1) My, how the great have fallen. The infallible duopoly seems to be under real pressure. Consumers either really care about their privacy and place a priority on trust… or… the bandwagon is too hard to pass up and consumers are okay with just looking the other way.
2) Deutsch needed to respond to a demand in the marketplace amongst our client roster to quickly and efficiently make everything from tv commercials to branded content to episodic and unscripted entertainment, leading to the expansion of Steelhead, a full-service production company backed by Deutsch. Considering the ever-evolving world of social advertising and the wide set of digital deliverables on every project, we invested in further building out our production offering in NY and LA. With over 42,000 square feet of production facilities - including two sound stages with suites for casting, wardrobe, and hair/makeup, 12 edit bays, 2 record/mix rooms and over 32 visual FX stations – we are now able to meet that high demand. Building out the Steelhead capabilities has allowed us to retain the quality of work our clients are accustomed to, while emphasizing scalability and flexibility to deliver across all integrated assignments.
3) For Busch Beer we partnered with the National Forest Foundation to allow people to participate in the planting of 50,000 new trees. Our idea was to create pre-roll ads on YouTube with a simple premise—if you watch our pre-roll ad for the entire 30 seconds and don’t hit the skip button, we’ll plant a tree for you. In an age where hitting the skip button has become an involuntary reflex, three out of four viewers chose to stay and watch for the whole 30 seconds and have a tree planted on their behalf. That was double YouTube’s benchmark for view-through rate and in less than 24 hours, all 50,000 trees were ready to go. It was a great idea for a great cause.
4) People are vulnerable right now. The state of the country and the world has people’s emotions bubbling just below the surface and sensitivity to messaging is at an all-time high. It is an opportunity to help brands connect and show that they care. Empathy is the trend that advertisers cannot ignore.
5) While working in advertising is very creatively fulfilling, I do believe it’s important to set aside some creative exploration just for yourself. No deadlines, no pressure and just one client—you. My New Year’s resolution is to try to squeeze that in a bit more in 2019. In college, I was a painter and an illustrator. While I don’t have room to stretch eight-foot canvases in my NYC apartment, I do have room for an iPad Pro with Procreate. And it’s just big enough fit in my stocking. (Hint, hint, Kim. Ha!)