Rear View Mirror – Advertising Week NY 2023 with Purpose
But, just because we can do something doesn’t mean we should, and we need to examine how brands are being additive. Really, it should be about ‘how best can we do this?" – Alex Frias, Head of Integrated Marketing at Wayfair
With Advertising Week 2023 now in the rear view mirror, a few leaders, events and potent quotables caught our attention. On the bright side, the ANA’s “Force for Growth. Force for Good.” mantra seems to be resonating. This year, brand, agency and tech leaders balanced their conversations about the fiscal ROI of their marketing strategies with points that detailed their impact beyond the bank. That’s right. It wasn’t just more chatter about the demise of the cookie! In contrast, passionate pundits were championing themes they had begun discussing at Cannes and will continue to discuss well into the new year. In Ad Fontes Media Chief Strategy Officer Lou Paskalis’ case, it was a strong point of view on the egregious cost of MFAs and the fiscal and societal benefits of investing in advertising adjacent to news.
On the homefront, the team at Purpose Worldwide took pride and remains so grateful that we got to begin the week with an inaugural celebration of the industry’s most purpose-driven organizations and leaders at Hearst Tower, an architectural wonder and one of the first green office buildings in New York City’s history. Those recognized that evening included: Jasmine Enberg of Insider Intelligence (eMarketer), Lou Paskalis of Ad Fontes Media, Thanos Dimadis of the Association of Foreign Press Correspondents, Brian Monahan of Dentsu & Gun Safety Alliance, Sheryl Daija and the entire BRIDGE team and Board of Directors (Discover Financial, Campbell’s, Sephora, Unilever, GroupM and others) and Elizabeth Donovan of Marriott International. The event itself was made possible thanks to our amazing partners at Barometer, Claritas, Franklyn West, Quorum, U of Digital and Vox.
Once the Purpose & Partners event wrapped, we hit the streets of Advertising Week-at-large to support clients and partners across the official main stages as well as several private events. This year, that included a range of roof-top gatherings and conversations, Brand Innovators’ fantastic activations at Paramount and Campari and after-hours events like AppLovin and Wurl’s fun-loving soiree at Swinger’s, a self-described crazy indoor golf club featuring street food and cocktails. Habu’s fantastic gathering atop the Elsie was particularly well-attended by brand leaders. Finally, it wouldn’t be Advertising Week or any other tentpole if we didn’t stop by The Equality Lounge by the Female Quotient. The lounge always delivers the type of content you just don’t see enough of on other stages. This year, one of the best conversations focused on How Advertisers are Reaching for Representation in their Brands. It was led by: Patricia Ratulangi, VP, Global Communications/DEI, Nielsen, April Quinn, President, US, R/GA, Nikki Buchanan, Senior Sales Director, Multicultural, SXM Media, Vida Cornelious, Vice President, Creative, Advertising, The New York Times, Lydia Daly, SVP, Audience Impact and Intelligence, Paramount, Mercedes Bender, Principal, DEI Practice Lead, Ipsos Strategy3 and Yvette Ellis, Enterprise Marketing Excellence Leader, Deloitte.
Also Caught in the Wild
“Generative AI is so smart in terms of what it can do for search, but also in contextualization. I’m particularly thinking about how brands can add contextual value to their consumers, and what the intersection point between cultural relevance and generative AI is. But, just because we can do something doesn’t mean we should, and we need to examine how brands are being additive. Really, it should be about ‘how best can we do this?” – Alex Frias, Head of Integrated Marketing at Wayfair
“We all love half of our jobs and hate the other half. If AI could eliminate the half of our jobs that we hate, it could be pretty awesome.” – Dooley Tombras, President of Tombras
“If we hope to bolster the vitality of newsrooms and ensure that voters on all sides of the political spectrum are well-informed at this moment in our nation’s history, we need a different kind of leadership.” – Lou Paskalis, Chief Strategy Officer, Ad Fontes Media (referring to his POV on MFAs, directive to invest in advertising adjacent to news and CEO call-to-action in Fortune)
“Location, device and operating system, in combination with contextual signals allow solutions like custom bidders, such as Chalice Custom Algorithms, to find your true audience and reveal some surprising insights about them. We are not merely limited to contextual targeting in the post cookie world, we are actually being liberated to think more innovatively.” – Ali Manning, co-founder and COO, Chalice Custom Algorithms:
“Maybe this is a little bit of a hot take, but I think that signal loss is good in a lot of ways…”– Shiv Gupta, founder and CEO, U of Digital
Did we miss something? Email us at howdy@purposenorthamerica.com We’d love to keep the conversation flowing, particularly now that we are just back from Brand Innovators F1 in Austin and onsite at ANA Masters in Florida and Club CMO’s first annual summit in Nashville!
