Marketing campaigns that provide both ‘creative experiences and ideas’ and ‘empathy and fitting in’ are more likely to be effective, with a 20% lift on short-term sales.

The findings come from a new report from Effie and Ipsos entitled ‘The Empathy Gap and How to Bridge It’, which analysed thousands of adverts to explore their impact on market share growth.

The report found that 73% of people globally wish that they could slow down the pace of their lives, implying that marketers should avoid overcomplicated brand messaging. Agreement with the statement has gone up 48% in the UK.

It also highlighted successful campaigns including BBH’s ‘Together this Ramadan’ which increased footfall amongst four million British Muslims, Lucky Generals’ Yorkshire Tea campaign which tapped into the idea of ‘proper’ tea, and Dell’s campaign which looked at how tech can help those experiencing Motor Neuron Disease keep their identity by banking their voices.

“It’s the same for brands and marketing. High levels of ‘empathy and fitting in’ is a commonality shared by many of our best performing award winners. In this report, you get all the theory in one easy hit, alongside some brilliant examples from relevant cases to bring it all together.”

Ipsos creative excellence senior director Samira Brophy said: “Knowing exactly who your brand is and arriving at a simple idea to help to tell your story is one of the hardest things to crack in advertising. It takes laser focus from brands and high quality strategic planning from their agency partners to create those anchor points for creativity to flourish.”

“This paper demonstrates how empathy and fitting in puts the extra in extraordinary and provides a more nuanced view of creativity.”

“It is also a celebration of elegant campaign unlocks and the planners that make it happen.”