I was sort of out of the marketing bubble in June, whilst also right in the middle of it in Cannes! It is definitely a good to get to remember how little actually cuts through for people. Anyway - back in it now and lot's to cover in July.
As always comment with your thoughts, where you disagree, where something big has been missed. And if this is all too long to read, you can watch me read it to you here or listen to it here, its like marketing story time!
The Bowled & The Beautiful
I have talked a good bit about how bad B2B advertising is and love to celebrate work that is the complete opposite of that, to show that the B doesn't stand for Boring. And Google in Australia absolutely nailed it with this piece of work for their ads product.
Now a quick culture stop.
Kath & Kim is an Australian sitcom originally airing in the prime-time slot on ABC Television from 2002 and 2005 and subsequently on the Seven Network in 2007 and 2022. Aside from the television series, the franchise also includes a television film, Da Kath & Kim Code (2005), and a feature film, Kath & Kimderella (2012). The series also spawned a short-lived American remake, which ran for 17 episodes between 2008 and 2009 all set in the fictitious Melbourne suburb of Fountain Lakes.
In this piece for Google, lonely, accident prone, "second-best friend" Sharon Strzelecki , famed for her bowl haircut,
shows how she has used Google Ads tool to spread the word about her new enterprise: a hair salon called “Bowled & Beautiful”. Shazza says she’s seen a massive uptick in sales since using the ad platform, and has been able to bless more customers with a bowl cut of their own. Some of which included famous Aussies such as David Koch, and Shazza’s icon, cricketer Adam Gilchrist . I saw lots of people, including Sherilyn Shackell , posting about this with their own Sazza bowler cut profile image, that seems to have been done by Duncan McGrath of Google. I actually commented on Duncans post a few weeks ago and he shared an article that was in the wonderful, Mi3Australia , worth checking out.
In it Ducan talks about the campaign saying “we are trying to market to SMBs who are among the most time poor people on the planet. We knew we couldn't take their attention for granted. That played a big part therefore in how we devised the specifics on strategy and product. But from the outset, we wanted to bring creativity to the task so we could make sure we cut through.”.
Well Duncan you have done that….now where is my boweld and beautiful cut!!. Check out the site https://www.bowledandbeautiful.com.au/
Indies Growing Up
4 years ago at the height of Covid, two of the soundest people in adland got together wanting to help creatives who were losing their jobs because of the uncertainty of covid and the impact it was having on businesses. What started as a social initiative on LinkedIn turned into a passion project that both Úna Herlihy and Peter McPartlin began devoting so much time to that they eventually turned it into a business enterprise, and the Indie List was launched on July 4, 2020. Since then Una & Peter have connected 100’s of freelancers with brands and agencies that needed expert help. And now they also offer Fractional marketing leadership services, helping brands that are scaling up to scale faster with the right expertise. Great to see things going so well for Una & Peter.
Is it a city?
Some of the best Tourism Ads have come from Tourism Australia , maybe I'm biased because I love that country so much, but they are great and work really well. Tourism to places like Australia are probably longer term decisions, so I imagine a bit like B2B, with lots of people not in market. The last campaign, according to the System1 website, scored an exceptional 5.6-Stars in the United Kingdom and 5-Stars in other international markets like the United States and Singapore, as well as impressive short-term Spike ratings too. This means Tourism Australia can effectively reach audiences at both ends of the marketing funnel. The campaign resonates with those who are considering destinations for a potential holiday and makes a strong positive impression on anyone for whom it’s just a daydream.
Anyway, not all tourism ads can leverage some of the cues that Australia can.
When you think of Oslo what comes to mind?........... Yeh exactly, me too!
So I loved this piece from Oslo that takes a downcast humorous look at some seemingly bad things about VisitOSLO , it is easy to get around, you can swim in the city, comparing it to New York or Paris in a bad way but all the time you are left thinking, sounds like a great place to visit. The casting is wonderful in this piece also. Definitely raising the bar in travel comms, Congratulations Anne-Signe Fagereng . Check it out here.
