“It’s a hype cycle and it’s completely misdirected,” said Swinand, CEO of Inspired Thinking Group (ITG), an AI-enabled content company. Many marketers are dazzled by the abilities of Generative AI, the ability to generate an image, but the technology’s real rewards for marketers are operational, he explained. 

He quoted an appraisal of the marketplace by Gartner that estimated 70% of companies are making investments on Generative AI projects and less than 10% will see a real return on that investment. “Everybody’s talking about Generative AI and how crazy wonderful it is: ‘You can put a monkey on a horse drinking a Coke,’” said Swinand. “But if you think about the real power of AI, it’s the ability to organize large amounts of unstructured data in ways never before possible.” 

With this in mind, Swinand believes the real benefit of AI for marketers will be truly understanding consumers by being able to better manage large quantities of data and automating content at scale to deliver personalization. Brands that can execute that successfully are going to win, said Swinand, who has previously served as CEO of Leo Burnett and Publicis Creative U.S. 

For example, Swinand noted ITG is working with a large brand providing software to small and medium businesses, and by leveraging its AI-enabled, proprietary Storyteq Content Intelligence technology, the brand can discover every piece of content posted or written online – “every article, every post, every conversation, every issue or question ever written on the internet about small business” – and rank, organize and optimize it all in just an hour to inform briefs and experience plans.

“Doing this old school, like when I ran a large creative agency, you’d have a strategist spend a month searching Google to put together a journey map of consumer understanding, which would not nearly be as complete or detailed,” said Swinand. “That’s the power of AI.”

Rather than use AI to generate new logos and packaging at a dizzying pace, brands should use it to apply their assets in a more thoughtful, bespoke way, creating intelligent content which really exploits the speed and agility of AI, said Swinand. 

“If I’m Coke, you know what I don’t want? A new logo, a new bottle, or a new tagline. What I want is those things consistently applied,” he said “For me, the idea of AI creating and rendering completely new ads isn’t a big idea. What you need is a content marketing platform to create consistency in logos, consistency in packaging, but then have the flexibility to bring in Generative AI to change languages, change legal copies, and change backgrounds.”

At ITG, this runs through Storyteq. As well as AI-assisted content automation, Storyteq Content Marketing Platform (CMP) streamlines workflows and enables real-time campaign optimization. It harnesses Halo Content Intelligence to ensure content is personalized and brand-compliant across channels, languages, and formats – as Swinand says, creating the perfect story for every user interaction.

“What AI can do is take that big idea and make 5,000 versions: sizes, translations, language, etc.” said Swinand. “We talk about those versions as ‘Halo content.’ AI can take that big idea and Halo it across channels because it can manage systems, processes, and evolution.”

Swinand said that by using AI to capture, create, automate and integrate content at scale, ITG is able to save its 200+ clients anywhere from 26% to 70% of their content production costs. As well as having its own AI-enabled studio with the power to create digital twins and 3-D renders, ITG’s Storyteq Content Marketing Platform can adapt a single ad into 53 languages across 160 countries in under two minutes, then deliver and execute channel-specific asset variations in seconds.

The Big Idea

But the concept of Operational AI is still a hard sell. “Dynamic meta-tagging isn’t very sexy,” said Swinand. “Generative AI: ‘Look what I made with AI’ is a great news article, (but) very little value to business. The ability to manage every piece of copy I wrote, and image I ever shot, produced, or owned globally? Game changer.” 

Some 80% of content in digital asset management systems goes unused because it doesn’t come up in searches, said Swinand. For example, he recalled a major client in the food and beverage sector was found to have over 3,326 images of the same bottle in their DAM because agencies would just keep reshooting it. A DAM using AI-powered asset intelligence to search images at the object level avoids these inefficiencies.

Putting Operational AI front and center is challenged both by the shiny-object mindset of this hype cycle and by internal structures that silo the technology, much like other innovations were before, said Swinand. The silos – similar to the treatment that the Internet and social media received when they were emerging channels – cancel AI’s biggest operational advantage, which is agility and speed.

“I remember the early days of mobile. Every year was the year of mobile. But that wasn’t the big idea. What you can do with cell phones – maps, music, all these things – that was the big idea,” said Swinand. “I think people are hugely distracted.” 

