2013 Review: The biggest success stories

Many of our Review panellists highlighted individual companies for having done some groundbreaking work in 2013. These included:

“Google Consumer Surveys without a doubt. Although it’s just a guess, I suspect they already are in the Top 50 Global MR firms league tables based on revenue and they continue to challenge the entire industry to rethink how research can be conducted.”Leonard Murphy, GreenBook Blog

“Netflix’s dive into original content was one of this year’s greatest successes, proving that listening to the consumer is one of the most effective strategies for developing an excellent product.” Lisa Wilding-Brown, uSamp

“I think Waitrose’s myWaitrose card will be a big hit, and is a fresh approach to loyalty schemes.” Charlie Yallop, Ipsos

“Kickstarter entered the UK market late last year as a new way to fund creative projects – music, films, games, art. This has helped dozens of creative projects get off the ground that otherwise wouldn’t have, and to top things off, the vast majority of ‘advertising’ is via social media word of mouth. I certainly expect steep growth in 2014.” Andrew Wiseman, ICM

Other company mentions were for Samsung, Nike, Coca-Cola, Rocket Fuel, Hailo and BSkyB, who all impressed with their campaigns and strategy this year.

Technology

Some took the opportunity to reflect on technological advances made in the research industry in 2013, including George Terhanian of Toluna, who pointed out that the increasing use of technology to further automate the ad buying process has made a big difference in the US. He feels that the research industry could learn a lot from this.

Another technology-related shout-out went to Affectiva. “Affectiva’s facial coding technology has got to be one of the biggest winners this year. Adopted by Millward Brown as a standard feature in their global link tests and presenting at every conference going.”Jon Puleston, GMI

Other mentions went to approaches like consumer communities and using storytelling and creative output. The UK’s economic recovery and apps like Instagram, Vine and Snapchat were also mentioned.

Check back tomorrow for the best ad campaigns of 2013