The world’s best marketing campaigns and companies 2017

Welcome to the WARC 100 3Themes from the world’s best campaigns 4The world’s best marketing campaigns 2017 5

Case studies 6

The world’s best creative agencies 2017 9The world’s best media agencies 2017 10The world’s best digital / specialist agencies 2017 11The world’s best agency networks 2017 12The world’s best holding companies 2017 13The world’s best brands 2017 14The world’s best advertisers 2017 15Country rankings 2017 16

About the WARC 100 17More from WARC 18

Contents

3 WARC 100: The world’s best marketing campaigns and companies 2017 © Copyright WARC 2017. All rights reserved.

Welcome to the WARC 100

It is a benchmark for commercial creativity, allowing brands and agencies to compare their performance with their peers.

It focuses on marketing that makes a difference, driving business performance or changing consumer behaviour.

It is a showcase for the world’s smartest strategies, and the people and organisations behind them.

Find out more by visiting warc.com/warc100

The WARC 100 is an annual ranking of the world’s best marketing campaigns and companies, based on their performance in effectiveness and strategy competitions:

4 WARC 100: The world’s best marketing campaigns and companies 2017 © Copyright WARC 2017. All rights reserved.

Themes from the world’s best campaigns

Data-driven creativeTwo of the campaigns in the top 10 this year are campaigns that have seen success from the smart use of data. The Economist used a targeted programmatic display campaign to reach new prospects, and Narellan pools also used programmatic to optimise the timing of their messaging to increase sales.

Stunt-led campaignsCampaigns involving an event or stunt also rank strongly this year. In the top 10, Rabbit Race, a live event and stream involving rabbits racing linked to consumer prizes, and Lucy the Robot, a robot placed at the front of an Apple store queue for a new iPhone, both gained huge amounts of earned media and leads for the brands.

Continued importance of TVThe WARC 100 ranking proves that TV-led campaigns continue to be very effective. In the top 10, Ariel, John Lewis and Always campaigns have proved the use of TV in generating ROI, and across the full ranking, TV has seen an increase in use as the lead media for the third year running.

The Economist used attention-grabbing ads in a programmatic campaign to gain new readers.

An event involving live racing rabbits was used to increase in-store sales for Media Markt.

John Lewis proved the case for continued investment in TV.

1 2 3

5 WARC 100: The world’s best marketing campaigns and companies 2017 © Copyright WARC 2017. All rights reserved.

Top 10 marketing campaigns in the WARC 100, 2017Campaign title Brand Primary agency Product category Location Points

1 Share The Load Ariel BBDO / Mediacom Household & domestic India 164.2

2 John Lewis Christmas ads, 2012-2015 John Lewis adam&eveDDB / Manning Gottlieb OMD Retail UK 142.2

3 Lucy the Robot Double Robotics Atomic 212° Group Technology & electronics Australia 95.0

4 Rabbit Race Media Markt Ogilvy & Mather / UM Retail Germany 84.2

5 Raising Eyebrows and Subscriptions The Economist Proximity London Media & publishing UK 68.3

6 Diving into Data for Narellan Narellan Pools Affinity Retail Australia 64.5

7 World Gallery Apple TBWA\Media Arts Lab Los Angeles Technology & electronics USA 64.2

8 #LikeAGirl Always Leo Burnett / Starcom Toiletries & cosmetics Global 52.2

9 #MyFamilyCan SPC Leo Burnett Business & industrial Australia 51.2

10 Infrequent Flyers Tigerair McCann Business & industrial Australia 49.6

View full rankings on WARC

The world’s best campaigns

6 WARC 100: The world’s best marketing campaigns and companies 2017 © Copyright WARC 2017. All rights reserved.

Case studies

into social impact. Working on the deep-rooted view that Indian women should be in charge of household duties, Ariel devised a campaign that pushed for a social movement where both men and women shared the weight of all household chores, by creating a campaign film as well as campaign-specific packaging.

The film was spread across online, cinema and TVCs, while celebrity endorsements, earned media outlets and campaign-specific live events carried on the conversation.

