The Warc Prize for Asian Strategy 2012 Entry tips

What will make a winning entry in the 2012 Warc Prize for Asian Strategy? It's worth making some general points on the kind of cases that do well in strategy competitions:

Common elements in good strategy case studies include some form of original insight and a strategic leap that has not been made before. Often the thinking flies in the face of convention and challenges category norms. It could spring from a commercial understanding of a brand's business. It could be based on deep insight into consumers. It could start with the recognition of a new media opportunity. Or it could simply be looking at existing information in a new way.

Great strategy must do two further things: drive powerful marketing activity (including creative work) and deliver business objectives. Entry papers will be expected to show how the strategy was implemented and how it worked.

In the 2011 Warc Prize for Asian Strategy, the judging panel made a number of comments that may help entrants this year to formulate their cases.

According to the judges, many entries last year had not framed the business objectives well, and this meant that the insight and strategy was not 'rooted'. Cases that had a clear 'strategic thrust' in response to a clear business objective did well.

Judges also looked at the sustainability of the approach did the strategy lay down a long-term platform for the brand to succeed? Is the case a genuine strategy case? Some cases felt like strong effectiveness cases rather than genuine strategy cases; while results are clearly important, for the purposes of this Prize they needed to flow from the thinking at the start of the case.

Finally, it's worth dwelling on some of Warc's own analysis of which entries did well last year. In a piece looking at effectiveness measures, it was suggested that judges leaned towards entries that could show hard business results (sales, share or profit, for example) as well as intermediate brand measures (such as awareness). However, it's worth pointing out that the shortlist of 25 showed a huge variety of campaigns from across Asia, from a host of categories, and including both expensive multi-channel work and smart low-budget ideas. As long as entrant has smart thinking at the heart of their case study, they'll be in with a chance. Good luck!

Summary Looking at the cases entered into the 2011 Warc Prize for Asian Strategy, this article looks at some of the lessons that can be drawn from them. These include the strength of India in strategy; that FMCG and food and drink lead the industry in terms of executing strategy and delivering results, while telecoms tend to underperform. Also recognised are that television and social media are a good combination; measuring "buzz" is still in its infancy; and the importance of local cultural insight.

What makes a great case study?

Entrants to the 2010 Warc Prize have some tough acts to follow. That may sound counterintuitive for a prize in its inaugural year, but not in the context of the many compelling case studies that have arrived on warc.com from around the world over the last 12 months. Even a cursory review of these cutting-edge campaigns finds excellence across sectors and geographies, exemplified by the likes of Hagen Dazss Honey Bees, the British Heart Foundations Watch Your Own Heart Attack and Halo 3's Believe. And then theres Tourism Queenslands Best Job in the World, the California Milk Processor Boards White Gold and Sri Lanka Apparels Garments without Guilt. Thinking about what makes these campaigns special takes us to the core of what were looking for from entrants to the 2010 Warc Prize: the demonstration of innovation in effective integrated communications. So what can you learn from these recent campaigns?

Hagen-Dazs: strategic alignment and integration The plight of the worlds bees should be the last worry of a luxury ice cream brand suffering stalling sales. However, exploiting its natural-ingredient positioning, Hagen-Dazs embraced a multifaceted, issue-led campaign with Honey Bees (open access) using a variety of PR initiatives, print inserts, viral videos, product sampling and TV spots. The initial PR goal of generating 125 million media impressions in 12 months was achieved in the first week alone. More importantly, this case study was able to report big gains in awareness, volume sales and revenue.

British Heart Foundation: choreographed integration for maximum impact For a great case about the successful leveraging of integrated media, look no further than the British Heart Foundation's promotion of its Watch Your Own Heart Attack film. Celebrity endorsements, poster, press, radio and online advertising as well as Facebook and email reminders were choreographed to build anticipation in the two weeks prior to a single airing on national TV of a short film showing a heart attack.

This film, which was then released online, was seen by a total of six million people and its emphasis on the importance of speed of treatment is estimated to have saved 70 lives.

Halo 3: multi-national integration of creative and media The launch of Halo 3, the third game in an exclusive Xbox franchise, offers another master class in employing integrated media, this time on a multi-national scale. The Believe (open access) campaign employed creative across numerous platforms, including cinema, TV, online, PR and events.

