In today's fast-paced marketing landscape, understanding what truly resonates with consumers is crucial for brands aiming to make a lasting impact. Recently, we had the pleasure of hosting Vera Sidlova, the Global Creative Thought Leadership Director at Kantar, for an insightful podcast discussion. Vera, who has become a familiar face in our podcasts, webinars, and live streams, shared her expertise on Kantar's innovative approach to evaluating advertising effectiveness. For those new to Kantar, here's a brief introduction and some key takeaways from our conversation.

An Introduction to Kantar

Kantar is a leading marketing data and analytics company dedicated to helping top brands worldwide understand consumer behavior and translate these insights into effective marketing strategies. Vera Sidlova, who works in Kantar's thought leadership team, explained, "We strive to be an indispensable brand partner to our clients. We help them understand what people think, how they act, and how that can translate into their marketing strategies to deliver sustainable growth."

Vera's role involves synthesizing the vast amount of knowledge within Kantar to provide valuable insights that aid clients in building stronger, more creative brands. As she put it, "My team looks at lessons learned from all the amazing work out there and how that can help other clients who aim to build stronger brands through creativity."

Kantar's Creative Effectiveness Awards: Celebrating Consumer-Judged Excellence

One of the highlights of our discussion was Kantar's 2024 Creative Effectiveness Awards, an annual event that sets itself apart by making consumers the judges. Vera elaborated, "This is the only award where consumers are the judges. Every year, we research thousands of ads with our clients, and we pause at the end of the year to look at the highest performers based on short-term sales likelihood and long-term brand building."

The awards cover multiple categories, including TV, digital, social, print, and out-of-home advertising. This year, Kantar introduced a new category evaluated by LINK AI, highlighting the increasing role of artificial intelligence in marketing.

The Impact of LINK AI in Advertising Evaluation

AI is transforming the way we assess the effectiveness of advertising. Kantar's LINK AI is a prime example of this innovation. As Vera described, "LINK AI is a 100% AI tool trained on survey data from over a quarter million ads. It allows clients to upload their video ads and receive predictions in about 15 minutes."

This tool is particularly valuable for scaling campaigns and finding the best versions of ads to deploy in new markets. The introduction of the LINK AI category in this year's awards showcased how AI can provide accurate and actionable insights without compromising on creativity. Vera highlighted the winning ad in this category, a humorous campaign for Dettol's laundry sanitizer, which exemplified the high-quality creative work recognized by LINK AI.

The Bottom Line

Our conversation with Vera Sidlova underscored the importance of leveraging data and AI to enhance creative effectiveness in advertising. Kantar's innovative approaches and consumer-focused evaluations offer valuable lessons for brands striving to connect with their audiences meaningfully. Stay tuned for more insights from this podcast episode conversation as we continue to explore the evolving landscape of marketing and creativity.