Reports & Studies

Research findings and studies from marketing professionals across WPP.

The Yin - Yang of Technology Payoffs in Consumer Life
JWT India | May 2008
Efficiency and indulgence, refuge and escape, conformism and showmanship, child-like delight and intellectual growth, the payoffs from technology in personal life are dichotomous says the latest Brand ChakrasTM study, by JWT India.

Mastering the Mobile Marketing Maze
Millward Brown | March 2008
Everyone's talking about mobile marketing as the next big thing. But despite the panoply of available options, the desired ROI is unlikely to be achieved without careful consideration and management. Success depends not just on knowing the range of mobile options, but on your ability to match these options to your brand's objectives.

Bands and Brands
brandamp | February 2008
brandamp's new book Bands and Brands is a major new investigation into the world of music and marketing. If you're interested in the business of bringing brands and artists together to create something mutually beneficial, it may be exactly what you've been waiting for.

Avoiding The Three Deadly Sins
Tom Kinnaird and Hal Movius    | January 2008
To contribute greater value, CPOs need to develop and promote a more sophisticated approach to negotiation that considers all parties’ interests

Putting The Shopper Back Into Marketing
Millward Brown | December 2007
Budgets are flowing into shopper marketing as never before. But marketers hoping to maximize the return on their investment must address two key point-of-purchase challenges ...

Green fields ahead for Advertising in China's countryside
Bates Asia | November 2007
Greater prosperity for those who live in the countryside has long been one of China’s major concerns. But incomes of rural residents still lag far behind those of city-dwellers and the gap has steadily widened in recent decades - and the implications for the advertising industry are immense.

United in Diversity?
Addison | November 2007
To what extent does narrative reporting in European annual reports show evidence of convergence around a common set of standards?

Customer Equity Management
Meritus | October 2007
In the last two decades, managerial trends have tended to focus on either cost management or revenue growth. Customer equity management balances the two, creating market-based growth while carefully evaluating the profitability and ROI of marketing investment.

Green values: Consumers and Branding
TGI (through the KMR Group) | October 2007
Forward-thinking consumers and businesses are waking up to scientific and economic arguments by starting to vote for lower carbon products and services with their wallets and purses.

Mother India
JWT India | October 2007
The Indian Mother-and-Child is now a team with a shared vision, with mothers actively believing they can shape their children’s destiny for mutual benefit, says the latest JWT Brand ChakrasTM, by JWT India

Crisis Management and the Half-Second News Cycle
GCI Group | October 2007
Traditional crisis management approaches developed prior to the advent of digital media -- and the half-second news cycle that exists today -- must be adapted to manage crises effectively.

Out-Of-Home But Not Out-Of-Place
Millward Brown | October 2007
Marketers are returning to the great outdoors. Frustrated by the declining ability of television to deliver mass reach that is cost-effective, advertisers are putting renewed emphasis on reaching people when they're away from home.

Brands in the Balance
Landor | August 2007
How do we create effective communications programs when peer-to-peer recommendations are the new form of "earned media"?

PR: What to Do When the Public Does Most of the Relating
Ogilvy PR Worldwide | August 2007
How do we create effective communications programs when peer-to-peer recommendations are the new form of "earned media"?

Brand Building Along the Media Long Tail
Millward Brown | July 2007
As people use a wider range of media in their everyday lives, marketers likewise have new options to consider for communicating with them. But in a world keen on rushing us down a growing tail of communication channels, we need to revisit some key principles to ensure that we are wagging that tail and it is not wagging us.

University Life
JWT | July 2007
This issue of Work In Progress examines university life today, from how students are learning, spending their free time and planning their lives to how the university structure itself is evolving.

The Store: Whole Foods
The Store | July 2007
Serious foodie? The Store's in-depth analysis of Whole Foods' attempt to conquer the UK high street is essential reading

What Price A Strong Brand?
Millward Brown | June 2007
As the world of brands becomes ever more cluttered and competitive, the marketer's task of building and maintaining strong brands becomes increasingly difficult.What proof do we have that strong brands really provide a financial benefit to brand owners and shareholders?

Your Guide to Profits: Insights through Business Analytics
Meritus | June 2007
A balance is required so that the information can be used to the advantage of the business without overwhelming or distracting it.

Consumers in the real China
Ogilvy Discovery Mindshare | May 2007
Ogilvy Discovery & Mindshare Insights embark on an ambitious project to unravel consumers, understand their relationship with brands and the media, and study the retail environment in the low tier towns of China.

Growth: Marketing Incubators
Penn Schoen and Berland Associates | April 2007
Is your company looking for new kinds of growth opportunities? Today many marketing organizations are being asked to stimulate growth in their organizations - to become incubators of new products and services. In this paper, Tom Agan, Managing Director of PSB’s New York office, discusses three very different kinds of programs that corporations can use to initiate and develop new ideas and products.