As 1.57 million men pledged to 'share the load', Ariel more than doubled value and volume sales, which grew 106% and 105% respectively.

VIEW FULL CASE STUDY

campaigns from 2012 onwards continued the emotional and product-free storytelling style that had previously been used, but with more attention paid towards teaser campaign periods across offline and online media. The centrepiece campaign film were supplemented through a multichannel strategy that created an immersive experience.

Performance was strong. John Lewis has seen an increase in sales of 33% over the past four years, as well as a market share increase to 29.6% and an ROI of £8 for every £1 spent.

VIEW FULL CASE STUDY

Ariel, the detergent brand, used a social campaign to engage with its Indian audience and increase brand awareness.

Lagging behind its main competitor and its strong social message, Ariel needed to redefine its message beyond product performance and

UK department store John Lewis consolidated their Christmas advertising as iconic over four years of high performing Christmas campaign strategies.

Already established as having strong seasonal advertising, the new

'Share The Load' encouraged men to help women with household chores.

John Lewis continues to prove the benefits of TV advertising.

1. SHARE THE LOAD

Brand: ArielAgencies: BBDO Mumbai, Mediacom Mumbai Country: India

2. JOHN LEWIS CHRISTMAS ADS 2012 – 2015

Brand: John LewisAgencies: adam&eveDDB, Manning Gottlieb OMDCountry: UK

7 WARC 100: The world’s best marketing campaigns and companies 2017 © Copyright WARC 2017. All rights reserved.

Case studies

telepresence robot, to be first in line to buy an iPhone 6s outside the Sydney Apple store.

Controlled by a person from their home, the robot generated a huge amount of publicity. The stunt was covered in 4000 news stories around the world and reached 123 million people globally, resulting in over 12,000 sales enquiries worth over $44 million.

VIEW FULL CASE STUDY

competitive level, Media Markt created ‘The Rabbit Race’, a live race between real Easter bunnies.

The stunt raced 10 rabbits in three live races, broadcast on TV and online, and customers could win 50% of their purchase value if their rabbit won the race. The campaign outperformed its objectives to such an extent that it is now a permanent platform in the company’s calendar; over 21 million people watched the races, and the net reach was 250 million, with consumers spending on average €8.60 more than the previous Easter.

VIEW FULL CASE STUDY

Double Robotics, an American technology company, wanted to break into the Australian market with a launch of its Double telepresence robot, but it had no presence in the country and a very limited budget.

In a news-grabbing stunt, the company created 'Lucy', a

Media Markt, Germany’s biggest electronics retailer, was battling against shoppers using their stores to research the latest gadgets, before checking for cheaper prices online.

Recognising that shopping around is a game that engages people on a

Lucy, a telepresence robot, was first in the queue for a new iPhone 6s.

A live rabbit race encouraged customers to spend in-store at Media Markt..

3. LUCY THE ROBOT

Brand: Double RoboticsAgencies: Atomic 212° Group Country: Australia

4. RABBIT RACE

Brand: Media MarktAgencies: Ogilvy & Mather Frankfurt, UM Frankfurt Country: Germany

8 WARC 100: The world’s best marketing campaigns and companies 2017 © Copyright WARC 2017. All rights reserved.

Case studies

publication lacked relevance for them, deeming it a ‘handbook for the corporate elite’. The Economist devised a campaign focused on the provocative nature of truth, a common interest for readers and non-readers, using humorous and accessible tagline ads. With the efficiency of an individually created platform for programmatic display, content and context could be leveraged to surprise people with provocative articles relevant to the piece of external content they were reading.

In just 9 days, the campaign hit 50% of target – 650k new prospects – hitting full target in five weeks, and is responsible for delivering £51.7m in lifetime revenue and a revenue ROMI of over 25:1 from its year one spend of £2.03m.

VIEW FULL CASE STUDY

The Economist used provactive headline ads to gain new readers.

