Why aren’t marketers engaging with one of the most underserved audiences?

CES, like everything else, looks very different this year compared to the last three I’ve acted as a tour guide for. It’s entirely virtual, experiences are in a home office, demos are virtually impossible, and I feel like I’ve been trapped in corporate presentations all day. Oh wait, I have.

The nights are getting longer, and as we face down another winter of restrictions, a question that’s bubbling at the back of our minds is, “How are we going to get through this?”

Media executives weigh in on the implications of P&G’s groundbreaking direct deals with television networks - is it the death knell for media agencies?

Canada’s federal and provincial governments are cautiously reopening economies as COVID-19 cases decline and the population recovers, with consumers only just now signalling their readiness to start venturing back out into the world. Commentary from Sarah Ivey, featured in Media In Canada, June 19, 2020.

Whether you’re an advocate of generational marketing or not, what’s inarguable is that the one thing that sets generations apart is their digital nativity. As part of our post-CES read on consumer interest in innovations, we partnered with consumer insights platform Perksy to get an in-the-moment read of which innovations appeal most to Generation Z and Millennials.

The week after CES, for those of us who attended, is a bit like the aftermath of a powerful energy drink: it’s incredibly invigorating at the time, and then reality sinks again on Monday with a thump. How do we make sense of, and practically apply, what we’ve seen and learned?

The hunt starts in the early hours the day before the show opens, when curators like me scout the floor. The floor is usually pure chaos, full of forklifts, pallets, and harried exhibitors. A lot of the demonstrations aren’t running, half the exhibitors – particularly in Eureka Park — haven’t even turned up yet. It will take at least two passes, sometimes three, to start to see the gems that will form the basis for an informative and entertaining tour.

Never heard of the Infinity Festival? It takes place in Hollywood in early November, billed as the premiere festival for Hollywood and Silicon Valley. The Infinity Festival is in its infancy – this is only its second year. It’s an intimate look at how Hollywood is actually using technology, with a wide range of experiments, research, technology and of course content.

As strategist and business development leads, we have been there -- many times -- and have gathered together our prescription for pitching and thriving through these challenging times.

Marketers and brands who ignore Black Friday might as well be ignoring the nose on their face. Black Friday is now global and larger than ever, and is an unmissable moment in consumers’ lives that has moved far past a mere retail event.

At Advertising Week New York this year, I had the pleasure of hearing Rita Ferro, President of Disney sales, and Kristy Argyilan, President of Target’s media agency Rondel, speak to what went behind their historic deal to partner over first party data, during their keynote presentation.

The business of advertising. That’s what Advertising Week New York is really about. It’s about the core issues that drive marketers’ advertising decisions. It’s about the macro forces that drive industry growth. It’s about the business model of the agency and its key components – operations, talent, technology.

This summer, I had the most amazing experience. I was asked to mentor a group of very smart strategists in a series of workshops. Now, at this point in my career the workshops I’ve run number in the hundreds, but this was a unique experience — where I got to “workshop the workshoppers.”

Last week saw the unveiling of a study by the ANA, that polled 119 marketers tracking their level of trust in their agencies. The biggest finding is that the number of advertisers who claimed their trust has declined has doubled, from 13% to 28%.

For many attendees, CES is focused on the stuff – the devices, the gadgets, the demos. However, the real holy grail for many marketers is to understand how technology can lead to breakthroughs in user experience.