A very Irish ad for a very Irish product
No it’s not Guinness, but at the On Strategy Showcase (in Guinness) Rory Hamilton Boys + Girls talked about the Irishness of ads made in Ireland for an Irish audience and how we have lost our way a bit. Karen Martin of BBH London agreed saying she doesn't see us in the work. Well maybe Rory knew he could say that as he was going to be coming out with a piece of work that is about as Irish as it gets. The new work for Bulmers takes Bulmers out of the orchard, something they have done before, but always seem to go back to, and is an ad that definitely leans into our Irish humour and thinking. And yes at the festival scene one of the cast is drinking water, in what must be the subtlest nod to responsible drinking ever. Check it out here
Let’s talk about insurance
Said no one ever!
Let’s face it, Insurance is boring. No one wants to think about insurance, think about why they need it, think about the situations when they might need a claim. There are a few great examples of insurance ads that try to make the category enjoyable, definitely a stand out for me is the Special New Zealand work for New Zealand life insurance provider, Partners Life where they used killed-off TV characters (here) in a crime show to promote life insurance. Genius stuff.
Closer to home Ken Robertson, Aaron Goodliffe & the rest of the bunch over at The Tenth Man have launched a new brand platform for AIG Ireland . I honestly couldn’t tell you what it was before, but the new platform is called ‘It Happens’ is said to be “a creative manifestation of AIG's commitment to helping people overcome everyday mishaps and get back to normal life as quickly as possible”. In the first piece released (assuming there is more to come) we see a young families day out disrupted by keys and child getting locked in a car. I don’t know how the parents are so calm, we’d have been killing eachother!
The ad is set to the iconic ‘Blue Monday’ by New Order, great to see brands investing in great music, it is expensive but when you get it right, as Distinctive BAT will tell you, it can really pay off.
Meanwhile Laya healthcare have rolled out their new campaign, their first working with the gang at Publicis Dublin and have definitely leaned into fresh consistency, landing in a clinic and using the great distincitive assets they have built up over the years - that ba dum!
AI-dvertising
Paul Dervan shared this with me (yes that Paul Dervan!). A fake Volvo AI Ad that was created in less than 24 hours by just one person using artificial intelligence. Creator Rick Deckard generated all the shots with RunwayML Gen-3 Alpha using text-to-video, some small details were retouched in AE after the edit was done (logo, license plate, duplicate cars, etc). Rick Deckard is “a non-living silicon based automotive photographer. Project by Laszlo Gaal”. The name is taken from an AI character in Bladerunner. Rick Deckard creates AI-generated automotive work.
Of course the narrative is that creativity is dead, advertising is changed forever and all that.
Look AI has been a massive part of this newsletter and I use it all the time to do lots of things, and yes it is faster and better at a lot of things. But this is a category that typically does pretty shit generic advertising (sorry, but you know its true). And I could see this on TV or online or wherever and not know it was made by AI with the help of a human.
The debate then is the value. So people are saying a real spot would take days, more likely weeks, just for the production and cost 100’s of thousands. So the question is, should Rick get paid (if he was real) for the cost it would take to make the ad without AI - based on his skill and expertise - or should he be paid for the 24 hours it took to do it with AI? How do we start to put a value on creativity and outputs in this era of AI. Do we need to move to a different model (not hours based etc…) seems like something we all need to start thinking about, very seriously.
Is anyone else thinking about this?
I spotted a post from Robert af Klintberg Ryberg Co-Founder, Kapero where he was talking about the environmental impact of advertising. Robert had highlighted that online advertising could soon account for 2% of the world's total energy consumption and he linked to the Mi3Australia article with the headline 10x higher carbon emissions: Generative AI risks sustainability blowout for brands; Scope3 turns the spotlight on creative departments.
The article goes on to state that while “you can generate thousands of images a day for creative executions using tools like Midjourney, Open AI's Dall.E, and Adobe's Firefly, but maybe you shouldn’t. Each one may require the equivalent of a full iPhone recharge (and sometimes even more) to push out that picture of a six-fingered bunny rabbit juggling kittens. Meanwhile, if you have switched to generative search on platforms like ChatGPT you will be using an order of magnitude more energy than you would on Google for a comparable search. Goldman Sachs says that ChatGPT is 10x more energy-hungry, other estimates put it as high as 25x.It's also very thirsty, requiring significant amounts of water for cooling data centres.”
Wow. Are you thinking about this?
