18+ Marketing Researches You Must Know
Show of Hands: Brand vs Performance, Influencer Marketing, Advertising Trust & Representation and the case for creative freedom and budgets in marketing.
I’m keeping the cringe intro I did for 2024 edition of this post. They not like us, only sharing data that matters.
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1. The Long and Short of It: Where’s the evidence?
In a way, this research paper by Les Binet and Peter Field has become the template for brand marketers to advocate for more brand spending. That’s the good part, you can always count on the logic of it. Just stay away from all the marketers and companies trying to use this paper as their own selling point.
For people unfamiliar with this piece of work, all you need to know is performance vs brand marketing debate begins and ends in this text. Or does it??
2. The Edelman Trust Barometer + FT’s Trust Gap Report: Who do you trust in Media & Advertising?
Both reports give you useful insights into consumers’ and general public’s trust in each other and advertising industry. (FT) (Edelman)
The decline of trust in media and advertising won’t be solved by a single brand or campaign. But it certainly requires everyone in the industry to come together and raise the standards of trust in advertising.
3. Mindshare UK + Kantar: What do they think about ad platforms and social?
Retail (Amazon) keeps winning, concludes Kantar. This is likely because most people have always put up with classified ads, and the format isn’t that new. I’m doubtful about Prime Video, though, it won’t be part of the top five next year.
What does Mindshare think? “TV isn’t going anywhere,” it says. While the trust in media channels might be dying, TV remains a less chaotic medium, and the target audience is more likely to trust the advertisers. Is it the reason, Disney isn’t giving up on linear TV yet? May be.
4. IPSOS + Born Licensing + Byron Sharp: Marketers follow templates and tend misjudge which creative assets builds their brand
Show more than a logo, and invest in more than a Duolingo copycat. Brand characters are the answer for many companies to win in this AI-Attention slop economy, but Intellectual Property (IP) ultimately wins over brand characters.
While brand characters and mascots are effective, IP collaborations attract more attention in both the long and short-term. Even outside the marketing world, the box office screams “IP = $$$,” and brands like Crocs, Mattel and LEGO are enjoying the full benefit of the ongoing IP wave.
Born Licensing research proves it for you and provides the evidence you need to get the budget on board. Another research from Gemba Group shares similar insights about the impact of IP in sports marketing.
Moving on from mascots & IP, Byron Sharp’s new research and IPSOS suggest you are probably overvaluing your brand assets.
Ehrenberg-Bass Institute reveals marketers misjudge branding elements that bring fame vs recognition. Only 44% of marketers ranked branding elements in the same quadrant as consumers.
Marketers’ judgements of brand identity element strength are mostly inaccurate. The study proves what some of us already believe and provides a solution that we know works: Group Discussions, Diversity and consulting non-marketers can help marketers make the right decision about use of branding.
Overconfidence is the enemy of good marketing and the friend of bad branding.
5. Influencers are effective and we finally got some good evidence this year to prove so.
First, we got useful data from Kantar and Whalar at Cannes showing creators generate more impact than digital advertising. Their report highlights the importance of CTAs and on-screen text to enhance creative effectiveness.
Second, we have a new study from the IPA that reveals, for every £1 (or $1) of short-term sales generated, influencer marketing creates an additional £2.35 in long-term sales impact, a total of £3.35 overall.
While the short-term sales percentage of Influencer Marketing is considerably lower than that of Linear TV (4.5% of sales contribution for influencers vs 32% for TV) the ROI Index is comparable (Influencer ROI index – 99, Linear TV - 97).
Globally, short-term ROI performance remains consistent with the overall channel average of 100.*
When looking long-term, influencer ROI was significantly greater than paid social. Influencer marketing also boasts the highest long-term multiplier across all media channels at 3.35. Linear TV follows closely behind at 3.27.
Long-term influencer ROI stood at 151 on the index, again at the same level at TV; sales contribution was 6.2%.
6. The Multiplier Effect: Is it practical or…?
WARC’s biggest report of the year takes a practical and deeper look into the performance-marketing debate. Brand-Performance are besties, not enemies.
7. TV sustains its sales-causing brain effects far longer than YouTube
This Study from FOX, Wharton Neuroscience Initiative & Bill Harvey Consulting talks about impact of Youtube vs TV advertising on consumers.
