• by Adam Bernard , May 22, 2002

The World Advertising Research Center has recently relaunched at www.WARC.com, and if you’ve ever needed to find an obscure stat — such as ad spending by medium in Zimbabwe for the first quarter of 2001 — this is the site for you.

The WARC, an independent organization based in the U.K., has been serving the needs of the global marketing, advertising, media, and research communities for more than 40 years. Its new website offers more than 15,000 articles, case studies, and research and conference papers, as well as ad spending statistics and demographic and economic data drawn from more than 25 international sources covering all areas of marketing communications.

The organization works closely with trade associations, industry bodies, and blue chip companies around the world, including the Advertising Research Foundation, the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, ACNielsen and Young & Rubicam.

Want to know a specific company’s marketing strategies? Just click on Advertisers, select that particular company, and download the case study. The site also features a comprehensive and easily searchable database of information, much of it available in PDF format. Sections include Media Planning and Buying, Marketing Intelligence, and Marketing and Brand Management.

The news on the WARC website is very timely, with breaking news on the main page, and an archive section which is very handy when searching for similar subjects. Also, since this is an international site, the monetary values are mentioned in dollars as well as European currencies.

One particularly useful feature of this site is the tour. Take it, you will be glad you did. After an introductory segment, the tour takes you step by step through just about every aspect of avertising, using language that even the Internet novice can understand. This is a clear and comprehensive way to show people how to use the net that doesn’t insult your intelligence, or go over your head. — Adam Bernard