Despite the reported 19 million views of online creative, this case study makes the necessary step beyond hollow metrics by tying activities back to bottom-line business objectives. Sales of 1.8 million units in the top EMEA markets exceeded targets by 20%. And global opening day sales of 84m smashed the previous record held by Spiderman 3, making it the biggest global entertainment launch ever.

Tourism Queensland: small budget, global integration Best Job in the World is a benchmark case of maximising effectiveness from a small budget. A few recruitment ads for a job that sounded too good to be true in target markets such as the UK, USA, Japan, Germany and China were stage-managed into a multi-phased, multi-media global PR phenomenon. This is estimated to have delivered media coverage to the tune of US$110 million, from an initial media and production outlay of $1 million. In all, over 30,000 applications from 197 countries were received, with 6.8 million unique visitors to the campaign website.

California Milk Marketing Board: branded content-led integration The task of attracting attention to an overpaid, easy job in a tropical paradise comes with some inherent advantages, unlike the California Milk Marketing Boards brief to BBH get children to drink more milk. The agency combined teenagers love of music and the internet to produce to the rock brand White Gold as a branded content vehicle to make milk cool. In addition to standard online metrics such as viral views, the case claims that 52% of Californian teens became aware of White Gold and a significant proportion were willing to increase their milk consumption or try milk again.

Sri Lanka Apparel: Internet-led integration Garments without Guilt (open access) details how Sri Lanka's apparel industry used the internet, together with print, DM and PR to promote its ethical credentials to decision makers at some of the world's top fashion and retail brands. In addition to the comprehensive reporting of online metrics, the case ties the campaign activity back to

crucial commercial indicators. Most notably, global export values of Sri Lankan apparel increased more than 10% and orders increased by 20-30% across key western markets.

Proving innovation, integration and effectiveness This whistle-stop tour of recent ground-breaking campaigns provides a flavour of what were seeking from entrants to the 2010 Warc Prize. But we hope that the very best contenders set new industry benchmarks of excellence. Good luck!

How Apple conquered China Part 1: The unplanned success story

This article describes Apple's rise in China - a market which accounted for 20% of its global revenues in Q1 2012 - and the future challenges the company faces to maintain its success. Historically, China was not seen as an important region by Apple, which relied on its passionate consumers in core developed markets. But the launch of the iPhone into the country in 2008 marked the start of its rapid and uninterrupted growth story there. Now, Apple is facing a number of issues: Android's 55% share of the smartphone market, a lesser number of Apple Stores than originally planned, a small corporate staff (in proportion to its size) focused on China alone and a slowing Chinese economy. It may need to invest heavily in brand and product marketing to maintain its success.

How Apple conquered China (Part 2): Breaking the global-local marketing 'rules'

Marketing in a large, complex and culturally unique country like China typically needs a local approach. But Apple, which reported billion-dollar profits in China in Q1 2012, bucks convention by adhering as tightly as possible to its global copy and creative. This article discusses Apple's strategy, including its media buying strategy that is designed to drive sales around the time of product launches and its maintenance of three consistent, ongoing marketing efforts: direct, in-store and public relations. It also examines Apple's retail strategy, which relies heavily on a network of Apple Authorized Resellers (after scaling back its expansion plans for its own Apple Stores), and comments on the secrecy that its marketing agency partners adhere to.
Apple's splendid iSolation from the rest of the tech world

This article looks at how Apple's iAd and iOS technologies have marked it apart from other players in the consumer technology market, enabling it to operate in "Splendid iSolation", attracting large numbers of brands and consumers alike to its platforms and devices. Its iAd advertising network, within its iOS operating system, allows for the production of content that can be displayed across its portable devices. Equally, it attracts a huge range of apps, with 800 new ones added to the iTunes store daily. And the iTunes store itself provides a huge source of data for the company to mine.

