Advertising best practice, evidence and insights

What we know about point of purchase and in-store marketing

Article • WARC Best Practice, June 2020

Explores how best to approach in-store marketing and explains how the best of in-store activation needs to benefit categories overall not just one brand, and deliver gains for shoppers, brands and retailers alike.

How to use technology effectively in your in-store marketing strategy

Article • Phil Gault, WARC Best Practice, February 2018

Outlines the types of technologies available to shopper marketers and establishes a strategic framework by which third-party brands can enhance the effectiveness of their in-store marketing.

Majestic and Naked: why loyalty matters in wine

News • 18/08/2020

Wine matters – Covid made that point abundantly clear – and for the now separate wine retailers, physical stalwart Majestic, and online DTC pioneer Naked, that fact has meant divergent strategies working well in the same category.

Nestlé: Nutrition Cart

Case Study • Mona Hassanie, Catherine Asseily, WARC Prize for MENA Strategy, Entrant, 2020

The Nestlé for Healthier Kids global initiative repurposed children's shopping carts in Carrefour supermarkets to deliver a healthy eating message in the United Arab Emirates.

How Walgreens reached out to cancer patients who needed beauty advice

Article • Geoffrey Precourt, WARC COVID-19 Series, TMRE Digital Week webinar, April 2020

Walgreens, the pharmacy retailer, used its “Feel More Like You” campaign to meet the needs of cancer patients who wanted to look their best.

YPF: The promotion of a change

Case Study • Case Studies on WARC, 2018

Argentinian energy company YPF successfully communicated its transition to more sustainable practices through a promotion that offered an unusual reward.

'Feel The Colour': MAC Cosmetics reinvents its physical retail experience in China

Case Study • Jenny Chan, Case Studies on WARC, ROI Festival, October 2019

MAC's Shanghai new concept store was an innovative retail method that combined social engagement, product discovery, experience customisation, and WeChat integration.

It’s time we recognised the brand-building qualities of shopper activation

Opinion • Callum Saunders, February 2020

The path-to-purchase has become a meaningful canvas for multi-faceted brand activation, argues Callum Saunders, head of planning at brand activation agency Zeal Creative.

Shopping cues: Conceptualization, scale development, and validation

Article • Sohel Ahmed and Ding Hooi Ting, International Journal of Market Research, Vol. 62, No. 1, 2020, pp. 95-112

This article provides a conceptualization that encompasses the essence of shopping cues while offering consistency with the literature on the related construct.

Nestlé: A Quality Street Christmas

Case Study • Integrated Marketing Communications Council Europe, Silver, Sponsorship and Shopper Marketing, 2019

Quality Street, a chocolate brand produced by Nestlé, increased sales for its Quality Street tins in the UK at Christmas by launching exclusive in-store activations in Asda, Sainsbury's and Tesco.

Alfasigma: Neoborocillina Gola Junior

Case Study • Integrated Marketing Communications Council Europe, Silver, Brand Building (Outbound marketing), 2019

NeoBorocillina, a brand of sore throat treatments, promoted its new line of sore throat products aimed at children in Italy by creating videos based on children's imagination.

AG Barr: Refresh your Ramadan

Case Study • Integrated Marketing Communications Council Europe, Bronze, Shopper Marketing, 2019

Rubicon, a soft drink brand produced by A.G. Barr, launched targeted social media content before, during and after Ramadan to increase sales among people celebrating in the UK.

Miscarriage Association: Cards of Acknowledgement

Case Study • Data and Marketing Association, Gold, 2019

Miscarriage Association, a charity, created a card for women who have suffered a miscarriage which was featured by various media outlets in the UK.

Circle K: Get What You Dream

Case Study • MMA Smarties, Bronze, Vietnam, 2019

Circle K, a convenience store company, launched in-store promotions and mobile gaming ads that offered instant prizes to increase relevance and sales among millennials and Gen Z in Vietnam.

GU: Care Label

Case Study • Tangrams Strategy & Effectiveness Awards, Bronze, 2019

GU, a fashion brand and UNIQLO's sister brand, increased awareness and sales in China by featuring meaningful messages on its clothing labels to reunite consumers with their families during Chinese New Year.

Multi-methods cocktail: Blending brain scanning, VR and eye-tracking to compare print with digital, TV and outdoor advertising

Research Paper • Tom van Bommel, ESOMAR, Fusion, 2019

Looks at how different types of advertising media operate and interact to sway a customer's purchase decisions towards a particular direction.

Customer listening delivers for Dunkin’

News • 14/11/2019

Dunkin’, the quick-service restaurant chain, has made innovations in areas such as its menu selection, and even its coupon strategy, thanks to a focus on customer listening.

Dunkin’ re-energizes dated QSR brand with seven strategic principles of brand optimism

Article • Geoffrey Precourt, Event Reports, ANA Masters of Marketing Conference, October 2019

Dunkin’, the quick-service restaurant chain, successfully revitalized its brand through focusing on optimism.

How sensorial marketing drives in-store sales

Article • Lona Meza, Event Reports, Brainy Bar 9, October 2019

Looks at neuro-research into how sensorial marketing can impact in-store sales.

Tesco loyalty scheme takes membership route

News • 12/11/2019

Tesco’s launch of Clubcard Plus last week takes the retailer’s long-running loyalty scheme into new territory, being a subscription option, and is the final piece in the turnaround engineered by CEO Dave Lewis.

What brands can learn from Tesco’s turnaround

Article • Brian Carruthers, Event Reports, Festival of Marketing, October 2019

Looks at how supermarket Tesco returned to profit after recording the largest ever loss by a UK retailer (£6.4 billion) in 2014/15.

Winning the grocery growth challenge

Article • Ray Gaul, Anish Mashru and Matthew Botham, WARC Exclusive, October 2019

Grocery and supermarket formats are increasingly challenging for brand growth.

Startups challenge Amazon Go’s cashierless head-start

News • 16/10/2019

Following Amazon’s widely-publicised foray into cashierless stores, a group of startups are now chasing the prize of creating the tech underlying what is believed to be a new phase of convenience retail – but the e-commerce giant will be tough to ...

Georgia-Pacific taps advertising power of e-commerce websites

Article • Stephen Whiteside, Event Reports, Advertising Week New York, September 2019

Georgia-Pacific, the manufacturer of brands in categories from toilet paper to plastic utensils, is using retail media in order to reach digital shoppers in the environments where they actually make purchases.

IKEA thinks small

News • 26/09/2019

IKEA, the furniture retailer, is planning more city centre stores and planning studios as its experiment with smaller retail formats has succeeded in attracting consumers and boosting online sales.

POP & in-store