The joy of ‘You are on TV’ will never exist on ‘You were on my feed’. Both channels hold different value in consumer mind. Social is still to many the kid on the block.
In partnership with Tracksuit - Our sponsor also has some excellent reports and data for you to read.
Tracksuit and TikTok’s Awareness Advantage study has found that high-awareness brands achieve 2.86x the conversion rate of low-awareness brands. Put simply: the more familiar your brand is to all category buyers, the more efficient your performance advertising becomes.
Tracksuit and Small World’s ‘Entertain or Die’ report reveals how brands are building in-house Hollywoods, worlds consumers escape into, filled with brand characters, lore, and social content that keeps them talking.
Brands built around entertainment grow faster than traditional competitors. 96% of the global Top 30 most entertaining brands saw revenue growth is the past year. Put simply, being entertaining pays.
They recently published new media consumption + demographic data of who’s actually in Skincare (UK) and Premium Haircare, Running Shoes (US) and other categories.
8. Has representation in advertising actually improved?
A little, but people seem to be overestimating some of the progress we’ve seen in inclusive advertising.
Channel 4’s research reveals pregnant women appear in just 0.1% of all UK adverts, only 2% of ads feature LGBTQIA+ people which is below the 3.2% of LGBTQIA+ people living in the UK population at the time of the 2021 Census, and only 4% of ads feature disabled people vs. 17.8% in the UK population (Census 2021), unchanged from the average representation of the last six years.
Representation of LGBTQI+ people in advertising has remained consistently low and largely stagnant for the past six years, with a small decline in C4’s most recent audit.
Disabled people have been underrepresented in advertising since 2018, with visibility not surpassing 4% of ads.
Only 3% of ads had subtitles built into the creative.
On the positive side, Black people remain the highest represented group relative to their population size. Meanwhile South Asian presence has grown, East Asian representation shows gradual movement after past declines, and mixed ethnicity visibility remains consistent.
But again, there are some limitations to these new improvements, East Asian characters rarely have speaking roles and South Asian characters more likely to be shown in stereotypical jobs.
It’s also important to note that representation in advertising is often tokenised and turned into a checklist to protect the brand from backlash.
Data says that this is the case for most brands, 46% of ads featuring minority characters are montages vs 39% of ads overall in 2024. 1 in 2 ethnic minority people say they only ever see people from minority groups portrayed in a tokenistic way in TV adverts (48%).
There’s a lot of room for improvement, and it’s destined to pay off, as brands with more inclusive advertising see a 3.5x increase in short-term sales and a 16% uplift in long-term performance. Consumers are 62% more likely to choose representative brands first, and those brands command 54% greater pricing power.
Young Men also don’t see ads reflective of ‘the man they want to become’.
Channel 4’s another research found that more than one-third of young men, and half of men aged 25-34, say advertisers should do more around the representation of men in advertising. About one in four men (26%) say they regularly see advertising that “reflects the man they want to become”.
They also found that among the young men surveyed, many adverts lean on a “narrow, glossy vision of masculinities to sell their product.
Young men want, and expect, aspirational advertising, but they want it to be anchored in some sense of realism”. The top descriptions of male characters in TV advertising are ‘strong’, ‘successful’, ‘intelligent’ or ‘overly masculine’.
75% of men aged 18-34 say they are “proud to be a man”, yet only four in 10 believe “society treats masculinity positively”.
Over half of young men believe the pressure to be masculine is coming from women, which the report notes is aligning to the “growing cultural and political divergence between young men and women”.
9. Kantar: Less is More
Too many marketing messages dilute everything.
When brands try to reach a wider audience by increasing the volume of messages they put into the market, it can easily backfire if they do not tie everything back to the brand platform. Or if the media planning does not allocate different messages to different subsets of the target audience.
10 . More OOH Placements in UK’s most deprived areas
This study had OOH firms speaking. It was called out by Outsmart for missing “key points”. Tim Lumb from Outsmart said this, “It doesn’t grasp the fundamental nature of OOH advertising, which is about reaching people when they are out and on the move commuting, shopping, seeing friends and leisure activities.”
His statement doesn’t prove the study wrong. It only brings up new points that might impact consumer behaviour in those deprived areas. In that area, Consumers are more stressed by their financial conditions. You shouldn’t overdo the messaging and need to have the designs that enlighten their mood.