The hype cycle diverts stakeholders from AI’s true potential; they need to focus more closely on defining the problem they are trying to solve, not the technology they are using, said Swinand. 

“AI solves problems, but you need to name the problems you solve. AI is not the end game,” he said. “The value comes from solving a problem with AI. Don’t just deploy AI for the sake of AI.”

Swinand is also a strong believer in the power of creativity to radically change the business trajectory of brands. “At its core, the creative insight and the emotional “Hero” idea driving the brand must come from a person, not AI. AI can iterate on that insight and scale it in ways not possible before, but people will still be the source of true emotional brand connection,” argues Swinand. “I believe strongly in the power of emotive big ideas to radically transform brands,” he said. “AI is the tool that will allow brands to Halo these ideas across channels to all their audience segments.”

The post Innovator Insights: Inspired Thinking Group’s Andrew Swinand appeared first on Brand Innovators.

In 2025, cinema advertising is looking at a stellar year, with large crowds, strong engagement, and even a generational bump in its demographics that should interest advertisers, said Christine Martino. 

“Cinema is booming and what’s really driving that is Gen Z,” said Martino, chief revenue officer of Screenvision Media. “We’re seeing audiences grow year over year, where other networks simply aren’t seeing that sort of dramatic growth.”

The cinema advertising company is projecting record-breaking crowds this year and into next, as moviegoers rediscover the experience of watching movies in the theater, following the surge in video streaming spurred by the pandemic lockdown. Audiences are expected to grow 30 percent, said Martino. 

“It’s that perfect storyline,” she said. “We have amazing content. We’ve got this elusive, attentive audience in cinema, and that emotional engagement that they have with the content drives real outcomes for brands.”

Following the Barbenheimer phenomenon of summer 2023, audiences have continued to show up in force for theatrical releases. Late 2024 titles like “Wicked” and “Gladiator II” delivered major box office wins, and more recently, “A Minecraft Movie” packed theaters with a $163 million opening weekend. Easter weekend saw “Sinners” become the highest-grossing Easter debut of all time. Now, Memorial Day weekend 2025 has officially set a new record with $325 million in box office revenue and 24 million+ admissions, led by the heartwarming success of “Lilo & Stitch” ($183M) and the high-octane return of “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” ($77M). Audiences aren’t just back, they’re showing up in bigger and more energized ways than ever before, said Martino.

“We’re seeing more and more momentum at the box office,” she said. And the momentum is accompanied by an increased relevance of movies in culture, after years of Peak TV dominating the pop-culture conversation. 

“We’re seeing this big boom in cinema, where more and more movies are driving cultural moments and being really relevant,” said Martino. “It’s becoming more and more apparent that there’s really no better place to share premium content than at the movies.”

Gen Z is embracing cultural moments at the movies, said Martino. Nine out of ten consumers in that cohort have been to the movies in the last year, and plan to go more often. This summer alone, Screenvision projects theaters will sell 450 million tickets to Gen Z moviegoers, she said.  

This year will also see records broken in the number of movies on screen. Studios are planning 147 releases, including 32 blockbusters (any title projected to surpass $30MM on opening weekend), up 33% from 2024, said Martino. 

“We’re just seeing this huge growth at the box office and this huge audience build of Gen Z really coming out to support it and be entertained,” said Martino. “And the content itself is actually shifting the cultural conversation. That’s what cinema is able to do.”

Creating cultural moments

Cinema advertising has evolved, from a static out-of-home medium to a dynamic, immersive experience that’s considered in the premium video set, along with linear TV, CTV and streaming. Cinema benefits from an unusually engaged audience, especially by the multitasking standards of Gen Z, said Martino.

Advertisers are innovating the creative offers in cinema, with pre-show takeovers to reach an audience primed for that message, and leveraging targeting and measurement tools to show results. Screenvision created a pre-show takeover for the release of “Wicked” in 2024, including shooting segments with the movie’s stars to be included – along with advertiser content –  in the programming of their pre-show, Front + Center. The idea takes the existing preshow and enhances it for today’s audience, to make advertisers organically a part of the conversation moviegoers are having around that film, said Martino. Screenvision is preparing to launch another takeover this summer for M&M’s and the release of “Jurassic World: Rebirth.”

