The highly emotive act of breaking a taboo can drive more effective business outcomes for brands, according to our new report, Breaking Taboos: How breaking convention pays out, published in partnership with Ipsos. 

Ipsos’ creative testing database analysis shows how breaking taboos and defying category conventions gives advertisers a 21% boost in ad attention. 

But there are risks involved, and some brands are concerned about backlash arising from breaking certain taboos. Ipsos data shows a 107% rise in fear of backlash over speaking up for women’s rights in the UK.  

However, rewards can be high. Research also shows that empathy and surprise have the strongest correlation with long term brand growth. Moreover, highly positively charged ads are between 38% and 42% more likely to build long-term brand growth, and 40% more likely to reduce brand price sensitivity. 

Included in Breaking Taboos: How breaking convention pays out are examples of Effie-winning campaigns from The Gate Worldwide, adam&eveDDB, Havas Lynx Group, and Ogilvy UK.   

Anusol’s “The Cheeky Diagnosis”, created by The Gate Worldwide, tackled the topic of piles in a boldly humorous way and grew category sales by 64%, with the product launch winning 77% market share in two years. 

Meanwhile, the emotional campaign “The Last Photo” by adam&eveDDB for CALM challenged preconceptions about suicide  and increased demand for CALM’s helpline by 16.56%, which helped prevent 161 suicides. 

Ipsos validations of pre-testing to social outcomes show what drives campaigns to be talked about, listing four areas that improve social power: Cultural Impact, Creative Bravery, Positive Feelings, and Create Controversy.  

Breaking Taboos: How breaking convention pays out also proves how indifference negatively impacts long-term brand building, and offers advice for marketers around how they can break taboos in the right way.  

We hope this report will serve as a reminder to brands and creatives that there’s headroom to tell richer, more diverse stories that defy convention. Breaking taboos can be risky, but subverting social conventions can drive effectiveness, with the commercial upside of making your media money go a great deal further. 

You can read the report here.

 
Effie Worldwide has today announced the 2023 Effie Index® , the 13th annual ranking of the companies behind the world’s most effective marketing initiatives. 

FMCG/CPG, fast food and beverage companies dominated this year’s rankings, with 3 out of the Top 5 Most Effective Brands being QSRs.   

AB InBev and McDonald’s demonstrate their dedication to effectiveness by taking top spots in the Marketer and Brand rankings, respectively, for the third year running. 

The competition for Most Effective Agency Office showcases the global breadth and strength of agencies in relation to effectiveness.  The Top 10 Most Effective Agency Offices span the globe, representing Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, India, New Zealand, Ukraine, and United Arab Emirates. Similarly, the Top 10 ranking for Most Effective Independent Agencies include Argentina, Brazil, China, Denmark, India, New Zealand, Peru, Ukraine, and the United States. 

“The Global Effie Index has become the gold standard for measuring marketing effectiveness,” said Traci Alford, Global CEO, Effie Worldwide.  “The companies and brands at the top of our rankings demonstrate the highest commitment to effectiveness. No matter what their business challenge, they all have one thing in common, they continue to drive tangible successes for their brands.  I’d like to congratulate all the teams involved, they represent the very best of our industry and should be very proud of their achievements.” 

The Effie Index identifies and ranks the most effective agencies, marketers, brands, networks, and holding companies by analysing more than 4,750 finalist and winning entries from eligible global, regional, and national Effie Awards competitions around the world. Announced annually, it is the most comprehensive global ranking of marketing effectiveness. 

This year's rankings are representative of Effie Awards finalists and winners announced between 1st January 2023 and 31st December 2023. 

According to the new report, Evolving Aspirations: Navigating Status, what people find aspirational today is quality over flaunted wealth and seeing themselves as the keepers and drivers of their success. 

The latest volume of the Ipsos and Effie Dynamic Effectiveness series finds that in today’s world of ‘quiet luxury’, audiences prize not only acquiring enough wealth to live a secure and stable life, but also the freedom to enjoy it. It unpicks what this shift in how we perceive success means for marketers, and explains how to communicate and reflect aspiration in campaigns. 

