ComScore and their client Pursuit Media described a case study: a media company had a smaller reach than their competitor and looked for new ways to convince an agency to add their channel to an automotive buy.
This study used neuroscience-based methods to explore if AR experiences—content as well as ads —provide more immersive engagement than other media.
The presenters shared new insights from their research on effective frequency which they find to be so valuable to the industry that NCS decided to offer a free license to their patent.
This presentation described the findings of a major ethnographic study (conducted in Germany, Austria and Switzerland) that compared the impact of video advertising on various platforms: TV, BVOD (VOD provided by commercial broadcasters), YouTube and Facebook. The study used eye-tracking devices to assess attention to ads and unaided recall as impact measure.
In 2022 the ARF Cultural Effectiveness Council conducted 18 in-depth interviews (IDIs) with senior research executives via Teams and Zoom to understand how the 'Future of Qual' would evolve with rapidly changing qualitative methods and the urgency across industries to understand cultural shifts. Council members Chloe Stromberg of LinkedIn and Anne Kaplan of Paramount, who worked on this project, presented what the Council learned from these interviews. Their presentation was followed by a panel discussion with a mix of Council members (Tony D’Andrea of General Mills and Tristan Marra of GLAAD) and culture-savvy researchers outside the Council (Danie Hemsley of Cassandra and Kendra Clarke, former Senior Director, Head of Experience Research and Design, Core Technologies at Twitter), led by Council Co-Chair Janelle James of Ipsos. The presentation and discussion focused on how qualitative research is evolving, how it can overcome its challenges —particularly those related to diversity and cultural understanding—and best practices for conducting qual research, moving forward.
Member Only AccessAnibal Casso of Ogilvy moderated a discussion with panelists representing different perspectives in the industry (brand, agency, research). They tackled best practices, current challenges and the future of creative effectiveness.
In this session, Anastasia Leng of CreativeX argued that marketing and creative have the power to change things. In the face of an increased ad pool, which has gone up 6x in the last 20 years, ads now have a smaller shelf-life and need to be created in a more customized manner. In large part, technology has created this challenging landscape in marketing and advertising, but technology can now also help to address these new challenges. She pointed to computer vision technology which can help by supplying data created from “micro-feedback,” by clustering this information and fusing this feedback to create more useful macro-data to base decisions on.
Rose Murphy of GM and Mark Truss of Wunderman Thompson provided a preview of the latest white paper from the ARF Creative Council. This paper builds on the Council’s first paper, How to Get Better Creative from Better Insights, by highlighting new and innovative technologies and processes that can generate insight that drive creative performance. The research process started with an understanding of the knowledge base through the ARF Knowledge Center, then a review of prior ARF David Ogilvy Award submissions, followed by surveying suppliers. A deep dive analysis led to identifying three types of approaches: extensions of familiar tools (e.g., mind modeling, AI-enhanced groups and testing), new tools to tap unconscious motivations (e.g., observational, neuroscience) and emerging tools (e.g., visual culture, AI frame-by-frame analysis). These tools can help throughout the creative development stages: strategy, ideas and optimization. The white paper discusses more recently adopted approaches that are often silo-busting and can help elicit better understanding of the consumer.
Carolyn Murphy of WARC began her session on stimulating and measuring creativity by diving into the relationship between creativity and effectiveness. While the link between creativity and effectiveness is backed by a strong body of research, the focus on the importance of creativity has waned recently, with the rise of digital commerce, performance marketing and retail media networks. Carolyn suggested that marketers and advertisers regain the focus on the value and benefits of creativity in newly emerging channels, which was backed by more recent research. Carolyn noted that creative is not a replacement for an ad budget, but a way to “supercharge” the effectiveness of that campaign. Success is likely when “when creative is married with your overall strategic planning, in a media plan that’s comprehensive.” To provide a framework for success, WARC, James Hurman and Peter Field created the Creative Effectiveness Ladder. This six-tiered model scales around how to measure your creative to see what effective outcome it will have.
ARF President & CEO, Scott McDonald hosted a lively and provocative discussion on attention metrics, how valid they are and if they do in fact measure “attention” and predict outcomes. Marc Guldimann of Adelaide called these metrics fit for purpose. Dr. Duane Varan of MediaScience, however, noted that attention metrics do not measure what vendors are saying they do.