Are brands who are building and pushing out AI solutions, as the market expects, thinking about it. Is it even coming up? I suspect little discussion on the issue of the impact of AI and generative AI on the environment is happening. Real progress has been achieved in the programmatic supply chain in the last year thanks to things like the creation of the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) sustainability framework. Quoted in the article Scope3’s Brian O'Kelley says that "the biggest advertisers in the world (are) saying we want this problem solved and we want to control how it's solved.....Any publisher or any platform that says, 'I don't want to be bothered by this', it’s like saying 'I don't want to be bothered by brand safety'.” Great work by Mi3 Andrew Birmingham 🕵️♂️ Paul McIntyre for bringing this to the fore.
The Euros ended, in case you didn't notice.
And they ended in massive disappointment if you were English it has to be said.
But Irish gambling brand Paddy Power had a lot of fun in the run up to and after the finals. They were on fire during the Euros, they moved at such speed and my guess is they had options available to them for different scenarios. They played into their TV campaign “everyone loves the english” by showing the opposite, wonderful social content about fans literally supporting any other country but England.
And I think the FA had only opened Southgates resignation letter and they had a video online about the selection for the new manager. I think the combination of speed, humour and quality of content made Paddy the Euros winner for me. The only ones that came close were the AI Sports News, ouch they were brutal. Michelle Spillane & team, well done.
Squeaky Bum time
We talked about Andrex's latest campaign here and they leaned into it for the Euros. I don’t think they had anything to do with the euros or english football (not sure there is an official toilet roll supplier yet?). There was a full-page ad in the Sunday Times that was a letter addressed to the England football manager, Gareth Southgate, relating the England team to great poo.
Written on a roll of Andrex toilet tissue, the letter states that “you should never hold back what your stomach is telling you to set free. Sometimes in life you’ve got to throw caution to the wind. And when it’s Squeaky Bum Time, you should flush all inhibitions.” The only thing about this lovely print ad is it is really poorly branded, when I saw it first I thought it was from Who Gives A Crap.
Maybe testing is accessible?
I was intrigued to see FUTURE PROOF INSIGHTS | Consumer Neuro and Amárach Research launch Prizm+ in July, a new ad testing offering that brings together neuroscience and behavioural research. Like other ad testing platforms it hopes to help he advertisers and their agencies improve the effectiveness of their advertising. PRIZM+, an ad testing solution using neuroscience and behavioural research to help advertisers and agencies improve the effectiveness of their advertising. So how will it work and why did it need this partnership?
Well Future Proof Insights test the advertisements using EEG Brain Imaging and Eye Tracking which allows them to quantify the brain activity and the movements of the eyes on a moment-to-moment basis as the audiences consume the advertisement. In parallel to this lab testing, Amárach Research test the very same advertisements by surveying a representative sample of the population, to capture detailed measures for recall, relevance and respondents are asked to score the advertisement on three dimensions – capabilities, opportunities, and motivations – which allows Amárach to generate an overall measure of the projected behavioural consequence of viewing the ad.
As Seán Higgins , Managing Director of Future Proof Insights said, “Effectiveness is naturally a constant topic in the industry and we believe that through the use of PRIZM+, advertisers will not only be able to learn how effective their work is, but also why it is so effective.”.
The report outcome has a System1 feel to it for sure although (and this isn't a criticism) but the output doesn’t look as sophisticated just yet. I am guessing Prizm+ is going after that market and is definitely pricing itself into the market. Does it give you the same output as System1, who are definitely hte market leader, I don’t know. But one of the things I spoke to Mark Ritson about was the prohibitive cost of testing for smaller brands and this seems to bring it in reach.
Do you speak effectiveness?
Now in its third year, Kantar & Marketing Week have released their Language of Effectiveness report. Russell Parsons opens with a stark reminder: “It has been another bruising year for marketers… the way effectiveness is seen has inevitably changed, as has the way it is perceived by the C-suite.” The report highlights several key areas and worryingly notes that all measures of effectiveness have declined since 2023, suggesting that marketing effectiveness is moving backwards. It appears leadership lacks a clear understanding of effectiveness, often addressing it in an ad hoc manner.