5. RAISING EYEBROWS AND SUBSCRIPTIONS

Brand: The EconomistAgencies: Proximity London Country: UK

The Economist, an international news publication, used a targeted campaign to increase its reader base and sales.

Circulation had begun to plateau and their prospective audience felt the

6. Diving into Data for Narellan Narellan Pools Affinity Australia

A big data campaign for an Australian swimming pool builder accelerated business growth using programmatic trading to target customers at the right time.

7. World Gallery Apple TBWA\Media Arts Lab Los Angeles USA

Apple kept the iPhone 6 exciting by focusing on user-generated imagery to highlight the superiority of the phone’s camera output over competitors.

8. #LikeAGirl Always Leo Burnett/Starcom MediaVest Group Global

Continued success of this campaign with their Girl Emojis push, championing girls’ confidence and equal representation in society.

9. #MyFamilyCan SPC Leo Burnett Australia

The Australian tinned fruit brand SPC leveraged labelling to fight a Hepatitis outbreak due to contaminated imports, beginning a national conversation.

10. Infrequent Flyers Tigerair McCann Australia

Tigerair improved its very low customer consideration scores with a humorous and highly shareable campaign that targeted the low-frequency flyer.

Brand Agencies Country

9 WARC 100: The world’s best marketing campaigns and companies 2017 © Copyright WARC 2017. All rights reserved.

Top 10 creative agencies in the WARC 100, 2017Rank Last Year Agency Location Points

1 41 adam&eveDDB UK 219.7

2 5 AMV BBDO UK 152.4

3 47 BBDO Mumbai India 142.2

4 31 Grey London UK 140.1

5 1 MullenLowe Lintas Group Mumbai India 123.3

6 3 Ogilvy & Mather New York USA 115.6

7 16 Ogilvy & Mather Mumbai India 103.5

8 New* 72andSunny Los Angeles USA 99.2

9 19 Colenso BBDO New Zealand 98.9

10 30 BBDO New York USA 94.3

View full rankings on WARC *New = outside the top 50

The world’s best creative agencies

Commentary

Three UK creative agencies made it into the top five this year, with adam&eveDDB topping the ranking, climbing 40 places as a result of their successful Christmas campaigns for John Lewis.

Indian agencies also performed well, but MullenLowe Lintas Group Mumbai were bumped off the top spot that they retained between 2015 and 2016, slipping to fifth place.

Four BBDO agencies were included in the top 10, contributing to their ranking as the top agency network.

10 WARC 100: The world’s best marketing campaigns and companies 2017 © Copyright WARC 2017. All rights reserved.

The world’s best media agencies

Top 10 media agencies in the WARC 100, 2017Rank Last Year Agency Location Points

1 2 Starcom New York USA 147.3

2 16 Mindshare New York USA 100.6

3 New* Atomic 212° Group Australia 95.0

4 22 Manning Gottlieb OMD UK 80.7

5 14 Mindshare Istanbul Turkey 71.8

6 New* OMD Los Angeles USA 61.0

7 8 MediaCom Mumbai India 60.1

8 New* Mediavest | Spark Chicago USA 59.7

9 New* UM Bucharest Romania 58.1

10 24 MEC Warsaw Poland 53.8

View full rankings on WARC *New = outside the top 50

This table supercedes an earlier versionwhere Manning Gottlieb OMD was incorrectly omitted

Commentary

US agencies dominate the media agencies ranking, with Starcom New York continuing to plan effective campaigns for the likes of Snickers and Walmart.

Atomic 212° Group, the Australian media agency behind the Lucy the Robot campaign entered the ranking for the first time at third.

Mediavest | Spark Chicago, part of the Starcom network, came in at eighth through successful work with US retailer REI, and another North American agency, OMD Los Angeles, also entered the top 10 for the first time in 6th.

