The UK has come out on top as the most effective advertising market in the EMEA region, according to insight from WARC’s latest rankings.
Taking into account all awarded work produced and released within the EMEA region across 2023, WARC ranked the campaigns according to creativity, media and effectiveness.
UK agencies and campaigns earned the most points overall for both media and effectiveness – with nine of the three respective top ten works (30%) originating within the UK – while France was found to be leading on creativity. Three of the top ten most creative campaigns came from France – which also registered the most awarded agency overall, in BETC Paris.
Further analysis of the most awarded campaigns across the three categories found that larger advertisers have a long-term focus on both creativity and effectiveness, and brands are using their campaigns to help solve real-world problems.
UK campaigns which found particular success were Adam&EveDDB’s ‘The Last Photo’ for suicide prevention charity CALM, which came second for creativity.
Pre-Loved Island for eBay by EssenceMediacom and McCann and #TurnYourBack for Dove by Ogilvy, DAVID Madrid and Mindshare came first and second for media respectively.
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McCann Manchester Kevin vs John campaign for supermarket chain Aldi caps off the UK’s big hitters, finishing second in WARC’s overall effectiveness rankings.
“Our deep-dive into the multi- award-winning campaigns, brands and agencies in EMEA featured highly across the three league tables provide an evidence-based insight into what led to their top ranks,” said WARC Creative head of content, Amy Rodgers.
“Reflecting on these remarkable results and how they came about will inspire more successes.”
Although French success continued to manifest itself at the highest level with Publicis dominating the rankings for agency networks and holding companies, Ogilvy London and UM Manchester did secure the joint top spot as the most effective agencies.
WPP’s PHD Worldwide also secured the number one spot for holding companies in media.