How marketing can cause a product to fail? [Tata Nano Case Study]
The goal for the Tata Nano was to sell the world's cheapest car (without compromising on safety, quality and environment) to the lower- and middle-income segments in India. Launched in 2009, the small car from Tata Motors made headlines all over the world but less than three years later, the Tata Nano continues to under-perform in terms of sales, and in late 2011 underwent its second brand overhaul. A much celebrated 'Nanovations' campaign sought to emphasise the compact nature of the product and the innovation that had gone into it. However, it looks increasingly like the failure of Tata Nano was that the company's positioning was wrong and the marketing plan meant that many of the target audience didn't hear about the car, and those who did and wanted to purchase could not always do so. Additionally, the marketing was focused too heavily on low price - which was not as low as promoted - and cheapness was attached to social stigma. At the end of 2010, Tata tried to revive the business and it appears positive, if still far off target.

I have discussed in the past many good examples of marketing helped a product to succeed. Apple is the first brand that comes to mind when we talk about marketing. The communication and design of the products has led to its wide spread success and Apple becoming one of the most valuable companies in the world. But what about marketing failures? For every Apple there are many products that fail due to bad marketing strategies. In this piece I would like to discuss one of them- The TATA Nano.

In a recent trip to Sri Lanka, I saw the TATA Nano being used extensively as a Taxi. As I asked around the average Sri Lankan felt that the Nano though a good car did not carry enough prestige to be a passenger car. And this they felt was a result of the positioning taken by the marketing managers of the brand. As I look back at the previous campaigns for the Nano, it suddenly struck me that Nano was a consumer behavior assessment failure. The brand managers positioned the car as the next upgrade for a family of four with a two wheeler. But every such household had an aspiration to move to something better and not necessarily cheaper. Even if the consumer was in that income bracket, he aspired for something cooler. This point was not taken into consideration while the brand managers were coming up with the positioning. The next campaign focused on the tier 2 cities with bad roads and little or no inclination to move things along. This further hit the car sales.
Finally now the Nano has been positioned as a cool car to have fun with. Also the colors and the powerful AC are being positioned as the differentiators along with the classic adage of better fuel efficiency that has helped its sales. I personally feel that positioning a product or service would be a strong spin off from consumer behavior and without understanding the hopes and aspirations of the masses a product is bound to not have the stickiness factor.

TATA Nano was a classic case of a product manager who chooses not to respect the aspirations of his prospective consumers. A famous marketer once told me that A man buys a car for what he wants to be and buys a house based on what he is. In such a case the positioning was totally wrong. So what could have been done to position the car better? 1.) A dual positioning strategy one for the smaller cities and the other form the urban areas could have worked. 2.) Focusing on some of the features like maneuverability- the Maruti Suzuki Alto was positioned this way, Mileage- Maruti Zen and Performance Hyundai Verna 3.) Positioning the brand and not the Car- There could be an initial positioning of the TATA brand rather than the car, till the marketers understood the features sought by the consumers. 4.) Focusing on special segments like Women drivers or college students as the first car- this would have helped the TATAs create a generation of customers and keep these students in the same family as they grow up. At the end of the day, it is what the car means to you rather than what it is. I think most marketing folks need a lesson in psychology more than STP. Whats your take?

Volkswagen. Construction of a Methodology for Thinking Strategically about the Brand This paper describes a working method for strategic planning developed for Volkswagen using a specially designed system to gather information, including: brand image monitoring; image research for Volkswagen's strategic models; consumer segmentation research; market data and trends; numbers for both Volkswagen and its competitors; and analysis of advertising in this sector. The permanent brand information system allows Volkswagen and its agency to define their advertising strategy for the subsequent period, establishing factors ranging from which model will receive priority to what the concept will be for each car, all focused on the construction of the corporate image. This procedure allows monitoring of the attained image results.

Toyota Greenathon Toyota, the automobile brand owner, had positioned itself as committed to making technological progress in harmony with nature. But "going green" was gaining popularity with many corporate organisations, so it was important for Toyota to clearly state its way of nurturing sustainable development in India. The Toyota Greenathon initiative was born in March 2010 with the intention of enhancing Toyota's imagery in the eco-friendly space. The Greenathon, India's first 24-hour broadcast event, was designed to create awareness for Toyota's support for solar power, and to connect to other media output and events related to this cause. This case study cites results such as increased donations, user engagement and improved Toyota brand scores.

