1) For us, a significant development was going from holding the reins so tightly in production—controlling all our content, our big TV ad campaigns frame-by-frame—to letting go a little bit like we did with Uproxx and Uproxx Studios for our Rick Ross piece “Buy Back the Block” for our client Checkers. You have to be willing to work with partners, and that’s where the shift is happening. There are opportunities to let go a bit and let people help you co-create content. This broke the mold from what we’ve traditionally done, and we struck awards gold with it. It was a huge hit on social, and a big learning for us. As more big publishers like Vice and Uproxx start to create their own content studios, there are more opportunities for us to learn to work together.
2) We’ve added people with more diverse experience, like Mike McGarry (director of emerging content) from Vice and Bear Collins, our senior creative technologist from BBDO New York. As we work with our client partners to sometimes move dollars from traditional media and start putting it into content and social, we need talent like this who come from varied backgrounds and know what’s next. Maybe even five years ago, we would’ve searched for the usual suspects when we were hiring but now we are adding people who understand influencer marketing and digital and original content.
3) We’re really happy with the Coca-Cola “1000 Songs” campaign where we celebrated more than 1,000 names on Coke cans with individual songs. It initially came in as a radio brief – write an ad for the fact that Coke had 1,050 new names on Coke cans (a continuation of its “Share a Coke” campaign). So we worked with our client partners and Score A Score to create an original song for every single name on every single bottle. That radio brief became something that blew up in social, and they saw a massive increase in sales.
4) I think we’ve only just begun to scratch the surface of what influencer marketing can be. We saw a great example when we relaunched the Fantanas (for new client Fanta). The reaction from fans to these four social media stars – how excited they were, how engaged they were – it really taught us a lot about the power of influencers. We chose four of the most successful influencers (for our demo) and featured them in a social campaign, cinema, OOH, experiential, events and just watched how they amplified the message. If I had a brand with limited spend right now I think I’d spend it on Influencer Marketing – obviously done well.
And on a production note: We’re really growing as an agency but we’re spending much less time out of town. We’re doing so much remotely now. I’ve become used to seeing casting online, and because Atlanta is now such a hub for film and TV production, we have great post facilities. So whereas in the past, I’d have creatives spending three weeks in L.A. for production, now they there for final casting and the shoot – and come back for editing, sound, color etc back in ATLWOOD.
5) Every year I say I want to lose weight and spend more time with the family. I’d like to change my email signature from: “6’8”, 300 lbs, has a posse,” which is a riff on Andre the Giant’s tagline, but I won’t unless I can get down to about 260.
Professionally, I’d like to see us continue to grow and try to replicate the amazing year we just had. And though women are well represented at the agency, including in leadership roles, I’d like to make sure we have more female perspective in the senior creative ranks.