Interestingly, the creative effectiveness agenda is progressing more positively than general marketing effectiveness. This could be due to the growing popularity of testing platforms. The report also examines AI usage, revealing that most marketers still don’t use AI in any of the eight effectiveness areas surveyed. However, more than two-fifths are considering it for all eight. Barriers such as lack of knowledge, time, or dedicated resources may be preventing teams from adopting AI. B2B organisations are less likely to use AI than B2C, with Rory O'Neill explaining that B2B target audiences are often too small to justify its use. Evidenza might disagree with this view.
The issue of balancing long and short-term marketing investment persists. Almost a third of respondents (31.6%) report budget cuts this year, up from 21.6% in 2023. Brands are more likely to cut long-term investment (27.3%) than short-term (23.1%) and have increased short-term spend (42.8%) more than long-term (40.2%). Pete Markey , CMO of the Year, notes that the plethora of responsive performance media channels, such as paid search and social media, pressures marketers to prioritise short-term investment. He warns that overreliance on performance channels could erode the top of the marketing funnel, causing future issues. Markey also points out that brand-focused channels like TV can have a substantial short-term impact, enhancing the performance of other channels.
ROI remains the top priority for boards, although fewer marketers this year say their leadership ranks it among their top three metrics (30.1% versus 41.6% in 2023). This shift might indicate that CEOs, CFOs, and other board members are becoming more attuned to the nuances of marketing effectiveness measurement.
Surprisingly, B2B lags slightly behind B2C in effectiveness. B2B marketers are less likely to strongly agree that there has been an increased focus on effectiveness in the past three years.
The report is a fascinating read but lacks tangible steps for marketers to bridge the effectiveness gap. It may simply reassure you that your challenges are shared by many.
It's a biscuit!
"It's a bar!"
"It's a biscuit!"
"It's a bar!"
"It's a biscuit!"
This was an ad in the 80’s for KitKat and when I saw the Jaffa Cake work it immediately made me think of that. There is not one thing wrong with that, as this is wonderful work. It is so great, the product is shown wonderfully in it, the tone is fantastic (I love the idiot execution).
It creates a debate where we don’t need one. Clearly the biscuit category is feeling the pinch of the discount retailers like me products. McVities stable mate Digestives has had work out claiming to be the original and best, lovely shots of the product there too, but it felt a bit defeatist, it was almost like the issue was in the ad. This, for me, is a much better way of addressing the issue, by having fun and building the brand. And for what it's worth Adam Woolf I tried to move the Jaffa Cakes to the cake aisle in my local Aldi and was asked to leave.
Us Mode
I have posted in the newsletter before about connection and disconnecting. Id love some help with an idea I have (please DM me). This is definitely a trend we are seeing and companies that tap into it, I believe, will win. UScellular have created a campaign and they are positioning themselves as the company that is encouraging you to use your phone less. I do think the point they make is good, it is ironic that phones were meant to connect, but in lots of ways we are more disconnected than ever before and so tapping into this irony they are using Alanis Morissette, who famously wrote a song about irony where all examples were not ironic, how ironic, to showcase the irony of the situation. I really hope they can help us find a way to reconnect. Nice work Eric Jagher & team.
Has the cookie crumbled?
So Google has decided to abandon its plan to completely remove third-party cookies from its Chrome browser. This shift marks a significant change in Google's approach to privacy and online advertising, this has been in the works for four years. Initially, Google had intended to phase out third-party cookies to enhance user privacy and move towards a more secure web environment. According to The Irish Times , as recently as February, Google said it had started to remove some cookies and aimed to switch off all third-party cookies by the end of the year. However, the UK Information Commissioner’s Office still had issues with the proposed replacement technologies, calling them “deeply flawed”. The jury, clearly, is still out on this and if it is good or bad news, I suspect the google narrative will be ‘we are thinking about consumers’!
But what might it mean?
Well maybe it will gives users more control over their privacy settings. Instead of a blanket removal of cookies, users can now choose how they want to be tracked, allowing for a more personalised browsing experience without compromising their privacy entirely. Probably one of the biggest things, and something that will matter to google is, advertisers are likely to be happy. The removal of third-party cookies would have significantly disrupted current advertising models.
