The WARC Podcast

2026 has been a challenging year for marketers, with constant upheaval forcing consequential decisions. Amid all this: the impact of the K shaped economy. WARC's Catherine Driscoll and Carat's Tony de Vizio join Anna Hamill to discuss marketing in economically challenging times, based on insights from WARC's recent report 'Marketing In The K-Shaped Economy'.
Guests:
Catherine Driscoll, EMEA Commissioning Editor, WARC
Tony de Vizio, Global Partnerships Director, Carat
Anna Hamill, Senior Editor - The WARC Podcast, WARC
Chapters:
[00:00] Intro: Marketing in the K-shaped Economy
[00:09] What Is the K-Shaped Economy? Setting the Marketing Context
[02:28] A Two-Speed Consumer Reality: Hermes vs Buy Now Pay Later
[03:09- How the K-Shaped Economy Changes Demand, Resilience and Marketing
[05:46] Top of the K: Affluent Consumers Driving Global Marketing Spend
[07:31] The End of the “Average Consumer” and What It Means for Marketers
[10:33] Mid-Market Brands in a K-Shaped Economy
[11:55] Redefining Value in Marketing: Beyond Low Price to Emotional Return
[14:07] Category, Occasion and Pricing Strategy in a K-Shaped Economy
[17:29] Marketing to Affluent Consumers: Luxury Lessons on Depth and Pricing Power
[19:27] Marketing to Pressured Consumers: Value, Dignity and Life-on-a-Budget
[22:00] How Technology Accelerates the K-Shaped Economy
[24:07] K-Shaped AI Adoption and Strategic Questions for Marketing Leaders

For 40 years, WARC has been providing the marketing industry with rigorous, unbiased evidence and expert effectiveness guidance. The WARC Podcast publishes a new episode every Tuesday and Thursday.

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Brands are increasingly looking toward micro and nano creators for social cut-through. Marcus Yong, VP - Global Marketing at travel brand Klook, joins WARC's Rica Facundo to discuss how smaller creators can help target niche segments while still scaling for reach, based on frameworks from WARC's Pace Principle 2.0 research.
Guests:
Marcus Yong, VP - Global Marketing, Klook
Rica Facundo, Managing Editor - Asia, WARC

For 40 years, WARC has been providing the marketing industry with rigorous, unbiased evidence and expert effectiveness guidance. The WARC Podcast publishes a new episode every Tuesday and Thursday.

Subscribe to The WARC Podcast here: https://www.warc.com/en/warc-podcasts

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The gap between creative and media is closing, with large scale creative data and next-gen measurement tools combining to predict commercial outcomes, not just clicks. Boots' Peter Grant, CreativeX's Anastasia Leng and DAIVID's Ian Forrester join the pod to share the lessons from a pilot experiment at health and beauty retailer Boots, and what its taught them about the future of creative effectiveness. Hosted by WARC's David Tiltman.
Guests:
Peter Grant, interim media and marketing effectiveness director, Boots
Anastasia Leng, founder and CEO of CreativeX
Ian Forrester, founder and CEO of DAIVID
Chapters:
[00:00] Boots, CreativeX and DAIVID’s Real‑World Test
[03:55] Boots’ effectiveness journey
[05:49] 3,500 assets at scale: how CreativeX built creative observability for Boots
[07:43] What is a creative quality score?
[09:32] Inside DAIVID’s model: attention and brand recall metrics
[11:41] Human ground truth vs synthetic data panels
[12:52] Linking creative signals to real‑world commercial outcomes
[14:55] Results of the testing on Meta and YouTube
[17:22] Diagnosing boredom, confusion and underperforming creative at scale
[20:02] How Boots uses creative data to reinvest, not cut, media spend
[22:02] From one‑off analysis to always‑on optimization
[24:34] Feeding signals into GenAI and creator workflows
[27:26] Fixing long‑tail content waste in digital media
[30:18] Common language for creative and media teams
[38:06] Boots’ 18‑month vision: operationalized creative effectiveness

For 40 years, WARC has been providing the marketing industry with rigorous, unbiased evidence and expert effectiveness guidance. The WARC Podcast publishes a new episode every Tuesday and Thursday.

Subscribe to The WARC Podcast here: https://www.warc.com/en/warc-podcasts

Sign up to daily WARC News for free: https://www.warc.com/en/latest

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Failing to usher buyers from discovery to purchase in the fewest possible steps is often seen as a setback. This belief misunderstands the consumer purchase journey, according to new research. Mindscope's Lea Karam and TikTok's Elias W. Bassil join WARC's Alex Brownsell to discuss the alchemy of customer consideration.
Guests:
Lea Karam, CEO & Founder of Mindscope
Elias W. Bassil, Regional Head of Business Marketing, TikTok METAP
Alex Brownsell, Head of Content, WARC Media
Chapters:
[0:10] – Introducing “The Alchemy of Consideration” with TikTok & Mindscope
[1:56] – Does Marketing Misunderstand the Consideration Phase in the Customer Journey?
[3:28] – Why Traditional Journey Models Are Broken
[5:51] – Reframing Decision-Making Beyond Funnel Thinking
[10:41] – What Is a Behavioral Pause?
[12:57] – Desire vs Need: Liking, Wanting, and Value Alignment in Consumer Choice
[13:42] – How Pauses Show Up on TikTok
[16:54] – The Cost of Forcing Narratives in the Consideration Phase
[18:18] – Short-Term KPIs vs Long-Term Brand Building: Rethinking the Attention Economy
[21:10] – The Four Forces of Consideration: Social, Cognitive, Contextual, and Emotional
[23:18] – Why Context Has Veto Power: Viewing Environment and Mental Availability
[27:44] – How Brands Can Improve Consideration Effectiveness

For 40 years, WARC has been providing the marketing industry with rigorous, unbiased evidence and expert effectiveness guidance. The WARC Podcast publishes a new episode every Tuesday and Thursday.

Subscribe to The WARC Podcast here: https://www.warc.com/en/warc-podcasts

Sign up to daily WARC News for free: https://www.warc.com/en/latest

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Effectiveness expert James Hurman joins to discuss the key ideas in his new book 'Future Demand', why performance marketing is plateauing, how brands really grow, and the nuances of building a dual measurement system. Hosted by WARC's David Tiltman.
Guests:
James Hurman, marketing effectiveness expert and author, 'Future Demand'
David Tiltman, Chief Content Officer, WARC
Chapters:
[00:00] Introduction to James Hurman’s new book 'Future Demand'
[03:21] Solving diminishing returns in performance marketing
[07:07] Explaining 'future vs current demand' with the 95–5 rule and Ehrenberg-Bass insights
[09:39] Why advertising doesn’t directly cause short-term sales
[11:18] How consideration sets drive 84% of brand choice
[13:20] Making marketing make sense to the C-suite
[16:19] Advertising’s true role is misunderstood
[22:38] Two jobs of advertising: brand building for future demand vs performance for current demand
[23:20] How to measure brand and performance impact
[27:15] Using emotional metrics as leading indicators
[31:10] How digital-first brands rebalanced brand and performance
[35:41] The 'two audience problem': why brands must be machine-readable and human-lovable

For 40 years, WARC has been providing the marketing industry with rigorous, unbiased evidence and expert effectiveness guidance. The WARC Podcast publishes a new episode every Tuesday and Thursday.

Subscribe to The WARC Podcast here: https://www.warc.com/en/warc-podcasts

Sign up to daily WARC News for free: https://www.warc.com/en/latest

Book a demo: https://www.warc.com/en/subscribe