Cinema advertising has an advantage in that it can predict and plan for pop culture moments, since it taps directly into their source material, said Martino. 

“Cultural moments happen, and so often people are chasing them. In cinema, you can plan a year-plus in advance,” said Martino. “We know that when ‘Avatar’ comes out this holiday, it’s going to be huge. You can be part of that cultural moment. When ‘Wicked: For Good,’ comes out over Thanksgiving, you can be part of that moment. We can create a whole storyline for you, so you’re not chasing cultural moments anymore. You’re actually planning in advance.”

The ability to measure those audiences and maximize campaigns helps brands see where cinema advertising is contributing to their campaign ROI, often alongside other video media, such as linear TV and CTV. Screenvision has partnered with LiveRamp, iSpot and OpenAP to add measurement and data tools for advertisers.  At last year’s Upfronts, it introduced Screenvision AMP (Audience Management Platform), to help brands target and measure campaigns more effectively and this year will introduce Impact, a new product that provides advanced measurement capabilities, to AMP’s suite of advertiser solutions. 

When measured, cinema advertising can show it holds its own against other video and digital media, said Martino. “It’s all about growth, looking at cinema in more of a digital data aspect, where it can be completely measurable and transparent against linear CTV: Where that reach and frequency and finally, at the end of the day, where that conversion comes from,” she said.

Media agencies were first to notice the evolution and move cinema advertising from the out-of-home portfolios to the video investment teams. Having Nielsen data to compare to other media and “be able to really look and feel and speak the same way that any of those networks are able to” helped open doors with brands and campaigns, she explained. 

“Cinema really sits firmly in the premium video universe and has established it as home over the last 10-plus years,” said Martino. “When marketers are putting together their video investment plans, we are now squarely an option for them that they can compare side-by-side with any of the other premium video solutions that they’re purchasing.”

The post Innovator Insights: Screenvision’s Christine Martino appeared first on Brand Innovators.

P.J. Triboletti, head of partner development at Fluent, emphasized that this approach should not be confused with retail media, which occurs on-site. Fluent, a commerce media solutions provider, focuses on post-purchase advertising, reaching customers with tailored offers as they receive confirmation of their online purchase. Commerce media monetizes those checkout moments and adds post-sale advertisements that function like the old gift-with-purchase at the department store. 

The missed opportunity in post purchase

Don’t underestimate the importance of that post-purchase moment, when the shopper is already engaged and primed to shop. “Unless that retailer or merchant monetizes the post-purchase moment, it’s nothing more than exit traffic. It’s just: ‘Thank you so much for your purchase. Here’s your order receipt, and see you later.’ There are no additional opportunities for the customer to engage with the brand.” 

Presenting a customer with a personalized offer makes them feel recognized, while allowing the brand to generate additional net margin on the purchase, Triboletti said, Fluent engages shoppers after they complete their transaction, offering relevant add-ons, services, or incentives that drive additional revenue and engagement. This gives the merchant the chance to increase revenue, build CRM databases, and monetize a moment that often goes unnoticed, said Triboletti. 

“It’s the only media in the world where the customer has a credit card in their hand. The premium and the ability to drive that engagement is second to none,” said Triboletti. “Why not present shoppers with an offer as a ‘thank you’ for making that purchase, drive better loyalty to the brand—because that’s where they discovered the offering—and also make a significant net margin from a moment that is currently underutilized?”

Post-purchase ads bridge the gap between on-site retail media and off-site commerce media. By leveraging customer data, post-purchase ads can drive site traffic to other merchants, helping the retailer site generate additional revenue and deepen its relationship with shoppers through personalized offers. For example, Fluent worked with a major sportswear retailer that saw an increase of over 27% in the customer lifetime value and a 35% increase in revenue per transaction after integrating post-purchase ads.

Discovery not disruption

The trick is to put the customer back in discovery mode after the purchase by offering them a complementary product that aligns with their needs and interests, said Triboletti. Using first, second, and third-party data, with an assist from machine learning, helps refine the targeting so the consumer receives relevant offers. Triboletti noted that Fluent has generated more than 200 million first-party audience profiles that can be matched to merchants’ databases through its privacy-safe, proprietary identity graph. 