All change: Marketing in addressable media
GroupM | April 2007
Welcome to the third iteration of the GroupM This Year Next Year series, this one dedicated to the interactive media. This publication and the data it contains are intended for all marketers and media companies wherever and whoever they are; sellers of branded goods and services, retailers and online merchants, direct and indirect sellers, makers of programmes and owners of the means of distribution.

Silent Marketing: Micro Targeting
Penn Schoen and Berland Associates | March 2007
Penn, Schoen and Berland (PSB) is a pioneer in developing micro-targeting and micro-messaging and has been applying these techniques with great success in the political arena. Now they are bringing it to the corporate world.

Branded Content: More Than Just Showing Up (pdf)
Millward Brown | February 2007
As advertisers struggle to engage the attention of today's over-marketed consumers, they are looking with renewed interest at the placement of brands in various entertainment genres. With so many options available to them, how can marketers maximize the value of these appearances for their brands?

A "Greenprint" For Companies (pdf)
Enterprise IG | January 2007
As the "sustainable" agenda grows in strength, companies need to ensure they get the balance right between promoting a green stance and being true to what they say.

Blurring and Polarization
JWT | January 2007
The blur factor is becoming increasingly prevalent in society, but in keeping with that ancient Chinese principle of yin-yang, so too is an opposite trend toward polarization.

Succeeding with Celebrities
MindShare India | January 2007
MindShare India has launched CelebZ, a powerful tool that allows marketers to zero in on the celebrities who have the strongest appeal within their specific target segment and the best fit with their brands.

Effective Package Design (pdf)
Landor | January 2007
Product packaging has the potential to be one of the most effective means to communicate directly with consumers and drive bottom-line growth. However, many brands lack a vital ingredient for success: a unique personality that creates an emotional connection with consumers.

The Promise of Online Video (pdf)
Millward Brown | January 2007
The sellers of online video advertising are singing its praises and extolling its virtues, promising a more engaged audience for online video compared to a relatively passive one for TV. But have we actually reached the tipping point when budgets shift from TV to online? And how can marketers best utilize this emerging media?

10 Trends for 2007 (pdf)
JWT | January 2006
Change is happening fast, and it's getting faster all the time. The balance of economic power is shifting to the East as China and India find their stride. The December issue of JWT's Work in Progress trendletter looks at these forces and more to identify 10 trends for 2007

Brand building in the BRICs
Geoff Wicken | January 2006
With the 'BRIC' markets of Brazil, Russia, India and China under increasing focus, a new report from TGI examines the differences and similarities between these countries and suggests strategies for building brands in these markets.

Celebrity Power: Can Less Be More? (pdf)
Dede Fitch | January 2006
The use of celebrities in advertising, always a popular practice, has been on the rise in recent years, and the trend shows no sign of abating.

Eye on Asia
Chris Beaumont | January 2006
Comprehensive 12-country study by Millward Brown for Grey Global Group on how urban Asians feel about their lives and aspirations; what they believe makes a great brand; and what they want - and don't want - from advertising and marketing.

Mum weighs in
Rachel Geller | January 2006
Mums and kids rarely argue over products, suggesting the "pester power" so often associated with kids is over-stated, according to new research from The Geppetto Group

Sponsorship: Strategies for Maximising the Return on Investment
Ardi Kolah | January 2006
PRISM’s Ardi Kolah maps the fast changing environment of sports sponsorship, the key drivers for the growth and how brand owners must establish consumer trust and confidence to provide return on investment.

Building Brands from the Inside Out (pdf)
Alan Mitchell | January 2005
Paper arguing that intellectual connection and emotional commitment are the real keys to successful employee engagement. From Enterprise IG.

Executive Guide to the Blogosphere (pdf)
Christopher Graves | January 2005
Blogs, wikis and RSS: where they are from, what they are and what they mean for organisations and communications practitioners. Includes practical guidance on how to write blogs and what to expect of them.

High Hopes, Low Income (pdf)
Bernardo Geoghegan with Alosio Pinto Marcela Cadena and Monica Arellano | January 2005
Of almost 400 million people across Latin America, more than 50% live below the poverty line. Ogilvy & Mather sets out to understand the marketing opportunity they represent - a snapshot of their findings on Chile.

Spam: The Case for Relationship Marketing (pdf)
Simon Silvester | January 2005
In a world where consumers receive up to 3,000 commercial messages a day, how do you get existing and new customers to listen and engage? Wunderman puts the case for relationship marketing.

Where Next for PVRs? (pdf)
David Fletcher | January 2005
Looks at PVR usage in UK households and identifies issues for advertisers and media owners. Suggests that the death of the 30-second spot is overblown, but that media strategies require re-thinking.

Service with a Snarl (pdf)
Simon Silvester | January 2004
Examines the struggle of many service brands to differentiate themselves, and concludes that the key factor is failing to deliver on their promise to consumers.