The 5 Best World Cup Ads 2018
We tested dozens of ads for the World Cup. Here are the best (and worst!).
What Happens If You Test Everything?
We’re launching Ad Ratings, our creative benchmarking system. It’s our biggest research project ever – find out more.
How To Score With Football Ads
An entertaining ad by retailer Otto puts a spotlight on the qualities needed for a great event-themed commercial – and the risks to brands who don’t make their identity clear.
Dogs! Cars! Dogs Driving Cars!
Advertising ideas don’t get simpler than Subaru’s Barkleys – but sometimes simple works. We take the motoring mutts for a test drive.
Still Ready For Prime Time: How TV Defied The Doomsayers
The “death of TV” has become a marketing trope. But it hasn’t happened yet. We explore why.
Who’s Picking Up Your Litter? Litter Kills Campaign
Britain has a serious litter problem. Find out how System1 Agency helped Clean Up Britain combat this issue with their ‘Litter Kills’ campaign.
Grow Up? Never!
Non-alcoholic shandy Bilz Panache needed to turn its nostalgic associations into a dynamic, joyful modern brand. See how our System1 Agency work helped them do exactly that.
Hilarious Ads – With An Effectiveness Lesson
Sakeru Gummy’s “Long Long Man” series of ads is the perfect example of a Fluent Device.
Christmas Comes But Twice A Year
Christmas in April? It is if you’re a planner or marketer. As brands plot their Xmas campaigns for 2018, we offer some unseasonal advice on how to pick emotional winners.
Mini March Madness! Fluent Devices Bracket
A fun March Madness bracket starring Fluent Devices, the distinctive assets people love to love.
Can You REALLY Build A Brand In Six Seconds?
We look into our ad testing database for the most emotional 6s ads. Are they great stories… or something a bit more basic?
Five 5-Star Ads Celebrating Women
For International Womens Day, we look at five 5-Star winners that celebrate women from our 2017 and 2018 ad tests.
Super Bowl: Football, Advertising AND Insights showcase?
With over 100 million viewers and a 5 million dollar price tag for a 30 second spot, it is imperative that brands advertising on the Super Bowl spend their money wisely.
FeelMore50 2017: Humor Wins Big for American Brands
What gets North Americans feeling emotional? “Dogs and kids”, a cynical observer might say, and it’s true that each year’s FeelMore North America list brings a new crop of adorable children and puppies. But plenty of ads use those elements without emotional success, and this year we’ve seen some small but interesting shifts in the overall sentimental picture.
Super Bowl Fourth Quarter Report: Teaser Troubles, and the NFL’s 5-Star Win
Our fourth quarter blog post from the Super Bowl, focusing on teasers and the NFL’s own “Dirty Dancing” ad.
Super Bowl Third Quarter Report: Bud Gets Serious, Tide Gets Talked About
Our third quarter LIVE TESTING Report focusing on Budweiser and Tide.
Super Bowl Second Quarter Report: Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snowboard!
Our second Super Bowl Live Blog – and more 5-Star successes for Winter Olympians.
Super Bowl First Quarter Report: Inspiration meets Humor as Eagles Soar
Our first Super Bowl blog post.
Pepsi and Bud Light Lead the Way in Early Super Bowl Testing
The early results of our Super Bowl testing are in – and Pepsi and Bud Light have cause to celebrate. Pepsi’s revival of its 1992 ad with Cindy Crawford, and Bud Light’s viral “Dilly Dilly” ads, have both registered strong results on System1’s tests. Together they throw a spotlight on one of the most important, but least known, aspects of advertising success: Fluency.
The Do-Gooder Bowl
What are brands focusing in on with their ads for this year’s Super Bowl? How have the ad previews/teasers performed so far? Which brands are back for another Super Bowl spot, and which are rookies?
Super Bowl LII Ad Testing: Bigger, Better, Live – r
Last year we broke new research ground by testing every Super Bowl ad LIVE, announcing the results on video, on Twitter and on our website as they came in. It was a lot of work, a lot of fun, and a wild, hectic celebration of the great emotional ads every Super Bowl brings. So, of course, we’re doing it again
Five Big Findings from the 2017 FeelMore50
The 2017 FeelMore50 list launches today. ust to remind you, the FeelMore50 is a list we publish every year of the best emotional advertising. We ran self-funded tests on over 700 ads which won awards, enjoyed viral success, or made the news over the course of last year. The fifty with the best results appear on the site. Here are five big things to take away.
Coming Soon: The 2017 FeelMore50
Every year, we test and rank hundreds of TV and digital commercials, in a search for the most emotional ads of the year. It’s the FeelMore50 list, the only industry ranking that reflects the real emotional response of real people. The latest rankings – covering 2017 – are coming to our FeelMore50 website on Thursday.
The 3Fs of Christmas 2017 – Family, Fantasy, Familiarity
The results are in! With over 50 ads tested as part of our FeelMore Xmas live project, it’s time to reveal which brands hit the emotional spot this Christmas. The good news is it’s been a bumper year for UK ads.
