Zappi Curated Norms

What is a Curated Norm in Advertising?

Our curated norms are built from a set of up to 100 ads in select countries tested using Zappi Amplify TV. The norms are fully funded and carefully curated by Zappi to reflect the market. Each norm is updated annually to remain fresh year-to-year. 

What makes the Curated Norms a strong benchmark for advertising?

’Norm’ carries a sociological meaning beyond just mathematical averages. It reflects societal attitudes and values that constantly shift. Human emotions remain constant, but environmental factors change what can trigger emotional connections. Recently, these shifts are happening more and more frequently, creating an acceleration in time perception.This is why some advertising and humor from even 3-5 years ago can appear tone-deaf today.

Benchmarks that ignore this reality mislead brands by anchoring decisions in an outdated market. 

The Zappi Curated Norms are representative of the brands and categories advertising in the market today. They aren’t dominated by specific brands and categories, so they reflect the real world advertising environment. They’re sourced, curated and validated by Zappi’s expert research team to be sure they’re high quality and robust. Because they include a wide range of brands and categories, these norms are usable for all testing within a specific country, providing meaningful results reflective of the advertising environment in which the ad will live. Since they’re refreshed annually, they’re always relevant to ads of today. This gives us the flexibility to integrate emerging creative approaches, tones, and themes and we can continuously discover new normals as they form.

Why a country rather than category norms?

Both can be relevant, but country norms are foundational. Your ads compete with all other ads for attention. Just because your ad is better than other ads in the category, doesn’t mean it’s good enough to be noticed and remembered in the broader market.

There are some Zappi users for whom a category norm will be more relevant (they want for their brand to be seen, heard, engaged with more than the direct competition). If you’re new to Amplify TV, we will speak through your ideal benchmarking set-up prior to and during onboarding, including options to use Zappi’s organic category norm or even build a custom competitive benchmark set.

Where are Curated advertising norms available, and when are they due to be refreshed?

More curated country norms will become available through the course of 2025 and 2026.

How are the ads chosen?

Zappi includes the major categories advertising on TV. We include better than average ads from the bigger brands within those categories so you can set the bar high. We use recent ads to reflect the ad environment today, and avoid using ads tied to specific cultural moments, like annual sports championships.

Our methodology is designed to create a powerful, authoritative norm by testing ads from the market-leading brands across the most significant advertising categories. 

• Category-led approach - We select ads in the top key categories, chosen because of their share of the advertising landscape, to provide a broadly relevant benchmark.
• Market Leader Selection - We select ads from market-leading brands within each category, identified through market share data. Market share is a stable and widely available metric in all markets, which is essential for building consistent and authoritative norms worldwide.

Refreshing for Recency

We only include recent ads, and refresh our norm yearly by replacing up to 33% of the ads each year. This gives our curated norms statistical stability and cultural relevance. This refresh rate ensures the norm is a living benchmark, accurately reflecting the world as it is, not as it was.