The Unruly Blog

Happy International Men’s Day! Conceived back in 1991, the day was created to celebrate boys’ and men’s achievements and contributions to society — and take a closer look at men’s issues around the world. One of these issues is how men are portrayed in advertising. So, to mark the occasion — and because we work in the advertising industry after all — we’ve used our emotional testing tool UnrulyEQ to measure consumer reactions to two ads that caused a huge stir in the press, to see how audiences really responded to them. Philadelphia: “New Dads” The first is Philadelphia’s “New Dads” campaign, which was banned by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) last year as one of the first spots to be penalised under their new gender stereotyping rules.

It’s Chrrrisssstmass!!! Well, not quite, but the new John Lewis ad has arrived, which is the official start of the UK festive celebrations. After a turbulent year, John Lewis and Partners promised a very different kind of festive offering this Xmas – and they weren’t kidding. This year the ad takes on a very different tone to previous campaigns, reflecting the mood of lockdown Britain in a montage of short clips, created using different animation styles. Rather than putting the focus on a key product, which they’ve done in previous years — Christmas puddings, pianos and trampolines, to name a few — this time around the spot is focused on gestures of goodwill rather than giving physical gifts. Accompanied by an original song, ‘A Little Love’ – written

LEGO’s offering tops our festive chart as the most emotionally engaging Christmas ad of 2020 so far, beating last year’s winner Very, as well as Amazon and Argos With the world still in the grip of a global pandemic, this festive period promises to be very different. But some things will never change. Despite facing up to the prospect of opening presents on Zoom and celebrating Xmas parties without leaving your home, some things definitely feel very familiar. As always, I’m already panicking around what gifts to buy my family. And with six weeks still to go until Christmas Day, brands are already battling it out to win consumers’ hard-won attention this festive period. But which of this year’s crop of Yuletide campaigns are engaging consumers the most?

The festive period is an emotional time for a lot of people around the world. And this year’s holiday season promises to be no different. Sure, 2020 is unlike any other year in living history, while many of us look likely to spend Christmas under some kind of lockdown. But for a lot of people around the globe, the holiday season will provide a much-needed break from the day-to-day ravages of the pandemic. ‘Tis the season to be jolly, after all. For advertisers, this has certainly presented a dilemma. How do they create campaigns that will make people get into the festive spirit, while also recognizing that is not your average Yuletide celebration? Well, to help and to also get people into the festive spirit, we’ve looked back

Getting into the festive spirit yet? OK, it is a bit early, but with the way 2020 has gone, we could also do with some Christmas cheer right now. To help get us in the mood, the John Lewis Xmas ad is due to be released soon. Seen as the unofficial start of the Yuletide period, the department store’s festive ads are usually as highly anticipated as your mum’s home-baked mince pies. But then, 2020 has not exactly been normal. So, what can we expect from John Lewis this year? Will we see another cute character, like Excitable Edgar or Monty the Penguin? Will it be another tear-jerking ad that leaves people reaching for their tissues? Or will it be something completely different this year? We’ll have to

During October we’ve seen several UK brands join in the celebrations for Black History Month with their own tributes to the achievements and contributions of black people across Britain. But how have these spots gone down with UK audiences? And how effective have they been at spreading awareness of Black History Month and urging people to find out more? Well, to help answer these questions, we delved deeper into three spots from BBC Sport, ITV and Black Farmer using our emotional targeting and testing tool UnrulyEQ. Here are the key findings: BBC Sport: “The Story Is the Future” BBC Sport’s ad celebrates a diverse range of different athletes by showing a montage of various sport stars who are either black or who have come from black heritage in

To celebrate Halloween we’ve used our content testing tool UnrulyEQ to identify the ads that generated intense feelings of shock from viewers. According to the findings, a controversial trailer for Deep Silver’s 2011 videogame Dead Island, produced by Glasgow-based Axis Animation, finished top after generating 11 times more shock than the average UK ad! That put it just ahead of “Monsters”, a startling 2013 PSA from Finnish organization Fragile Childhood, which features kids whose parents have been turned into scary monsters under the influence of alcohol. In third place is a 2013 ad for a Japanese tyre company called Autoway, which even includes a disclaimer ahead of its terrifying advert. Other ads to appear in our ‘Shocking 7’ include a car commercial that is almost certain to have

Over half of Americans will spend more time browsing the web and watching TV over the coming holiday period, according to new research from Unruly and Tremor Video. The study, carried out in September, found that 51% of Americans plan to watch more TV over the winter season, 58% plan to spend more time browsing the web and 34% plan to spend more time playing video games. With the holidays just around the corner – but with the global pandemic still having a significant impact on people’s lives – this year’s festive celebrations are going to be very different. To help brands navigate this new festive landscape, Unruly, in partnership with sister brand Tremor Video, conducted research into consumers’ shopping behaviors and content viewing habits this holiday season,

World Mental Health Day is an international day for global mental health education, awareness and advocacy against social stigma. To mark the event, we reached out to Unrulies in London, Hamburg, Tel Aviv, Singapore and New York to find out how they’re managing their mental health during the pandemic. Q: How have you found working from home over the past six months? Kristy Mei, Associate Marketing Manager, New York: “It wasn’t great in the beginning from March to June as both my boyfriend and I worked from a small NYC apartment. We were talking over each other during calls and neither of us had a desk set up. I would work from the couch and then watch TV on the same couch– so I hated that there was