11 WARC 100: The world’s best marketing campaigns and companies 2017 © Copyright WARC 2017. All rights reserved.

The world’s best digital / specialist agencies

Top 10 digital/specialist agencies in the WARC 100, 2017Rank Last Year Agency Location Points

1 36 Proximity London UK 81.0

2 New* Affinity Australia 70.9

3 New* Ketchum New York USA 64.1

4 New* Trisect USA 56.7

5 13 R/GA New York USA 51.6

6 New* Team Unilever Shopper USA 49.6

7 New* E:mg Moscow Russia 48.6

8 7 FCB/RED USA 47.0

9 New* Colenso/Proximity New Zealand New Zealand 46.7

10 New* 360i New York USA 45.3

View full rankings on WARC *New = outside the top 50

Commentary

An almost totally new top 10 for 2017, with only FCB/RED appearing last year. Of the rest, only Proximity London and R/GA New York were even in top 50 last year.

With its points total boosted by participation in the 5th placed campaign for The Economist, Proximity London is the top digital/specialist agency, representing the only UK agency in the top 10.

Another very strong showing for US agencies, with those from a range of agency networks making up the majority of the top 10.

Proximity Worldwide is the best digital/specialist network, with two agencies in the top 10 and five in the top 50.

12 WARC 100: The world’s best marketing campaigns and companies 2017 © Copyright WARC 2017. All rights reserved.

The world’s best agency networks

Commentary

BBDO Worldwide retained the top spot for fourth year running, and extended their lead over the next best network, Ogilvy & Mather Advertising.

MullenLowe and Saatchi & Saatchi fell out of top 10, replaced by JWT and TBWA Worldwide.

OMD Worldwide took the top media agency network this year, edging out Starcom.

Four Omnicom Group networks made the top 10, and a drop in Wieden + Kennedy’s ranking saw them placed 35, beaten to the top independent spot by Serviceplan at 33.

Top 10 agency networks in the WARC 100, 2017Rank Last Year Agency Points

1 1 BBDO Worldwide 1412.4

2 2 Ogilvy & Mather Advertising 978.9

3 9 McCann Erickson 702.9

4 6 OMD Worldwide 581.4

5 7 Starcom 573.9

6 5 Leo Burnett 572.8

7 3 DDB Worldwide 547.6

8 12 TBWA Worldwide 513.6

9 13 JWT 498.8

10 8 Grey 475.9

View full rankings on WARC This table supercedes an earlier versionwhere OMD Worldwide was incorrectly placed 7th

13 WARC 100: The world’s best marketing campaigns and companies 2017 © Copyright WARC 2017. All rights reserved.

The world’s best holding companies

Commentary

WPP continues to be the world’s most effective agency holding company, retaining the number one position since 2015. Like last year, Omnicom trails WPP in the overall ranking despite contributing to more campaigns in the top 100; 31 compared to WPP’s 22.

Interpublic Group have moved into third place ahead of Publicis Groupe for the first time, but by a very narrow margin of 36 points.

Top holding companies in the WARC 100, 2017Rank Last Year Holding company Points

1 1 WPP 4079.4

2 2 Omnicom Group 3598.4

3 4 Interpublic Group 2237.7

4 3 Publicis Groupe 2174.6

5 6 Dentsu 549.0

6 5 Havas 320.0

7 7 MDC Partners 165.1

8 8 BlueFocus 95.4

9 New* Enero Group 58.2

View full rankings on WARC *New = outside the top 50

14 WARC 100: The world’s best marketing campaigns and companies 2017 © Copyright WARC 2017. All rights reserved.

The world’s best brands

Commentary

Coca-Cola and McDonald’s have lost their positions as the top two brands in the world, previously retained every year since 2014.

Vodafone had only two campaigns in the top 100, but performed consistently across regions meaning a steady accumulation of points to reach the top spot for the first time.

John Lewis, in third, was boosted by the performance of its Christmas campaigns, and the big jump by Ariel into second is attributed to its number one campaign, Share The Load.

The top 10 continues to be dominated by brands from ‘traditional’ marketing categories such as retail and FMCG.