These consumer profiles create opportunities for more accurate targeting and more relevant offers, delivering better results for the merchants and the advertisers they partner with, said Triboletti. “Having that level of precision is exactly how you want to drive further alignment with the brand, which is something more retailers need to invest in,” he said. 

Data helps set commerce media apart from the “if you bought that, you might like this” upselling, which is common on many retail websites, said Triboletti. That merely adds to the friction that can turn off shoppers, he said. 

“Cross-selling is essentially putting someone back into ‘I just walked through the door of the store.’ You’re having shoppers repeat a cycle of going through and rediscovering a new and similar product. That experience creates more potential for disruption,” said Triboletti. Instead,  a trial subscription, loyalty membership, or another attractive offer is bound to be a more exciting opportunity for the customer”. Avoiding the disruption is “table stakes,” said Triboletti. ”No retailer or merchant ever wants to have any potential cause for disruption in the path to purchase. They spend a fortune on branding, direct response, influencers, and social, all to drive consumers to their site,” he said. For merchants, their partners, and the vendors in their tech stack, the potential of disrupting the path to purchase is “a massive mistake” and an expensive one.Post-purchase offers help to eliminate that risk.

“There are other places that you can potentially monetize, but most of the time, it risks disrupting the path to purchase,” Triboletti said. “I don’t think that juice is worth the squeeze—ever.”

The post Innovator Insights: Fluent’s P.J. Triboletti appeared first on Brand Innovators.

As consumers increasingly turn to free, ad-supported streaming, those non-skippable ad pods become more important and the targeting needs to sharpen and become more mindful of its context, said Crofut, VP, business development, agencies and brands of Wurl. The connected TV company Crofut describes as “the tech behind the big-name TV brands” uses artificial intelligence to sort out the emotional context of CTV programming in order to match ads to the mood of the viewer. 

The emotional context where a spot shows up can make or break its message, says Crofut. Wurl’s data shows that when the sentiment of an ad matches that of the programming immediately before the ad break, it can drive performance, he said. 

“We see 2-3X lifts consistently, “ Crofut said. “It’s really important, when you have that user in their emotional journey, to understand where it is, and then be able to really show the user that you understand where they are emotionally, and connect.”

Most streaming platforms know who is watching what content and when, said Crofut. The recommendations that follow each program show that, but what they are missing is the “subcontent”—the mood and emotion that film or TV show evokes in the viewer, he explained. 

“We found the strongest correlation to ad engagement occurred when the emotions of the scene just before the ad break match the emotions in the ad creative,” he said. “When you get it wrong, then you’ve wasted that investment.”

Crofut noted that Wurl is one of the largest operators of FAST channels, handling ad insertion and content distribution for premium free streaming. That connection and its relationship with its parent, the tech company AppLovin—gives it access to information on the content airing on those platforms that it can use to break ads out of targeting by demographics or dayparts. 

“We’re really poised to solve one of streaming TV’s biggest challenges, which is not only attracting more demand, but trying to figure out how to close the gap in performance,” he said, to “make streaming TV more relevant, engaging and profitable.”

Making those connections can be tricky, because the way most programming is organized follows taxonomies that can miss these nuances, said Crofut. As an example, he said most advertisers would consider an animated movie like Shrek a safe brand environment, but an ad for baked goods could play differently if placed after the movie’s villain tortures the Gingerbread Man. 

“Do I want my ad five seconds after that scene? Probably not,” said Crofut. 

Mismatches cannot only result in wasted advertising dollars but can also trigger negative sentiment, said Crofut. He recalled recently watching his teenage son and his friends become irritated at being shown an ad for diapers they couldn’t skip while they were trying to watch a sports program. The boys eventually tuned out the program and switched platforms to watch something else.

“They put in some healthy amount of pejoratives,” said Crofut. “Now the brand created negative attention.”

The Wheel of Emotions

Wurl uses Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions, a visual device created by psychologists to organize emotional responses in relation to each other. Like a color wheel combining primary colors to create new shades, Plutchik’s wheel takes eight basic emotions and mixes them in various combinations and degrees of intensity to predict the sentiment that will result. 

Thanks to AI, Wurl can apply that model to programming in order to score the content and predict what emotions it will generate in the viewer, and score the creative the same way, so that it can then match content and advertising messages. 

“I think of it like a virtual couch surfer who knows where those emotions best fit within the programming, so that you can marry those two to drive better performance,” Crofut said. 

