As the Holidays approach, thoughts turn to retail. It's a perfect time to see how various department stores, fashion stores and online retailers have done in advertising effectiveness over the last 12 months.  Some retailers, like Kohl's, have consistently good ads (outside of radio), while others (high-end retailers) always bring up the rear. This post explores the best ads across seven media types, analyzing why they work so well out of almost 1450 ads tested in the past year.

A glance at the last six months of Wireless TV spots and Online Video (433) suggest they may be improving.  We also see a close correlation between Gender Equality scores and Reputation in this Category.  One strategy common to several of the Top 15 ads was the use of corporate image strategy, which reflected well on Gender and also yielded high Reputation scores.

We looked at evaluation results for auto ads, focusing on TV ads in the US, UK, Germany, and Japan to see if culture played a part in ad test results.  While there are many country-to-country differences, culture was not a big factor.  We’ll share some insights showing a top performer and lower performing ad in each country.

Today's Special Report on the absolute latest technology for advertising comes from Sophia Karakeva, Ph.D., a communications & marketing executive from DataScouting, based in Thessaloniki, Greece.  Sophia and ABX have both been deeply involved in the measurement of advertising and public relations.  

No matter how companies do it, advertising remains one of the most important aspects of a business. However, advertising has evolved so much over the past decades that it has become nearly impossible for businesses to keep up. From simple flyers and giant billboards, to taking your ads into space and licensing celebrity faces, technology continues to disrupt the advertising industry.

So far, you've seen good and bad Print and OOH ads from 2018 in this column, and today you'll see the same for Radio. To make this analysis really useful, we've contrasted good and bad 2018 spots within Four Tips for Great Radio Advertising. These tips have emerged through our testing of 15,000 radio spots over the past five years, and 1833 in 2018. For more on radio creative testing, see our Integrated Media pillar page.

In 2016, the Radio Advertising Bureau (RAB) shared ABX research findings in,  "Advertising Effectiveness - New Research Shows Radio Potentially Most Effective Medium."  The explosive key findings:

In our systematic review of good and bad ads for 2018 by Media Type, today's post focuses on Out-of-Home (OOH).  Our syndicated ad effectiveness panel tested 803 OOH ads last year, so we decided to look at six of the Top 5% and three of the bottom. For information on using different media types in integrated campaigns, see our Integrated Media pillar page.

What makes good print advertising these days?  Does anyone even think about print anymore?  Actually, they do since print overlaps with online display, FSIs, OOH and other media outlets for good creative.  Our syndicated ad effectiveness panel tested 3,192 print ads last year, so we decided to look at the Top Five in today's post.  We'll also see how they compare to the 160,000 ads in all media that we've measured over time. For information on using different media types in integrated campaigns, see our pillar page.

Last month, we listed the Top Five Super Bowl ads by how women were portrayed, and saw how those who treated women well also impacted their ad effectiveness. We also quoted Jack Neff of AdAge, who wrote that female gender scores did improve a little this year over last.  Now, let's look at five spots with poor female images according to the ABX Gender Equality Index™, and see what we can learn.

Everyone's asking, "how did women do in the Super Bowl ads this year?"  "Did they appear empowered?" "Are they shown with respect?" The good news, according to Jack Neff of AdAge, female gender scores did improve a little this year over last.  But, there's still a ways to go.  Meanwhile, here are the top five ads by the ABX Gender Equality Index™ for Females.

Powerful creative is at the core of every impactful ad.  Sound in particular is a critical component in conveying brand messages and connecting with an audience emotionally.  It is also big business. To continue reading scroll down to read this special guest post by Pierre Bouvard, Chief Insights Officer of Westwood One, or view this article on MediaVillage.com.