The report also reveals that just 10% of Britons say they like to own or do things that display their wealth, while a significant 70% disagree – and a third strongly oppose it. That said, half of Britons (48%) agree that they often spend extra on higher-quality products. 

Meanwhile, it underscores a desire for autonomy, and reveals that the factors we consider essential to achieving success tend to be internal, such as how we treat others, our ability to work hard, and our innate skills and talents.  

The report also includes examples of Effie-winning campaigns from TUI & Leo Burnett UK, Vodafone & Ogilvy UK and DFS & Pablo London to show how brands have navigated topics like status and success in the real world.  

To read the report click here. 

You can read the previous reports in the Dynamic Effectiveness series here. 

Our UK Awards programme celebrates the most effective marketing in the United Kingdom each year, giving it the chance to shine on a global stage. 

Entries from agencies and brand teams from all marketing disciplines are welcomed – we want the Effies to represent the face of modern marketing, where return on investment isn't always the ultimate goal, nor comms the only way of getting there.  

Winning an Effie is a global benchmark of marketing excellence and can grow brands, transform careers and attract new business.  

ALL MARKETING ACTIVITY THAT RAN IN THE UK AT ANY POINT BETWEEN 1ST JULY 2022 AND 31ST DECEMBER 2023 IS ELIGIBLE TO ENTER. 

We’ve collated everything you need in one place to help you prepare your entries: 

1. Practical information: All the factual support you need for your entry, including information about eligibility, categories, fees, data, and the Entry Form templates.  

2. Helpful guidance: Resources to help you make your entry the best it can be. Includes advice from previous Effie Judges to explain what an award-winning entry looks like, a link to previous winning entries and information about our How to Enter Workshops and Entry Mentoring programme.  

You can find everything you need here. 

Submit your entry here.

The key dates for 2024’s UK Awards are: 

• 5th March – Open for entries
• 9th May 2024 - Early Bird Deadline. We’ve held the entry fee at last year’s level to make sure our awards remain affordable  
• 4th June - Standard Deadline. Discounts are available for first-time entrants and not-for-profits (see Entry Kit for details) 
• September – Finalists announced 
• November – Winners revealed at our Celebration Gala 

For more information, please email effieuk@effie.org

Why nostalgia is so ‘fetch’ right now, our latest report with Ipsos, highlights why nostalgia presents an opportunity for marketers to connect with consumers. By tapping into the feel-good factor in their past, brands can inspire feelings of control, comfort, connection, hope, or security.  

According to the report, the third volume in Effie and Ipsos’ Dynamic Effectiveness series, using nostalgia can strike the right chord with your audience and provide an opportunity for empathy and fit. 

Data from Ipsos’ Global Trends Survey shows that in Great Britain, 44% of people agree that ‘given the choice, ‘I would prefer to have grown up at the time when my parents were children’, offering further evidence of rosy retrospection and a strong desire for the past when faced with an uncertain future. A further 60% of people would like their country to be the way it was.

The report details four Effie Award winners that have used nostalgia to evoke specific feelings for their audience, including Renault’s ‘Papa, Nicole’, KFC’s ‘Chicken Town’, Havas’ ‘Long Live the Local’ and Crayola’s ‘Colours of the World’, which powerfully demonstrate how brand heritage can build connections and provide comfort, how evoking nostalgia can inspire people to take action, and how addressing the past head on can provide hope and a reason to look ahead. 

Download the report >

To read our earlier reports in the Dynamic Effectiveness series, click here:
- "A Woman’s Worth: How Better Portrayal Is Good For Business"
- "The Empathy Gap and How to Bridge It"

Our report with Ipsos UK finds that marketing that demonstrates and generates a sense of ‘empathy and fitting in’ is also an effective way to drive business.

According to the report – the second volume in Effie and Ipsos’ Dynamic Effectiveness series, which began with an exploration of the sales and business value of marketing that promotes equality for women – ‘while empathy and fitting in’ is key to creativity, all too often it doesn’t get the airtime it deserves.
 
