The Good Report: the year’s best social and environmental campaigns

By Mark Tungate

FCB Chicago’s “Boards of Change” was the top-ranked campaign in The Good Report, a global overview of the most creative and effective use of communications to raise awareness of social and environmental issues.

The Good Report is compiled by ACT Responsible, which supports and promotes cause-related advertising, in collaboration with global marketing insights company WARC, which publishes the WARC Rankings.

Also among the winners were Publicis Conseil – ranked number one agency in the cause-related field, and WFF – the top-ranked advertiser. As well as topping the Campaign category, FCB was also the number one network in the field.

The winning names demonstrate the increasing overlap between campaigns for charitable organizations and purpose-driven work for brands. Of the top 40 campaigns featured in the report, 21 are for non-profits, 15 for commercial brands (including 2 produced in collaboration with non-profits) and 4 for public sector organizations.

A total of 1259 campaigns produced by 796 agencies for 1000 advertisers (including non-profit, public sector and commercial brands) across 80 markets were evaluated.

The Good Report rankings is produced by combining the results of the WARC Creative 100 with ACT Responsible initiatives: the Great Ads for Good Exhibition, the Care Awards, the TV show One minute of Responsibility, Tributes (public vote), and the Good Ad Gallery.

Here are the key results:

Campaigns

1. Boards of Change, FCB Chicago/FCBX Chicago, City of Chicago
2. The Hiring Chain, SMALL New York, CoorDown
3. WaterLight, Wunderman Thompson Bogotá, E-Dina Energy
4. True Name, McCann New York, Mastercard
5. Made to Make a Difference, Saatchi & Saatchi Melbourne, The Royal Australian Mint

Agencies

1. Publicis Conseil
2. FCB Chicago
3. FCB Ulka Mumbai
4. Wunderman Thompson, Bogotá #5 SMALL, New York

Networks

1. FCB
2. McCann Worldgroup
3. TBWA\Worldwide
4. Havas Group
5. Publicis Worldwide

Advertisers

1. WWF
2. City of Chicago
3. CoorDown
4. E-Dina Energy
5. Mastercard

Countries

1. United States
2. France
3. Brazil
4. United Kingdom
5. Australia

See the full report here.

Hervé de Clerck, ACT Responsible Dream Leader, says: “With the Good Report, ACT Responsible continues its mission of promoting, inspiring and uniting the communications industry for the greater Good. We truly believe advertising has a major role in educating and promoting good to help make the world a better place and we are proud to celebrate this work every year.

Producing The Good Report with the collaboration of the WARC Rankings team is a great privilege.”

David Tiltman, SVP Content, WARC and ACT’ive Partner, added: “Creativity as a force for positive change has never been more important. WARC is delighted to collaborate with Act Responsible to continue shining a light on the agencies, brands and NGOs that are creating breakthrough ideas that not only matter to society but can change behaviour.”