Top 10 brands in the WARC 100, 2017Rank Last Year Agency Location Points

1 7 Vodafone Telecoms 195.8

2 44 Ariel Household & Domestic 164.2

3 New* John Lewis Retail 163.4

4 4 IKEA Retail 151.8

5 New* Dove Toiletries & Cosmetics 145.8

6 45 MasterCard Financial Services 122.6

7 1 Coca Cola Soft Drinks 116.6

8 2 McDonald's Retail 110.5

9 New* Snickers Food 109.4

10 6 Heineken Alcoholic Drinks 100.0

View full rankings on WARC *New = outside the top 50

15 WARC 100: The world’s best marketing campaigns and companies 2017 © Copyright WARC 2017. All rights reserved.

The world’s best advertisers

Top 10 best advertisers in the WARC 100, 2017Rank Last Year Agency Points

1 1 Procter & Gamble 503.3

2 2 Unilever 478.2

3 14 Nestlé 308.3

4 5 PepsiCo 268.4

5 4 Heineken 248.9

6 8 Mondelēz International 239.2

7 13 Mars 210.2

8 15 Vodafone 195.8

9 3 The Coca-Cola Company 188.7

10 New* John Lewis 163.4

View full rankings on WARC *New = outside the top 50

Commentary

Procter & Gamble retained first place over rival Unilever, having placed five campaigns in the top 100 compared to Unilever’s three.

Coca-Cola suffered from its drop in the brand rankings, moving from a steady third best advertiser in previous years to ninth this year.

Heineken remains the top alcoholic drinks company, placing in both the brand and advertiser top 10s.

John Lewis enter the top 50 advertisers ranking for first time at 10, through their Christmas advertising campaign wins.

Volkswagen, Tata and Luxottica fell out of top 10. The latter, which was the brand behind 2016’s number one campaign, fell out of top 50 entirely.

16 WARC 100: The world’s best marketing campaigns and companies 2017 © Copyright WARC 2017. All rights reserved.

Country rankings

Top 5 countries in the WARC 100, 2017Rank Last Year Agency Points

1 1 USA 3583.6

2 2 UK 2091.5

3 3 India 977.7

4 5 Australia 877.7

5 4 China 666.2

View full rankings on WARC

Commentary

The same five countries are in the top five for the fourth year running, and since last year, the USA, UK and India have all retained their positions.

35 of the top 100 campaigns came from the USA, compared to only 17 from the UK. However, of these 17, six were in the top 20.

In contrast, Australia, with only seven campaigns in the top 100, moved up a position to 4th place, through the strong positions of these campaigns: four ranked in the top 10.

About the WARC 100

Each year, we track effectiveness and strategy competitions from around the world to rank the 100 best marketing campaigns and companies. We also use our database of awards wins to rank the world’s leading marketing organisations – both on the agency and client side. This document is a summary of the top-ranked campaigns and companies from the 2017 rankings.

To learn more, visit the site for this year’s rankings.

How we built the rankingsThe WARC 100 rankings are built on a rigorous methodology, developed in consultation with Douglas West, Professor of Marketing at King’s College London. The methodology is applied consistently across all competitions we track. First, a list of relevant competitions was compiled. Campaigns that won awards in those competitions were awarded points based on the level of award they won (Gold, Silver, Bronze, etc). Those points are then weighted according to the standing of each competition in the global marketing industry. The calculation includes data from:

Planner Poll: WARC has conducted a survey of over 100 senior agency planners and strategists to gauge which of the competitions we track are viewed as most prestigious or rigorous. Winners at the most-cited awards schemes are given extra weighting in the final rankings.

Size of market: WARC takes into account how much of the global advertising market the eligibility for each competition represents. It is able to do this using WARC’s comprehensive adspend data resources, which includes analysis by channel and by geography.

A campaign’s ‘score’ reflects the sum of all the weighted points attributed to it from different competitions. We have also collated information on the agencies behind the campaigns (including, where they have been listed, contributing agencies), and, where possible, the authors of the campaign case studies.

17 WARC 100: The world’s best marketing campaigns and companies 2017 © Copyright WARC 2017. All rights reserved.

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