Emotions can also combine to create a different, unexpected mood. Crofut recalled recently working with a quick-service restaurant chain on A/B testing that not only found the ads that were put through the scoring system tested better, but it found certain combinations of emotions were useful. For example, the combination of joy and anticipation was a precursor to hunger—a useful bit of intelligence for a restaurant chain. 

This kind of targeting can “democratize CTV and open more budgets,” said Crofut. It helps clients build a good brief for creatives, who now have a better idea of what works to move consumers, and what to avoid. Going beyond audience targeting in premium content to targeting premium moments still requires a lot of testing and iteration, but the technology continues to evolve, he said.

Leveraging this work requires an educational effort targeting marketers and agencies, said Crofut. Luckily, the measurements enabled by this data can help tell a story “to re-educate them about including this in their arsenal, as it were, and making sure the pipes exist for that to happen,” he explained. The performance data available demonstrates how this targeting improves results, which speaks to the profitability and incrementality that are the “love language” of CFOs and boards, he said. 

This data poses a challenge for creatives: to use the information to make more emotionally engaging and relevant ads, said Crofut. “Creative gets a bigger seat at the table with this, because we have more data in a granular way to provide them, to think about telling better stories,” he said. With this capability, creatives can build up their profile and their learnings, backed up with measurable results, he said. 

“Here are all the emotions and the context which actually help performance,” said Crofut. “This opens up new avenues for creatives to tell better stories that resonate and connect emotionally.” 

The post Innovator Insights: Wurl’s Peter Crofut appeared first on Brand Innovators.

“Creators are a great way to highlight those moments that should be important to all of us,” Adams. It’s hard to keep consumers’ attention, and creators have “become trusted advocates and allies on behalf of brands.”

This approach is important because riding a cultural moment, such as the annual South by Southwest festival, is about more than just showing up in Austin, said Adams. 

“You need to participate in a way that’s not just ‘Hey I’m at South-by and I’m going to take a bunch of pictures of me looking cool in all my outfits,’” said Adams. “Show your audience that you know what’s going on beneath the surface.” This can mean creating content about an Austin food tour or a post about tourism in Austin, he said. 

SXSW is also the perfect place to launch a product because you have thought leaders and people of influence on the ground including up-and-coming entrepreneurs and established business executives. There’s an opportunity to showcase your product’s value prop and efficacy. If it plays well here it will play anywhere.

“Cultural moments can’t always be planned, but it pays to know how to react. No one would have thought to record a skateboarder happily drinking juice while zooming down the road, said Adams. “If we as an agency had gone to that brand and said: ‘Hey look, we’re going to find a guy from LA and have him skateboard down the freeway drinking Ocean Spray.’ They would’ve been like: ‘Well, that’s not an ad,’” said Adams. “But it became a cultural phenomenon because it wasn’t overly scripted with a professional shoot. For whatever reason it resonated with millions of people. That’s a cultural moment we can’t plan but we can piggy back off of to take advantage of the tremendous earned media and brand love that came out of it for Ocean Spray.”

Aligning campaign goals around a cultural moment is critical, said Adams. Sometimes it’s not about winning the moment on that day, he said. He remembered working with a telecom company some years ago around its Super Bowl efforts. The company said it wanted to win Wednesday through Saturday, because on game day there would be too much happening  to stand out. 

“I think you have to be clear about what the goal is,” said Adams. “If you just say: ‘We’re going to be there,’ just for the sake of being there, it can hurt from an authenticity standpoint. It can come off as performative sometimes, and it can be counterproductive.” 

An omnichannel approach

Creator marketing has increasingly shifted to a more omnichannel approach beyond merely a social media post,  said Adams. Creators are making content for a number of formats, he said—everything from creating recipes for point-of-purchase displays, pre-roll ads for websites—and their content need not be siloed anymore. “I think a lot of people are starting to look at creators as content engines, and saying: ‘Great, It’s a less expensive way to make a high-quality piece of video content than it is to buy a Super Bowl spot,” said Adams.

Platforms need content, and creators build targeted audiences. Brands want access to those conversations; and they help creators in turn build their personal reputations and followings. This interdependence has made creators a critical part of the media mix, and with it, creators have become better-integrated into efforts, and their work more measurable. Thanks to affiliate programs and shopping functionalities, creators now can generate revenue that can be tracked and measured. 

