital agency, and Beachbody, an innovative health and fitness company, shared their observations on how changes in consumer shopping and media consumption behaviors have been reflected in marketing measurement.

Leading with Inclusive Insights

• Posted: June 21, 2023

On November 1, 2022, the ARF Cultural Effectiveness Council hosted a discussion on ways that brands have gained an edge by focusing their insights and subsequent marketing on traditionally under-represented communities.  Speakers from General Mills, Vevo, and muliti-cultural agency Alma shed light on the kinds of research they find helpful in uncovering valuable inclusive insights and the potential rewards of this strategy.  They cited examples of those insights and discussed the societal trends that underlie them. The session was moderated by Council Co-Chair Janelle James of Ipsos.

Doldrum of COVID Leads to Breakthrough Creative

• Posted: June 20, 2023

In the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, PepsiCo embarked on a 21-month research project to find out how the quarantining affected people’s lives. The goal: adapt its brand messaging to the experiences of its core consumers, from both a human and consumption perspective, and then develop new creative. “We know that our primary consumers are really out there,” Kevin Moeller of PepsiCo said, citing data on Pepsi’s core base. “They enjoy letting loose, they don’t like to hold back. They’re people that sing karaoke and cheer at sports events. So how did quarantining impact them?”

Evidence-Based Research for Effective Marketing

• Posted: June 7, 2023

What Brands Did in 2020

• Posted: June 6, 2023

In this presentation, Paul Donato, CRO of the ARF, covered findings from the seminal year of the “What Brands Did in 2020” (Brands 2020) project. This project will go on for at least the next two years or until the effects of 2020 are no longer felt. ARF researchers in the Brands 2020 study used IRI and NCS data, Kantar Ad Insights, NCS sales and Nielsen Ad Intel data, between 2017 and 2021. The IRI data was a very deep dive but across three categories: salty snacks, pasta sauce and personal care products. The NCS data was shallower but across 10 broad categories. Using all these data, ARF researchers looked at share of media, media spend and share of market before and after March 2020 (Covid) and before and after March of 2021 (start of inflation).

Building a Multi-Currency Future

• Posted: May 30, 2023

This dialog between Scott McDonald and Colleen Fahey Rush (Paramount) covered the rebranding of Colleen’s company and three broader issues facing the television industry—the rise of streaming services, her perceptions of the currency environment and the upcoming upfronts.

• Ad Effectiveness & ROI
• Article

What Brands Did in 2020 & the Impact on Market Share

• ARF ORIGINAL RESEARCH

This multi-year project’s objective is to understand how brands reacted to the events of 2020 and what the long-term implications were. In that fateful year, brands encountered a pandemic-driven recession, lockdown and periods of social unrest, along with the impact of economic stimulus, leading to the current state of inflation. Questions this study looks to address include, what happens to a brand’s market share if it goes “dark.” Was this different than previous recessions? How long was recovery? Did small brands take advantage of inexpensive media and if so, how did this affect their market share? Findings from the initial year are now available.

• Past Event Highlights
• Article

AUDIENCExSCIENCE 2023

The ARF hosted its annual flagship conference, AUDIENCExSCIENCE 2023, on April 25-26, 2023. The industry’s biggest names and brightest minds came together to share new insights on the impact of changing consumer behavior on brands, insights into TV consumption, campaign measurement and effectiveness, whether all impressions are equal, join-up solutions across multiple media, the validity, reliability and predictive power of Attention measures, targeting diverse audiences, privacy’s effect on advertising and the impact of advertising in new formats. Keynotes were presented by Tim Hwang, author of Subprime Attention Crisis, Robert L. Santos of the U.S. Census Bureau, Brian Wieser of Madison and Wall, LLC and Andrea Zapata of Warner Bros. Discovery.

• Audience & Media Measurement
• Article

Covid-19 Impact by Category: An Age-Period-Cohort Analysis

• MSI

Lockdowns and other widespread Covid-19 disruptions caused significant changes in buyer behaviors. For instance, it was a major catalyst in shifting buying behavior from in-store to online. With the pandemic receding, how can we know which trends may persist and for which categories, and which might drop off? Since all consumers were affected, no untreated experiment control group exists. However, one strategy could prove fruitful, age-period-cohort (APC) analyses. APCs offer an alternative way to analyze changes in consumer behavior before and after the pandemic.

Advertising During Times of Economic Stress

• Posted: February 14, 2023

Throughout 2022, ARF members asked the Knowledge Center most frequently about advertising and marketing best practices in periods of recession and/or inflation. New insights on this topic come from the “Brands 2020” project by the ARF.

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