Of course this all means that Google will continue its dominance in the advertising market, something I am sure people more expert than me will look at, like competition authorities. The move aims to enhance user choice, but how simple will this be and will it give users total control, let’s see. Some privacy advocates believe it doesn't go far enough.
Soap Wars
cerave - owned and created by the actor Michael Cera - have come out with some new work off the back of their brilliant SuperBowl campaign (fronted by their founder) that won before and after superbowl. I read something today that said people are still talking about it online and CeraVe have people explaining that the actor is in fact not the creator of the product (whaaaaat!). Yes, months later this is still working for them. But they are not sitting back they’ve just launched a melodramatic, soap opera-style campaign for their Hydrating Facial Cleanser. The campaign includes video content, influencer marketing, and a mobile tour focused on skincare education.
In a plot brimming with soap opera clichés—overacting, frosted lenses, and doppelgangers—a well-to-do heiress, Xochitl Cleansington, portrayed by actress Xochitl Gomez, wakes up to find her house stripped of CeraVe cleanser. Her parents confess to drastic measures—using bar soap and sleeping with makeup on—leading to Cleansington's dramatic fainting. Upon her revival, they uncover that the CeraVe cleanser was stolen by their dermatologist’s evil twin, a role played by dermatologist and social media influencer Portela.
CeraVe's latest campaign, developed by 72andSunny in Los Angeles and directed by Milana Vayntrub (best known as Lily from the AT&T commercials), features 30 influencers creating soap opera-worthy content. The mobile tour will spotlight dermatologists Dr Kunal Malik and Dr. Maren Locke, offering expert advice, free samples, and other goodies.
Melanie Vidal , CeraVe global general manager said “By partnering with talented individuals like board-certified dermatologist Dr. Dustin Portela and Xochitl Gomez, we can effectively reach a Gen Z audience and teach them how to cleanse like a dermatologist, all while maintaining the signature CeraVe humour that resonates with our audience,”
I love seeing this cross-over of influencers and advertising, it has been happening slowly over some time and at times felt more like an after thought “What will we get influencers to do” but now it is becoming central.
Being Transparent at the Olympics
It is the summer of sports and we are right in the middle of the Olympics, so here is a bit of an Olympics section for you!
So let’s be transparent, even as a global tier 1 partner, your brand is entirely absent at the Olympic games. Unlike, lets say the World Cup, where the brands get lots of pitch side exposure, the Olympics has little to no branding, bar that of the games, at the games. Well that is unless you are Armani, Ralph Lauren or Louis Vuitton! So you really have to advertise and activate the s**t out of it.
Samsung, working with BBH London , have come up with The Transparent Medal to help engage those pesky with Gen Zers who dont engage with anything to engage with the games (and their favourite device, samsung) throughout the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. Samsung is celebrating the ‘Spirit of Openness’, a campaign focused on overcoming challenges and sharing past failures. Designed to start a new social movement (ugh).
‘The Openness Medal’ is supposedly based off the insight that Gen Z are more interested in the athletes stories than the sports they actually compete in. Ive no doubt there is lots of research here, but is that a new insight? Anywho. Devised by the wonderful folks at BBH London , the campaign will enable Gen Z to learn more about the stories behind Team Samsung Galaxy athletes. I hate that I am excluded from finding out more about these athletes' stories! Neil Clarke from BBH is quoted as saying “We all fail. We all make mistakes. We all break. Winning is a tiny part of the journey,....the openness medal’ is here to help normalise failure, overcome challenges, and hopefully inspire more young people to be open to sport and to not give up.” I wish I had come up with this idea when I worked on the last games, where we jinxed every single athlete we partnered with! The medals themselves will be awarded throughout the games. I'm not sure if they are actually physical medals, hope so.
Focus on the Winning please
Nike's Olympics 2024 ad campaign, "Winning Isn’t For Everyone," has been widely acclaimed for its bold and unfiltered approach to celebrating the ruthless determination behind athletic greatness. Narrated by Willem Dafoe, the campaign, created by Wieden+Kennedy Portland, features a star-studded cast of athletes, including LeBron James, Serena Williams, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Kobe Bryant.,
The core of the campaign is a striking hero film that showcases these athletes at their most intense moments, underscored by Dafoe’s provocative narration. The monologue explores themes of single-mindedness, obsession, and selfishness, Dafoe's lines, such as "Am I a bad person? I'm obsessive. I'm selfish. I have no empathy. I don't respect you. I'm never satisfied," challenge viewers to rethink the qualities that contribute to greatness.