Keep On Truckin’: 5 Things That Make the Coke Trucks a Classic Christmas Asset
“NOW it’s Christmas!” – that’s a quote from one of our respondents giving an enthusiastic response to Coca-Cola’s “Holidays Are Coming” ad. When the red Christmas trucks roll out, the festive season has truly begun in the minds of a generation of ad watchers.
Keeping the Focus Human – Morrisons and McDonald’s
Festive feasts have always figured in Christmas advertising, of course. But with Christmas ads getting more media spotlight than ever, and with pressure to compete with the “big guns” like John Lewis and M&S, supermarkets and restaurants face a new dilemma. How do you showcase your festive food and also make your advertising emotional?
Consistency and Creativity – John Lewis’ Juggling Act
The John Lewis Christmas ad may not top our charts every single year, but since we’ve been testing Christmas ads its seasonal blockbusters have only once slipped below the 3-Star boundary. This year is no exception – it’s 2017 ad, Moz The Monster, scored 4-Stars in our ad test, indicating an ad set to achieve continued share growth for John Lewis
Why Brands Should Unwrap a Fluent Device for Christmas
This week saw the Christmas ad season kick into gear with our first 4-Star and 5-Star ads. One is a cheerful 30-second spot with a very basic storyline, the other is a high-budget storytelling epic starring a character loved by British kids for generations. Step forward, Toys’R’Us’ “Geoffrey The Part-Time Reindeer” (5-Star) and M&S’ “Paddington And The Christmas Stranger” (4-Star).
UK Christmas Ad Season has Begun!
The UK Christmas Ad season began on November 1st, as Currys PC World released three ads showing off the best new tech in store this year. The theme is members of staff taking the items home to try them out – and landing in amusing situations because of it.
From Mince Pies to Testing Live
Last year nothing symbolised the UK’s Christmas advertising crop better than the humble mince pie. The festive treat took a starring role in commercials by Waitrose, Aldi, and M&S (whose gently comedic “Mrs Claus” was the most emotional Christmas ad of the year). It summed up the trends we saw last year.
Mystery, Mustard and Marketing: The Birth of the Fluent Device
The campaign for Colman’s Mustard was one of the first examples of a new kind of advertising idea, one that would go on to drive profitable growth for hundreds of brands in the decades since: a Fluent Device.
Short Term Sales, Long Term Profits: 5 Ways To Get The Most From Your Digital Content
Platforms and publishers are changing to accommodate the current surge in online video – think Facebook’s introduction of auto-playing ads. But testing and insights have to change too, as marketers still have trouble getting a reliable read on which bits of content are performing well – or even what “performing well” looks like.
Battle of the Supermarket Love Stories
In a move away from product-pushing and pricing wars, French supermarket giants Intermarché and Monoprix have made the move into Feeling. Using the classic boy meets girl love story template, the brands’ new 3- and 4- minute spots are more short film than classic ad.
Why It’s Christmas in June for UK Ads
Happy Christmas to all our Readers! Plenty of creatives and planners are having to do, looking to hit exactly the right emotional note to delight and inspire the British public.
Introducing Fluent Devices
Fluent Devices help solve one of the great problems of emotional advertising – how do you build on the success of a blockbuster 5-Star ad and make sure your next commercials are just as strong? Find out in this blog post.
FeelMore50 Ad of the Moment – A Dynamic Journey to Increased Ad Sharing
Donald Duck Magazine’s “The Duck and the Boy” had the highest Dynamism score (a measure of changes in emotion throughout an ad) in our 2016 FeelMore50 rankings.
FeelMore50 2016: UPS Keeps On Truckin’!
Great news for fans of advertising that makes people feel more and buy more! The 2016 FeelMore50 ranking launched yesterday– our annual list of the global Top 50 most emotional ads.
How To Have A Great Super Bowl Debut
Super Bowl debutants have a big job to do. They have to hold their own against some of the biggest brands on the planet, and they have to introduce themselves to a super-size audience for the first time.
The End Of Sadvertising: Super Bowl LIVE Ad Test – Third Quarter Report
In recent years, a pillar of Super Bowl advertising has been the sentimental ad. Usually – but not always – built around telling a moving story, sentimental ads work by tapping different types of happiness – awe, joy and particularly uplifting emotion. They also often toy with negative emotions, and if they resolve those feelings of sadness into happiness, such ads can be highly emotionally dynamic (which tends to mean better sharing and interaction rates).
Year Of The Celebrity Ad?: Super Bowl LI LIVE – Half Time Report
Emotional advertising isn’t all about emotion – while Feeling is the thing advertising does best to build brands, advertising is also a great opportunity to build Fluency. What is Fluency? It’s making your brand easier to recognise, easier to process mentally, and easier to choose quickly. You build Fluency by creating and using what Professor Byron Sharp calls “distinctive assets” – anything that brings your brand quickly to mind. Logos, slogans, songs, shapes, even colors can be distinctive assets.