That’s one half of the study. It also talks about pollution in Cities with most OOH placements.
2025 Update: We’ve another new study about OOH advertising invading the UK’s most deprived areas, this time with a focus on junk food ads.
The study analysed 859 outdoor adverts on bus stops, billboards, and telephone boxes in four major cities: Liverpool, Southwark (London), Birmingham, and Newcastle upon Tyne.
44% (377) of all outdoor adverts captured were for food and drink products.
Junk food ads appeared six times more frequently per kilometre in the most deprived areas compared to the least deprived.
Of the 333 food and drink-related adverts, 57% promoted products high in fat, sugar and/or salt (HFSS), with fast food brands dominating.
11. Magic Numbers & IPA: Update your marketing strategy and budgets.
A lot of marketers still abide by the saying, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” In this climate of AI, TikTok, and cultural shifts, marketing strategies need to grow as the business grows.
Don’t be like the brands that change nothing for a decade and then panic rebrand, only for the backlash to make their situation worse. Don’t listen to me, read the research on strategy and budgets.
According to a new analysis of the IPA Databank, budget is eight times more important than ROI when it comes to driving effectiveness. When looking at how variations in profit were generated in IPA Effectiveness Award-winning case studies, ROI only accounts for 11% of the variations in payback observed, compared to 89% for budget.
12. VCCP: Brand Loyalty &….
In the post-Covid era of 2022 to 2024, the number of brand effects per loyalty-centric campaign grew by 150%, while the number of response effects declined by 26%. The impact of loyalty is pivoting from one of short-term marketing outcomes, to longer brand-lead outcomes. At the same time, Business Effects have grown by 60%.
VCCP’s Long & Short of Loyalty report goes deep into state of loyalty programs and the current limitations of marketing measurements when it comes to identifying the effects of loyalty campaigns.
13. Effie: Problem-solution approach for advertising
44% of Effie-winning campaigns use a problem-solution approach with a focus on clear, tangible results. Ads that present achievable actions see a +19% boost in effectiveness, particularly in areas like sustainability.
10% of Effie entrants with a purpose theme had an ad using a tone that was considered lecturing and finger-wagging and they didn’t win. 63% consumers would like to see advertising that give them a sense of comfort and reassurance.
Winning/effective campaigns are more likely to have clear or compelling connections or reasons for why the brand is involved in the issue. Overall, 63% of 2024 U.S. Effie Awards Entrants have a believable brand purpose; 71% for winners and finalists vs. 52% for non-winners.
14. CMOs are struggling &…
76% of CEOs now recognize their CMO’s commitment to the organization over self-interest (up from 44% four years ago).
Despite this good news, CEO ratings for CMOs have declined in critical business areas:
“Ability to drive company growth” dropped to 19% (from 31% last year)
“Ability to translate company goals to marketing goals” fell to 24% (from 35%)
14% of CEOs have considered eliminating the CMO position.
CMOs have slightly reduced martech spending as a share of the total marketing budget, down 0.9% from spring 2024. However, martech usage increased by 1.4% in the same period.
Average CMO tenure at Fortune 500 companies in 2024 was 4.3 years, a slight upward tick from 2023 (4.2). CMO tenure still trails the C-suite average of 4.9 years, and is lower than the most common C-suite roles other than chief operating officer (albeit higher than the average tenures of chief sustainability and chief diversity officers).
71% of CMOs plan to invest more than $10 million annually in GenAI over the next three years, up from 57% last year. According to a new survey from Boston Consulting Group, optimism among CMOs about GenAI has climbed each year—from 74% in 2023 to 83% in 2025—while concerns have declined rapidly.
CMOs are being asked to do more with less, only 27% leaders feel their organizations are well-equipped to handle the broadening remit.
The barriers to brand success are internal silos (cited by 36%), a lack of desired budgets for marketing activities (34%), insufficient in-house talent (32%) and incoherent strategic vision (32%).*
15. Reuters: On state of digital news & AI adoption
Despite a clear decline over the last decade, Reuters Institute found that levels of trust in news across markets are currently stable at 40%. Indeed, they have been unchanged for the last three years. But we do find significant differences at a national level. (Digital News Report)
On average across six countries, just under one third (29%) say that they trust ChatGPT, ahead of Google Gemini (18%), Microsoft Copilot (12%), and Meta (12%) (Figure 14, see next page). Less than one in ten say they trust all of the other generative AI systems we asked about. Again, this is primarily because only around 15% or fewer have actually heard of them, meaning that the proportion who say they distrust them is often equally small. (AI Report)
Another report from TollBit shares alongside the growth in AI bot traffic we are now beginning to see human visitors decline. TollBit data saw a 9.4% drop in human requests between Q1 and Q2 2025.