“It’s becoming more of a two-way street in terms of communication and collaboration among creators and brands,” said Adams. “It used to be more transactional: ‘I’ll send you something, and I hope you’ll post.’ Or: ‘I’m going to pay you and write your script, just put this in your caption and post it.’ Now people are leveraging their expertise and the result is stronger, more effective and engaging content.”

But the guiding principle remains the same: “being intentional about why you’re creating it, what the ask is, and who it is targeted towards,” says Adams. “I think that’s a big shift that we’re starting to see from advertisers, and creators are excited about it, too: It gets them more visibility, it gets them more reach. It gets them more touch points with an audience.”  

The post Innovator Insights: Open Influence’s Bryce Adams appeared first on Brand Innovators.

“Being a Packers fan allows you to wear a cheesehead and a jersey and you are part of a tribe. You have a shared language, a shared history, shared goals, shared jokes,” said Gottlieb, president, marketing at FOX Sports. “The nature of fandom, I don’t think has really changed at all. It’s more the places and the way that people are showing their fandom are evolving. But the root thing that draws people to sports, remains that ultimately, it’s a tribal experience that people want to be part of.”

The rise of the internet and social media in particular, have served to transform fandom, said Gottlieb. International fans are now “well-versed in the story lines, the highlights—who’s doing what—through social media” and conversely, U.S. fans are now familiar with sports and players beyond the marquee names like Patrick Mahomes and Lionel Messi. Younger fans now follow leagues and teams very closely, especially through social media, he said. 

These changes mean marketers and media have to adapt, but not in the ways you’d expect. Sports fans have always multitasked during games, checking the newspaper or talking to friends on the phone, so the “second screen experience” is not new to them. Younger fans, however, also consume sports across platforms. Gottlieb singled out “this whole generation of younger fans are only consuming the product in snippets and never as a whole.” What will happen as those young fans mature and start households is an important issue for broadcasters and marketers. 

“Will they transition into a more traditional sports fan who buys tickets to the games and actually sits down and watches games, not just engage on social?” Gottlieb asked, “We don’t really know yet if that’s going to bear out.” 

Still, this fragmentation of attention and platforms means broadcasting can become a more important channel for reaching sports fans with live events. These changes mean marketers have to adapt to the many ways available to reach fans and the skillset and tools marketing departments need to deploy to do it, said Gottlieb. While many tried-and-true traditional media channels remain strong, the touchpoints have evolved and require new skills from marketing departments. 

“Now, there’s a million ways to reach fans—through podcasts, through influencers, through social media, along with all the traditional media of out-of-home billboards, TV, radio, sponsorships, etc. You have to be a lot more nimble in going to a lot of different places to reach fans,” said Gottlieb. “But what’s driving the fans to this sport, and back to you as a marketer, I think remains the same. It’s that passion to be part of a group, and a club, and a tribe that still drives the whole engine.”

To execute on that passion requires a team of specialists working in concert, both internally and among the agency partners, said Gottlieb. “You need to be part data scientist, you need to be part social media expert, you need to be part traditional media expert. There’s a lot to grasp,” he said. But in the end, they all need to deliver on that passion, he said. 

“You can have all the pipes figured out left and right, but if you’re sending stuff that’s not great through those pipes, you’re DOA, it’s not going to work,” said Gottlieb “There’s still the very root of understanding who you’re talking to and what’s going to be relevant and impactful to them and being able to deliver that.” 

For example, he noted FOX Sport’s recent efforts to promote the NTT IndyCar Series, part of a new multiyear deal to air the entire series live. The new ads feature prominently the stars of the racing circuit in humorous but heroic messages, and in at least one, FOX NFL’s lead analyst Tom Brady appears looking envious. 

IndyCar is a great example of a sports tribe, said Gottlieb; those ads were made for them. “They live and breathe this,” he said. The fans want their partners, whether it is broadcasters or advertisers, to reflect their passion and fan it, he said. 

“That’s a really important thing for us here at FOX Sports. Everything we do is built for the core, for the tribe, the person who lives and dies for that product,” he said. “Other people will come if we treat it right, but if we act as a tourist, it doesn’t work.”

