It’s one of the least inspiring but most important truths in marketing: big brands have an unfair advantage. Not because they shout louder or spend recklessly, but because they’ve already built something smaller brands are still chasing: existing ad stock to fall back on . The pivotal work from Paul Dyson, amplified by Mark Ritson, already a similar case: brand size is the most important factor for campaign impact. In his meta-analyses across thousands of campaigns, he found

Marketers have always craved one thing from their media investments: effectiveness. Are we getting results? Are we driving brand growth? And, most frustrating of all, are we spending too much, or not enough? Yet despite this obsession, most marketers are still steering their media using outdated KPIs. GRPs and spend are the go-to metrics, but here’s the thing: they don’t tell us what we actually need to know .

Research study on attention and brand recall for social reel, social feed and pre-roll advertising Nowadays, many brand managers will admit that one of their biggest challenges is determining how to effectively reach the youngest members of their target audience – i.e., "Millennial" or "Gen-Z" consumers – through advertising campaigns. According to a recent report by the World Advertising Research Center, consumers that fall within one of these demographic groups typically s

Advertising has always been an industry driven by human creativity. But anyone paying attention to the marketing landscape recently has seen a major shift: artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming the way we approach creative work. At Cannes Lions, the industry-wide conversation was clear: AI isn't just the latest buzz, but a transformative force reshaping the advertising process. And with tech companies such as Google, Meta and TikTok having increasing presence at the

When Advertising Consistency Kills Curiosity Distinctive Brand Assets (DBAs) have become the go-to tactic for many marketers. And rightly so. The theory is sound: use consistent, recognisable cues like colours, logos, sounds and characters to help people quickly identify your brand in a cluttered media world. The Ehrenberg-Bass Institute has made a strong case, and brands have listened. Recognition drives recall, and recall is a prerequisite for effectiveness.

When Adidas moved all their media spend to digital in an effort to become “digital first,” it seemed like the obvious move. Consumers were flocking to online platforms, traditional media was supposedly dying, and everyone was preaching digital transformation. But a few years later, Adidas quietly reversed that decision. Why? Because it didn’t work. Their brand salience suffered, and their business results showed it. The campaign didn’t break through the clutter the way they h

In today’s media landscape, attention is fleeting and memory is selective. With every second of airtime, brands fight not only to be noticed, but to be remembered. Yet amid all the noise, one of the simplest, most effective tools for reinforcing memory often goes overlooked: the tag-on. A short follow-up message, usually shorter, aired after a competing ad, and designed to reinforce or expand on the original message. It doesn’t shout. It doesn’t start from scratch. It builds

Out-of-home (OOH) advertising has long been a powerful tool for brands looking to make an impact in the real world. Despite its relatively small share of total ad spend (around 4.5%), OOH remains a unique and valuable medium, offering mass reach and repeated exposure. But what truly makes an OOH campaign effective? The answer lies not just in strong creative execution but also in the context in which an ad is placed.

Why Marketers get Cross-Country Advertising Wrong Marketers Love the Idea of a Global Campaign—Consumer, Not so Much Every global marketer dreams of the ultimate efficiency play: one campaign, one message, one world. It sounds great in theory, but in practice? It rarely works as intended. We want scale, but we also want impact—and that’s where the tension lies. New research from DVJ Insights suggests that while global consistency has its place, ads that truly resonate across

As a market researcher, I’ve had the privilege of testing hundreds of ads before their campaigns go live. One of the recurring challenges I see advertisers face is this: how to strike the delicate balance between being consistent and being distinctive. Get it right, and your ad not only builds your brand but also cuts through the noise of today’s cluttered media landscape. Get it wrong, and you risk either being forgettable or utterly disconnected from your brand.

It’s no secret that people on social platforms are not there for the ads. So why are we still making long ones? Marketers know better—at least, the data makes it pretty clear. The average viewing time for a video ad on Facebook is a whopping 1.8 seconds. Let that sink in. TikTok? Even worse. On these platforms, people are primed to swipe within the blink of an eye. To top it off, most of them have the sound turned off.