The campaign has been praised for its raw honesty and the powerful portrayal of the mental and emotional challenges faced by top athletes. It breaks away from the usual glorified narratives and instead highlights the gritty reality of pursuing excellence. Of course one of the things it highlights, and I'm not sure if it is intentional, are the the pressures faced by elite athletes and the impact it can have on mental health. It is worth remembering that so many of the athletes that go to the Olympics barely get by on grants and sponsorship and life after the games can be very tough. So while Nike isn’t glamourising the wins and succes, it is showing the grit and determination, it is doing it with superstars.
But Nicole Hubbard Graham , Chief Marketing Officer at Nike has said that this is “ a story about what it takes to be the best. The legacies that have yet to be shaped. And the dreams that will be made real. It reminds the world that there's nothing wrong with wanting to win” - so hopefully during and after the games Nike will share and highlight some of the lesser known names and faces.
Nike definitely doesn’t shy away from pushing the boundaries and doing great work, think about find your greatness, they also, back in 1996 ran "You don’t win silver, you lose gold," for the Games that year, so this definitely feels very Nike to me, and let’s face it, there arent many brands you get to say that about.
There is lots of talk about the troubles Nike is facing right now, and they are very real troubles. Will this begin the reverse of that decline? Well it is unlikely that one campaign can reverse the decline because the decline in Nike seems to be so many areas, product, distribution, pricing. But this could be a signal that they are starting to get back to getting the basics right.
Use our competitor please
Did you see the work from Heetech in Paris around the Olympic Games. So Heetch operates in a number of major cities in France. One of those cities is going to come to a bit of a standstill this summer. Yes the city of Paris will see millions of tourists arrive in the city in the coming days for the 2024 Olympic Games. And the city is expecting major travel disruption with metros overcrowded, buses delayed, and bike lanes saturated. Getting around Paris will be a challenge. Heetch has decided to step in and support Parisians during this time by.... promoting it's top competitor, Uber, to tourists.
The campaign, translated into 12 languages, encourages visitors to "Choose Uber" for their travels in Paris. CMO of Heetch Renaud BERTHE is quoted as saying: "It's an opportunity worth tens of millions of euros for the ride-sharing market. But at Heetch, we've chosen to sit this one out, because serving this population would degrade the quality of service for Parisians, who are an absolute priority for us, even more so in this period when we know that transport is going to be disrupted.” Marketers have been, as we do, questioning if this is a good idea, to promote the competition, but could it be a true stroke of genius. Renaud has promised to tell Diplomat Agency how it all goes after the games.
Other bits and pieces that caught my eye
The new (well old but new version) of the Twister movie was out in July and there was some great OOH special builds,
It is not unusual to see a team sponsored by a sports brand, but I saw that Adidas have signed up to be clothing partner for Sky Sports Golf, good move.
VFC don’t like the recent KFC ads, but for very different reasons. So they mocked up graffiti versions of them changing the headlines. But it seems to have just made people think more about KFC. I imagine KFC know there are some battles they wont win, in that some people will just not love what KFC is about, and VFC is one of those, so I suspect the Meghan Farren & the folks at KFC just ignore this.
Ok so I have mentioned E.L.F. BEAUTY a few times, after seeing their CMO Kory Marchisotto at CreatorIQ and being enthralled by her presence and presentation, I have been the biggest fan and when you dig into what they are doing and how they are doing it, it is mind blowing. I met Kory (briefly) at CreatorIQ & Patrick O'Keefe and Kory (briefly again) and each time ask them to come on the podcast. I'm sure it will happen, but in the meantime, the brilliant Jon Evans has a wonderful interview with Kory on the Uncensored CMO, if you haven’t had a listen check it out.
A student created this Royal Mail ad on Reddit and it's gone viral, it is so good and definitely a great recruitment ad for the Royal Mail, will they use it?
