Creative & Branded Content

Does Having Multicultural Marketing Mean Your Brand is Inclusive?

  • MSI

Multicultural marketing is popular today. Its aim is to increase inclusion through consumption. But does propagating such marketing make a brand inclusive? An inclusive brand is one that creates, communicates and delivers offerings that serve underrepresented communities, say researchers in this Marketing Science Institute (MSI) working paper. In this way, such brands enhance lives through increased equality, acceptance, respect, belonging and empowerment.

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Brands Should Do More to Protect Their Image Online, Study Shows

  • Journal of Advertising Research

Brand safety is a hot topic in programmatic advertising, which is lauded for its efficient distribution but comes with big risks—particularly the unfiltered placement of digital ads next to negative content. New research offers empirical evidence of such risks, including damage to consumers’ perceptions, and calls for brands to do more to protect themselves.

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Influencer Partners a Must for Branded ASMR Content

  • JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH

How can brand managers maximize their engagement with tingle-inducing ASMR videos? A new study, recently published in the Journal of Advertising Research, offers evidence that brands risk being perceived as “inauthentic intruders” when advertising within ASMR communities. They should instead consider collaborating with ASMR influencers, especially those who are highly visible and/or terrific at building emotional connections with viewers.

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Young People Respond Favorably to ASMR Ads on YouTube

  • JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH

For many college-age consumers, the tingles and relaxing sensations that come from experiencing autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) can be weird and fun, but off-putting when, say, an endorser is too chatty and loud in the video. New research uses these insights to guide marketers and suggest that ASMR ads, typically aired on YouTube and other, non-traditional channels, are more effective at gaining attention than on traditional media.

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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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How Effective are Cause-Related Messages in Advertising Today?

  • CMO Brief

During the last five years, we have seen an upswing and change in the inclusion of values in advertising, especially the increase in cause-related marketing (CRM) which includes messages about societal goals such as sustainability, ESG (environmental, social and governance) and DEI (diversity, equity/equality and inclusion). Given marketers’ interest in these issues—ranging from wanting to express support for causes to being concerned about a possible backlash—the ARF has reviewed the research on cause-related marketing as well as related issues, such as ads with more general pro-social and altruistic messages. ARF researchers conclude that ads with cause-related messages can be effective, but many are not. Future research should focus on which kinds of messages are most effective among different consumer groups.

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