To right this imbalance, Effie UK and Ipsos explored the role of empathy in advertising today.
 
Today, 73% of us globally wish we could slow down the pace of our lives and are craving and searching for simplicity and meaning – a trend that in the UK has grown +48% over the last 10 years. This poses marketers two key challenges: how to avoid the temptation to complicate things and how to maximise marketing impact while respecting an audience.

The report features a selection of Effie-winning case studies, including our 2023 Grand Effie winner - Yorkshire Tea's 'Where everything's done proper' (with Lucky Generals), and will leave you with six rules to help make sure your marketing demonstrates and generates 'empathy and fitting in.'

The full report can be found here. 

To read our earlier report in the Dynamic Effectiveness series, click here:
"A Woman’s Worth: How Better Portrayal Is Good For Business"

On 9th November, twenty-one Gold, Silver and Bronze winners were awarded for solving a marketing challenge effectively, connecting with the target audience and achieving outstanding results.

Yorkshire Tea scooped the Grand Effie for the most effective marketing campaign in the UK, and also a Gold for its long-running brand campaign, ‘Where Everything’s Done Proper’. Four other brands were also awarded Gold: CALM, Mayor of London, Pot Noodle and Tesco.

Eight brands – Dell, Heinz Pasta Sauces, McDonald’s, Santander, Tesco, TV Licensing, Vodafone and The Woolmark Company – received Silver Awards. Effie UK also handed out eight Bronze awards to: Capita for the British Army, DFS, H&M, Merlin Entertainments, Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospice, Renault UK, Tesco and TUI.

Congratulations to all of this year's winning teams.

Read more >

Effie UK has announced its 2023 Effie Awards UK finalists, having received more submissions from a broader sweep of entrants than any other year. These 40 shortlisted entries have been through to the final round of judging, with the winner announcements and celebration taking place on 9 November 2023.

The Positive Change category is the most hotly contested, with eight entries competing – more than any other category. Among the finalists are not-for-profits CALM and Mayor of London, alongside high-profile brands such as Ariel, Tesco and Vodafone – showing how widespread the idea of purposeful campaigns now is, and how businesses are taking their powers of influence seriously.

Reflecting the increased importance of long-term investment and future-facing innovation to drive growth, other categories with fierce competition are Sustained Success, and New Product or Service, both with four finalists.

Havas London is the most short-listed agency, in the running for four awards.

Juliet Haygarth, Managing Director of Effie UK, said: “With more entries than ever, and a particularly high standard of submissions, the judges did not have an easy time deciding on these shortlists. So we extend our thanks to the whole panel for their hard work, and offer our congratulations to every finalist for getting this far – it’s a real achievement.”

All submissions go through several rounds of  rigorous judging, with juries comprising of senior marketing leaders from a diverse range of disciplines at brands, agencies and media owners. The final rounds of judging will decide the winners and award levels – Gold, Silver and Bronze – as well choosing the Grand Effie recipient.

The Gold. Silver and Bronze award winners, and the winner of the ultimate Grand Effie will be announced at the Effie UK 2023 Awards Celebration, which takes place on 9 November. Tickets for the event are available here.

View the 2023 Effie Awards UK finalists showcase > 

In our new report, produced in partnership with Ipsos, we explore how marketers need to rid themselves of outdated representations of women once and for all to increase sales and improve the perception of their brands.

According to Ipsos' latest global trends data, nearly one in three people in the UK agree that the main role for women in society is to be good wives and mothers. And that figure (29%) has been steadily increasing over the last 10 years.  Alarmingly, much of that increase is being driven by 16-24-year-olds, with a staggering 38% in agreement with the idea that a woman’s main role should still be based around her husband and her children.

The report includes recommendations for driving change and delivers insights and practical tips that marketers can actually use, underlined by Ipsos data, insights and analysis, and illustrated by Effie Award-winning case studies that have delivered in the real world.

Download the report >

The Effie Case Database offers a collection of Ideas That Work®, featuring thousansd finalist and and winning case studies and creative reels, highlighting effective marketing communications strategies, ideas and results from around the world.

Learn more >