We do love an old Award
Marketing.ie Marketer of the Year judging panel has been announced and as per usual Michael Cullen has pulled in some serious heavy hitters to sit and judge the best marketers, good luck to everyone who gets nominated. Meanwhile the UK brand of the year shortlist has been announced with Greggs , Lucky Saint | B Corp™ , Marks and Spencer , McDonald's and Octopus Energy . And just in time Greggs partner with Monzo Bank to dispense pastries, maybe around the marketing week offices?
Twenty-eight case studies have been named on the prestigious IPA (Institute of Practitioners in Advertising) Effectiveness Awards 2024 shortlist. The IPA Awards are analysed by Technical and Industry judging panels of leading strategists and econometricians to evaluate the payback of their marketing activity. The final awards and special prizes, including the President’s Prize for Next Generation Brand-Building, are determined by a panel of Client experts, led by Nationwide Chief Customer Officer and Chair of Judges, Catherine Kehoe.
That’s a tough crowd! Convenor of Judges and Chief Strategy Officer, Ogilvy UK, Jo Arden said: “This year we had the highest number of entries in three decades…I’m particularly pleased to see so many first-time brands, agencies and authors on this year’s shortlist including our first ever entry from Pakistan”. The winners of the IPA Effectiveness Awards 2024 will be announced at a black-tie ceremony at The Peninsula London on Monday 7 October & key lessons from the Awards, including a deep dive into the Grand Prix winning case, will be presented at the IPA Effectiveness Conference on Wednesday 9 October., I wonder how I get myself a ticket to that event! You can see the the full list of those shortlisted on the IPA site
Thanks
I posted about my experience being made redundant and the impact it has had on me and the struggle I am having in landing my next full time role. To everyone who liked, commented or messaged me about the post, I really appreciate the support. Hopefully some day when I have taken up a new role I can repay the generosity, in the meantime I will battle the ATS’s and automated replies.
Marketers on the move
I can’t wait until I can make it into this section of my own newsletter, hey hopefully someday soon there will be a new role for me (hit me up if you are looking for an award winning marketer with international B2B and B2C experience who nerds out on marketing), but in the meantime July has been a busy month for some big names in marketing
Ellie Norman moves to Formula E
I had the pleasure of interviewing Ellie Norman when she was heading up marketing at Manchester United, you can listen to that interview here. Ellie worked in agencies before moving client side and prior to Man United she had been at Formula 1 where she set up the marketing function and oversaw the transformation of the brand from being seen as, as she says herself an old billionaires boys club to being something for the masses. And yes she oversaw Drive to Survive that definitely played a huge part in that transformation. In the interview you can hear her passion for motor sports come through. So it feels like this new chapter for Ellie as she heads over to Formula E , definitely in a passion wheelhouse, it is of course going to be really interesting to see how Ellie builds the brand.
Alessandro Manfredi leaves Dove
The CMO of Dove, Alessandro Manfredi , has left his post after 28 years at Unilever and on the 20th anniversary of Doves Real Beauty Campaign. Great to see some longevity of CMO tenure. Along with Ogilvy Düsseldorf and London he was one of the driving forces behind the Real Beauty Campaign, probably one of the first purpose campaigns we saw. But it wasn’t a flash in the pan thing for Dove, they have been consistent with it for 20 years and consistently done wonderful work. And it has worked, “Real Beauty,” still stands as one of the most awarded campaigns of the last few decades, having helped the brand grow its customer reach for 10 years. In 2023, Dove fuelled the growth of Unilever’s Personal Care, which noted a sales boost of 8.9% for the year and represented 23% of its $64 million turnover. So here we see creativity and commercial success. Only a few weeks ago Dove won 13 Lions at Cannes, and amongst them was a Gold Lion in ‘Creative Effectiveness’ and Unilever was named Cannes Lions Creative Marketer of the Year 2024. It certainly will be interesting to see what happens next and where he lands and hopefully I can bring that to you on
Marketers move to Ops in LinkedIn
So there has been some change at LinkedIn recently, some less public changes than others, but the big news obviously was the departure of CMO Melissa Selcher after 8 years leading marketing Selcher joined LinkedIn in 2016 as VP of corporate communications. She was promoted to CMO in 2019, starting in the role in 2020 following Shannon Brayton’s retirement. And in recent weeks Daniel Shapero , LinkedIns COO announced that the marketing team and the Economic Graph Research Institute were moving into his team. Now I have been the first to give out about the narrative of CMOs roles being dumped, but this does seem like an unusual move from LinkedIn to not replace the CMO role? Shapero’s origins are in marketing, so maybe makes perfect sense. Hopefully it is a good move for the marketers at LinkedIn.
