1. Mad Men & Mad Women of Advertising Research
Three for a fee (and free!)
Stephen Fleming
Director, Global Intelligence Group
Young & Rubicam Brands
SLA conference, Philadelphia
June 15, 2011

2. Effie Awards http://www.effie.org/ideas_that_work
“Case study” is a loose term in the marketing world, and generally means a written or video history of a successful campaign which describes: the business situation, the target market, the strategy, creative approach and media used and the measurable results. Some are more formal than others.
Marketing people like case studies because they provide tested examples and guidelines for them to copy and/or build upon. Case studies can also demonstrate hard-to-explain ideas to clients. And of course if it is your agency’s case study, it is a testament to your credentials.
Industry awards are one of the best sources for marketing case studies, and they are often free. Awards are popular in the marketing world because they provide benchmarks and standards for the somewhat intangible “product” of ideas. Awards contests are also one of the few times when agencies actually package and analyze THEIR work, as opposed to their clients’ work.
Another good place for case studies is agency websites, where companies are often share case studies as a way of highlighting their work. However, these case studies are not reviewed by a third party, and need to be taken with a grain of salt.
Most marketing awards are based on “creativity” such as the Cannes Lion, The One Show, the CLIOS and Cresta awards. However, creativity awards are not always the most helpful in terms of being a “case study”. A creative ad is not necessarily an effective ad, and business people are usually more interested in effectiveness.
Fortunately, there are also awards based on effectiveness, and these awards are indeed more useful as “cases studies”.
One of the best is the Effie Award (Effie for “effective”). These awards cover all media, products and regions and were started in 1968 by the NY chapter of the American Marketing Association. Since then they have expanded globally and are now managed under a new entity called Effie Worldwide.
The Effie website has free case studies of most Effie winners. Additionally, the list of entries and winning campaigns is a great starting point for simply determining the best marketing campaigns.
The Effie website is a community as well, and as such provides some helpful “State of the Industry” reports for the marketing industry around the world. There is also a store to purchasing additional materials, such as the winners’ reels.
More Effies cases are included in a subscription service called WARC ( – SEE NEXT SLIDE. WARC is a well-known database with thousands more case studies and best practices from around the world - but at a substantial cost. So if you don’t want to subscribe to WARC, you can at least get some good case studies on effies.org.
Other good sources for marketing awards are industry association and trade journals almost all of which have annual awards (i.e. Promo Magazine and PMA, PR Week and PRSA, DM News and DMA).

3. WARC http://www.warc.com
A reference to WARC – a subscription-based service (in the $20,000 range, depending on your organization, etc). Not much for free, aside from WARC News Alerts. Aggregates case studies, best practices, media spending data, and creates original content such conference reports, news analysis, and “briefings”

4. Adbrands http://www.adbrands.net
Adbrands is an affordable subscription service ($45/month base price depending on your organization) that provides in-depth profiles on international marketers, brands and agencies. Videos of TV ads are often included. The company profiles are in-depth and focused on marketing, making them different from the company histories you might find through Hoovers.
Adbrands’ detailed database of account assignments is one of its best selling points. More detailed than the “Red Books” in my opinion, it breaks down brand assignments by country, product and media. The information is not 100% perfect, but it is current, granular and global, which is saying a lot!
Adbrand profiles and data are researched and compiled by a third-party source, and so is somewhat more reliable than the self-reports information in the Red Books or on agency websites. They get their information through mostly secondary sources such as trade journals and other industry sources.
Adbrands is global in coverage, and based in the UK. They also provide brief reports on specific countries (ranking the top advertisers) and industries.
They also have a handy news service about account assignments, changes, campaigns, etc. This feature is especially nice now, as many trade journals report on account moves less than before.

5. eMarketer http://www.emarketer.com
eMarketer is a handy but expensive subscription service ($25K range). They gather and aggregate free findings from other companies and re-package them into nice charts and reports, adding some analysis of their own. They also conduct interviews with leading new media professionals and provide webinars, etc. They specialize in online marketing practices, and compile of lot of statistics, trends and usage data from around the world. They know all the good free sources and organize their information into clear easy-to-use categories.
There is a lot of good free information on their site, so it is worth knowing about even if you are not a subscriber. Much of it is found in the free press releases and blog posts.
Additionally, since almost all their data comes from other, free sources, with a little digging, you can usually get to the original source (which is often better anyway). TIP: Use the EXPANDED VIEW to see the SOURCE (you have to choose this option, it is not the default setting). Once you know the title of the chart and the source, a quick Google search will usually lead you to the original press release, white paper or survey.
eMarketer is a well organized site. Its taxonomy and search engine make it easy to find otherwise obscure bits of information, such as Online Travel in China, or Social Media in Brazil. Just by searching their citations, you can quickly determine
if the information you are looking for has been reported on AND
what original source provides that data
A full listing of eMarketer’s sources is available on their site and a good reference for your own bookmark collection.
eMarketer is a lot like Marketing Charts, except better packaged, better organized, and with some original content. However it is expensive.

6. eMarketer http://www.emarketer.com
For instance, for the chart circled in red: here is the full press release from eMarketer (free) and one of the original studies eMarketer refers to (also free)

7. Stephen Fleming
Director, Global Intelligence Group
Young & Rubicam Brands