McCann New York and Microsoft’s ADLaM: An Alphabet to Preserve a Culture was the most awarded campaign for effectiveness in 2024.
WARC Creative’s annual Effective 100 Ranking is an aggregate of the results of the most important global and regional effectiveness awards of 2024. The shows tracked are determined in consultation with the WARC Rankings Advisory Board and by a yearly global panel survey.
A WARC Effective 100 podcast with McCann New York, deep-diving into the #1 campaign, ADLaM: An Alphabet to Preserve a Culture will be available from later this month and a live webinar ‘The Winning Formula’, decoding the bold moves behind the winning work will be on Wednesday 2nd April 10am EST | 3pm BST.
Top rankings in the WARC Effective 100 are:
Campaigns:
#1 Campaign for effectiveness: ADLaM: An Alphabet to Preserve a Culture by McCann New York for Microsoft
Microsoft collaborated with brothers, Abdoulaye and Ibrahima Barry, who created the ADLaM alphabet to preserve the Pulaar language of the Fulani people, helping fight illiteracy and turn it into a globally recognised and digitally used mode of communication. This resulted in tens of thousands of new students starting to learn ADLaM, with schools opening in more than five countries. ADLaM Display is available across Microsoft 365 and Google Fonts. Mali is adding ADLaM as an official alphabet in their Constitution. And Guinea has recently made ADLaM part of its sustainable development goals, committing to teach ADLaM to 2 million children in the next 5 years.
#2 is A Piece of Me by Dentsu Creative, Amsterdam, for KPN. The telecom brand partnered with Dutch musician MEAU to create a song and music video to transform attitudes towards online shaming. The song became a gold record gaining over 10 million streams, resulting in a 183% uplift in conversations about online shaming and a 9% increase in brand consideration for KPN.
#3 is The Cost of Beauty by Ogilvy London for Dove. The personal care brand launched the campaign to address the harmful effects of social media, support legislative change through the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and revitalise Dove’s brand strategy in a competitive market. Dove experienced a 4% growth in US household penetration and a 5.5% increase in value sales.
Creative Agencies:
#1 Creative Agency: Leo Burnett, Mumbai
Up from fifth place last year, Leo India tops the creative agency ranking with four campaigns ranked in the top 50, for Whisper, Lay’s, Flipkart and Oreo.
#1 Independent Creative Agency: Mischief @ No Fixed Address, New York.
GUT São Paulo is #2 and GUT Buenos Aires in #3.
Media Agencies:
#1 Media Agency: Wavemaker, Mumbai
Wavemaker Mumbai, ranked second last year, takes pole position in the media agency ranking for effectiveness, with three campaigns in the top 100 for Cadbury, Oreo and Colgate.
#1 independent media agency: Fundamental Media, Boston
Newcomer to the Ranking, is Fundamental Media, Boston, ranked top independent media agency with work for State Street Global Advisors ranked.
Networks:
#1 Network for effectiveness: Ogilvy
Ogilvy is the most awarded network for the third year in a row for effectiveness. The network has an incredible 13 campaigns ranked, three of which are in the top ten; and five agencies in the top 50: Mumbai, London, Athens, New York and Melbourne.
#1 Independent network for effectiveness: GUT
GUT enters the networks table for the first time, claiming top independent network and 20th overall with its São Paulo and Buenos Aires agencies both ranked.
Holding Companies:
#1 Holding Company for effectiveness: WPP
WPP moves up to top the holding companies this year with eight networks ranked. Alongside Ogilvy in first place, VML, Mindshare Worldwide, EssenceMediacom, Wavemaker, AKQA, Hogarth Worldwide and GroupM are all ranked.
Brands:
#1 Brand for effectiveness: McDonald’s
McDonald’s is once again the top brand for effectiveness, extending their winning run to six years. It has five campaigns ranked, Big Enough to Make a Difference, McDiploma, McDrip, The Cactus Plant Flea Market Box, and McCombo APPetitosos, which ran in Sweden, Hong Kong, Finland, US and Colombia respectively.
Advertiser:
#1 Advertiser for effectiveness: McDonald’s
After a number of years among the top advertisers, McDonald’s is seeing its consistency in effectiveness paying off, achieving the number one advertiser spot for the first time this year.
Countries:
#1 Country for effectiveness: USA
The US continues its dominant run in the effective rankings. More than two dozen (26) of the top 100 campaigns are US-based, including four of the top ten campaigns. India (#2), Brazil (#3), UK (#4), Colombia (#5), Australia (#6) and Argentina (#7) all retain their same positions.
Key themes:
- Long-term consistency pays off: The top ranked campaigns underline the importance of long-term planning, brand building and creative excellence. Work from Dove, Heinz and ANZ Bank built overarching creative platforms, beyond merely single campaigns, to grow new markets, execute brand turnarounds and drive long-term growth.
- Tackling systemic challenges: Brands, including Microsoft, KPN and the Mayor London, put their influence and expertise behind tackling systemic problems such as literacy, sexual harassment and bullying.
- Innovating the customer journey: Customer journeys are far from linear in the omnichannel era. Brands including Oreo and Mercado Libre got creative with customer journeys, adding fun into the online shopping experience with incentives and partnerships to maximise engagement. Dunkin identified its own baristas as a key part of the customer journey, making them powerful influencers.
Full results for WARC members:
- WARC members can read the summary report here.
- Find the full WARC Effective 100 Rankings here. The campaigns, case studies, credits and summary reports are available to WARC Creative members.
- For more Rankings, you can find the Creative 100 results and the Media 100 results here.
