Knowledge – Intelligence – Benchmarks – Insights – Data
The World Advertising Research Center (WARC) is now available for SMU students, faculty and staff to uncover the latest evidence, expertise and guidance on any marketing issue. Through the library website or from the Advertising Research Guide, you can access the information that thousands of marketers use to make their marketing more effective.
WARC is an information resource that provides knowledge, know-how, and unbiased advice on almost any advertising issue.
- Best practice and evidence on key issues from expert practitioners.
- Distilled wisdom from effective brands to support your judgments.
- Used by major advertising agencies and big advertisers in more than 100 countries.
Overcome your challenges with expert guidance:
- Take advantage of best practice and ‘how to’ guides to key marketing problems, written by specialists from around the world.
- Use WARC’s Topic pages to see the latest thinking across 100+ advertising and marketing subjects and issues.
- Get quick guides to complex challenges through WARC’s exclusive ‘What we know about’ series.
Make your case with the right evidence:
- Use WARC’s in-depth research papers, including peer-reviewed articles, to find the evidence you need to make the right decision.
- Get an industry-wide view – WARC blends the best information from research organizations, trade bodies and awards organizers with its own exclusive content.
- Be the first to see new learning on key advertising issues using our Topic Updates email alerts service.
Investigate Popular Topics by keywords such as: Brand Analysis, Luxury Brands, Youth, Brand Launches, Behavioral Insight, Social Media, Brand Positioning, Challenger Brands, Shopper Insight, Digital Media, and others.
WARC is like a living textbook. It provides…
Quick information to get up to speed on an advertising topic:
It provides succinct articles on many topics in advertising, giving you background information, summarizing what is currently known, or giving you step-by-step how to’s. Start with WARC instead of Googling when you need to know something about advertising! In WARC, browse the “Topics” or conduct a keyword search. Look for WARC Best Practice articles at the top of your search results.
Research assistance for a client project:
Use the Pitch Support tool to quickly get to secondary research for your ad campaign. This is a great place to start to get articles about your client, the product, the target audience, marketing strategy, and the media mix.
In-depth information on an advertising topic:
WARC also gives you access to research articles and extensive reports. Searching WARC can complement the research you do with our other article databases. Look for research articles in your search results, or from the WARC homepage, choose Latest and the browse WARC Reports.
Examples of how others solved advertising problems:
Use the Case Finder to explore the thousands of case studies available in WARC. You can filter by category, audience, creative approach, media channel, campaign objectives, and more. For example, if you were creating a campaign for a non-profit and you want to see how others have generated word of mouth, you can filter for those criteria.
Examples of award-winning creative work:
The Gunn Report gives you access to a library of award-winning awards as well as WARC’s top 100 effective campaigns.
Need help? Want to know more about research or databases for advertising? Contact Megan.