Todd Kaplan moves to Heinz
Todd Kaplan announced in June that he was leaving his Pepsi chief marketing officer role after spending 17 years at the company, starting out in the company as an assistant manager. I don’t know much about Pepsi but you do seem to see long careers in that organisation. Along with Mauro Porcini , who will be That’s What I Call Marketing’s 100th guest next week, Kaplan led Pepsi’s first rebrand in 14 years, creating a new logo and visual identity to help drive brand distinction. Announcing he was leaving he did indicate he was heading somewhere else and that somewhere else, just happens to be another iconic brand. Heinz. I can’t wait to see the Heinz Pepsi collab - cola flavoured pasta sauce anyone?
Share of what now?
Sticking with AI, Tom Roach wrote in Marketing Week about his Jellyfish colleague , Jack Smyth , who started talking about ‘share of model’ early this year as a new way of measuring a brand’s presence. So is this a new metric that we should be thinking about. This concept measures a brand’s visibility within AI datasets, analogous to traditional metrics like share of voice and share of search. The metric assesses how frequently a brand is mentioned in large language models compared to its competitors, providing insights into brand visibility and positioning within AI-generated content.
Tom does note that the while "share of model" metric remains rooted in established marketing principles, its success depends on whether it can reliably predict market share growth, similar to its predecessors. The challenge now is to integrate this metric into practical brand management tools, ensuring it promotes strategic, high-quality content creation rather than superficial data manipulation.
July Episodes
Going for Gold - the building a legacy series concluded with an episode all about sports sponsorship featuring brands at very different stages of their journey with Mary McGuire Amy O'Shaughnessy Philip Greene Jason Delany Legacy Communications Listen here
Chidi Achara Chief Product Officer of Huge joined me for the first of our Cannes Sessions with Freedman International - find that here
Mark Ritson was the second guest in our series, you can catch that episode here
Karen Nelson-Field PhD joined me in part one and Karandeep Singh Kapany of Duolingo joined me in part two and that is here
Kevin Kent shared his thoughts on building a commercially driven marketing team that wins awards. Catch that here
Next week the 100th episode of That's What I Call Marketing will be released. Thank you to everyone who has joined me as a guest since day 1 and that first episode with Jon Goldstone who took that leap of faith. You can find all 100 episodes here https://www.thatswhaticallmarketing.com/podcast
Searching AI
Are you going to GPT it? OpenAI announced the launch of SearchGPT an AI-powered search engine with real-time access to information across the internet. The search engine starts with a large textbox that asks the user “What are you looking for?” But rather than returning a plain list of links, SearchGPT tries to organize and make sense of them. In one example from OpenAI, the search engine summarizes its findings on music festivals and then presents short descriptions of the events followed by an attribution link. SearchGPT is just a “prototype” for now. The service is powered by the GPT-4 family of models and will only be accessible to 10,000 test users at launch.
Workshops & Training
That’s What I Call Marketing has developed a bespoke set of workshops that we can offer and tailor to your needs
Making it work - getting through the first 90 days of a new client agency relationship can be challenging. The joy of the pitch moves quickly to delivering great work. This workshop helps navigate through that and ensure there is no buyers remorse in that first 90 days.
They just don't get me - the client series. A workshop for clients that helps understand the agency world, navigate and establish ways of working
They just don't get me - the agency series. A workshop that delves deep into the world of the client, got behind the curtain to understand why things go off track.
Brand Strategies for Non Profits - after a successful presentation at the non profit summer school we have been asked by non profits to come and support them on establishing transformative brand strategies for their organisations. We are now offering this workshop to more organisations
What's on their minds - what are Global CMOs thinking about, worried about and investing their time on, get the inside track with this session.
Get in touch to find out more.
Well that is the round up for July. So much more went on in July, leave a comment with what you think is missing from this. Thanks for reading.
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