Castrol: FIFA World Cup Castrol Ichi-GO campaign Castrol's global sponsorship of the 2010 World Cup presented a great opportunity to build the Castrol brand in Japan. However, significant challenges stood in the way. Castrol had much lower awareness in Japan than Europe. Japanese consumer interest in soccer had hit a 16-year low. Meanwhile, World Cup sponsorship clutter had hit alltime highs. The client had no media budget to leverage its World Cup sponsorship. Compounding all was the fact that there was no imaginable connection between engine oil and football. So, rather than follow a conventional sponsorship path, Castrol's strategy leveraged Japanese cultural and media insights to create a new approach to sponsorship. This case study outlines how a campaign was developed to combine interest in sport and cutting edge technology to create Ichi-GO, the world's fastest kicking machine. As evidence of the success of its approach, this case study cites increases in Castrol's sales value, volume and margins in Japan following the campaign. It also quantifies the value of earned media through free PR and media coverage of the campaign.

Volkswagen: Driving top gear to India Volkswagen was entering India with a mass market car, but Indians did not know anything about the brand, including how to the pronounce it. Brand awareness was abysmal compared to India's established automotive players. Volkswagen quickly needed to make itself a household name. To grab Indian consumers' attention, it adopted a solution that was big and bold. The campaign was marked by many firsts, such as a print roadblock in India's leading English-language newspaper, a flying banner in the sky and outdoor billboards. The results were astounding. Top of mind awareness went from 8% to 32% between November 2009 and March 2010, sales increased by 169% and Volkswagen became the most talked about car brand in India during that period.

Axe: Call me Asia has become an increasingly important set of markets for Axe, Unilever's deodorant brand for men, because of the region's rapid economic and social development. However, Asia's strict censorship laws have often been tough on Axe. Many global Axe campaigns have either been banned or watered down significantly (sometimes even losing their original intent and comedic value). In trying to develop a truly Asian Axe campaign that could get past censors, the brand learned that mobile phones were the primary channel through which young guys flirted and interacted with girls. This made sense in Asia, especially for markets with large Muslim populations. This insight led to a campaign, involving mass media and interactive channels that showed girls uncontrollably giving out their numbers to Axe guys. When guys called those very numbers, they were surprised by a sexy, interactive Axe experience. A record-breaking six million calls and substantial share growth made this campaign one of Axe's most significant success stories in Asia.

Summary This paper tells the launch story of PC manufacturer Lenovos Do Network, an online competitive initiative to bring driven, like-minded millennials ('doers') together to form project teams and make a positive impact in their communities. It is an extension of Lenovo's first global brand campaign, 'For Those Who Do', and was first launched into India, Russia and Indonesia, all fast-growing markets for Lenovo. An 80:20 mix of traditional and non-traditional channels was used to market to the target audience, with country-specific creative. The social media strategy revolved around contributing and learning from content, including the sharing of motivational content to attract new contestants. After this first launch cycle, the Do Network's 100,000+ registered users rated Lenovo as their top PC choice for functional attributes, and second only to Apple for aesthetics. Social media buzz was strong and brand consideration rose strongly. The paper concludes with a series of takeaway points for using social media to reach millennials.

Summary Identifying the right celebrity for brands is part-art, part-science. This article identifies six key variables that can determine the best fit that maximises consumer engagement and brand objectives. These are talent synchronicity which celebrity best fits the brand personality; cost; in the cases of already developed creative, who fits it best; bookability - who will generate the most interest; social media footprint - how active the celebrity is online; and how interested the celebrity is in partnering with the brand. ROI is best determined with an approach that is holistic and measures consumer engagement at cognitive, emotional and behavioural levels.

This analysis of the Cannes Creative Effectiveness Lions 2012 highlights key trends in campaign objectives, media budgets, channels used and brand types, with particular focus on what separated the winners and shortlist from the other entrants. It finds that the leading cases often used more channels, including PR, branded content, WOM and/or TV, and proved how campaign awareness drove behavioural change and sales growth. The analysis also includes a showcase of the best cases, a judge's guide to what it takes to win a Creative Effectiveness Lion and a breakdown of entries by geography and client sector.