Out of human & AI visitor totals, we now see 1 out of every 50 visitors to a site is an AI visitor. It was 1 out of every 200 visitors to a site in Q1 2025.
16. Brand Consideration is higher for long-term programme sponsorships
The screenshot above is taken Channel 4’s Sponsorship Rocks Presentation, but the data comes from Thinkbox’s research. Both are worth reading to plan your next programme sponsorship. Channel 4 also shared new data from their research about sponsorships
17. Public, Inc: How conscious consumers react to brand claims
Local sourcing and clean ingredients are the top performing consumable claims in both U.S. and Canada. In fact, “carbon neutral” is 3x less effective than the top performing claims, even amongst the most loyal conscious consumers. Science-based claims like “certified organic” and “carbon neutral” perform low.
The hardcore conscious consumers are open to more claims. But if you confuse them you lose them. 49% of all consumers have walked away from products with confusing sustainability claims. The number skyrockets to 87% amongst the most conscious consumers.
18. Gen-Z’s purchase intent rises with inclusive ads, but ads are…
Microsoft’s The Psychology of Inclusion research goes over best marketing practices for targeting Gen-Z. In the analysis, you will also find comparison between words and images that result in Gen-Z liking a piece of ad or content. That’s one of the report you should read about Zoomers, others can be found here.
19. Kantar + Cannes: Creativity profits but marketers lack patience and courage.
This Kantar + WARC research proves ‘Creative is the new targeting’. But most marketers think being creative is squeezing the juice out of CGI Ads. Or Gen-Z Aesthetics.
Marketers have a problem when it comes to doing creative work. They are too afraid to rerun traditional creative campaigns, when they should. But force digital creatives to use the same concept again and again. If it performed well for the first time, They think it will work again. Double Standards
Let your creatives breathe, specifically the ones on digital.
Cannes Lions’ The State of Creativity report reveals that only 13% of companies are creative risk-friendly. 51% of brands claim their insights are too weak to develop bold creativity, only 13% rate them as strong.
Brands are also increasingly shifting toward short-term activities, rising from 53% in 2023 to 63% in 2025.
20. Most Advertising channels turn a profit. Your problem might be something internal. Or…..
The data comes from Thinkbox’s recent study titled, “Profit Ability 2: the new business case for advertising”. You are always doing something wrong, even when you are seeing the profit. That’s why be experimental with your marketing approach.
Don’t stick, before you’ve done the pick, trick, ask and task.
Picking random advertising channels, then using all the tricks to test the waster. After that, asking around to confirm the success. If the success was there, plan the tasks and stick.
21. ANA: Programmatic Advertising is still flawed
The Q2 Programmatic Transparency Benchmark report reveals that $26.8 billion in global media value remains unrealised due to persistent inefficiencies in the programmatic ecosystem.
The report showed the TrueCPM Index, a key measure of media efficiency, dropped from 37.8% to 36.5%, even as paid CPMs remained steady. On the positive side, TrueCPM Opportunity rose from 20.8% to 25.8%, largely due to an increase in CTV spending going from 30.4 to 44.2% with lower media productivity scores.
22. The Influence of Celebrity Influencers is dying?
The impact of celebrity influencers is declining as 25% of consumers are now turned off by celebrity or Influencer endorsements. (Storyblok)
Customer ratings from Celebrity influencers aren’t considered trustworthy enough by consumers.
56% of consumers would rather follow normal users on social media than celebrities, as they find the content they post more authentic.
That’s also the reason, audiences now prefer rough content over hyper-edited videos on Youtube and TikTok.
YSK, but TL;DR
IAB Europe’s Attitudes to Retail Media Report 2025.
VML’s Future Shopper 2025.
CreativeX’s Waste Not, Want Not Report.
Havas’ Meaningful Brands Reports.
WFA’s Marketer of the Future Report.
YouGov’s Ad-verse Report 2025.
Back on Sunday. Until then…