While supporting the tribe is important, growing the audience is also part of the work, but it is a balancing act for marketers, said Gottlieb. 

“The next level of what you’re trying to do is: Can you be honest and true to that and still make it broad enough that people who aren’t avid look at it and go: ‘Wow, that looks interesting. That looks cool,’” he said. “I think that’s the trick, to nail the core and then still make it attractive enough for people who don’t live and breathe it to go: ‘Wow, that’s cool. I want to know more about this.’”

Paradoxically, the more fragmented the media environment, the stronger “the notion that there’s a place that reaches virtually everyone, no matter what platforms they have, and that the biggest events in sports, in the big moments, still resonate,” said Gottlieb. “And live sports is really the moment on broadcast television.”

FOX has the biggest moment of the year coming up, airing Super Bowl LIX on Feb. 9. And the network has also announced it will air the game free in its Tubi streaming platform. 

“If you’re an advertiser and you want to reach people and eyeballs, live sports really remains king,” said Gottlieb. “The more platforms there are with more content, the more valuable that ability to amass a bunch of eyeballs is, and live sports and television really deliver it.” 

The post Innovator Insights: Fox Sports’ Robert Gottlieb appeared first on Brand Innovators.

“Your biggest challenge as an advertiser is indifference,” says Evans. The research company tests ads to measure their emotional impact and predict how consumers will receive the brand message. The company released a report this year, The Extraordinary Cost of Dull, which found that 50% of all advertising reviews elicited no response from viewers. That is money wasted, said Evans. 

The study found that on average a U.K. campaign that evokes a neutral response forces an advertiser to spend an additional £10 million to get a result. In a market as large as the U.S., that figure could reach $100 million, said Evans. “We are basically trying to get advertisers to realize that by making a choice to invest in boring, rational advertising, you are costing yourself a lot,” he said. 

In these times of tighter budgets and more accountability for results, “the earlier in the creative process that you apply the testing, the bigger the difference that the testing can make to the final output,” said Evans, “and therefore the bigger the return that you can get from the advertising, by generating the kind of emotion that will lead to business results.”

System1 tests by asking survey respondents how they feel during and after seeing an ad, and how they feel about the brand, along with what they remember about the brand and its message, rather than just poll them about their opinions on the ad. This helps create a better picture of their reactions to the message, said Evans. 

“We’ve basically proven that what people feel as they watch advertising is much more predictive than what they think,” he said. Emotional advertising is twice as effective as rational advertising, said Evans: “People are a lot less interested in the features of your brand than they are in what your brand stands for and how it makes them feel,” he said.  

This kind of extensive testing requires a lot of data crunching. System1 tests thousands of ads across sectors to build a database that can compare creative across many dimensions. Automation is useful in this job, but AI has shown some shortcomings in its ability to predict emotional responses, so for now, it is mainly useful in pulling insights at scale from data sets. 

“We don’t think AI can replace the human element,” said Evans. “I think it’s more of an assistant than a replacement for testing.” 

Automation could also help integrate large third-party data sets from advertisers to enhance their testing by adding other dimensions such as store data or media effectiveness measures. “Integrating our data into big data sets and then using AI to interrogate that, I think is going to be where the next evolution comes from,” said Evans.  

Real Blowback vs. Social Media Storms

This kind of testing can help creatives sell an idea, or convince clients to stick with an existing campaign, rather than replacing it just to shake up the status quo. “Up to now, the creative departments will often have to say: ‘Trust us, this is a good idea,’” said Evans. “But by actually measuring it with the audience that it’s intended for, we can give them evidence that gives them confidence to get the money signed off and get the creative idea signed off.” 

Marketers can get too close to their brand to see things impartially, said Evans. Emotional testing, ironically, gives them distance to see why the target audiences respond the way they do. “Even the best creatives in the world need to find out how their audience responds to their creative idea,” he said. “The ‘Why?’ question is critical to creative development.”  

In the divisive moment we live in, testing can provide an advance warning to avoid backlash, as well as tell if it’s a true consumer response, or a social media cycle. Evans noted Google may have been quick to pull its maligned “Dear Sydney” Olympic ad when it was lambasted on social media, but System1’s testing found the ad for artificial intelligence tools elicited “only a small amount of negativity.” 

Testing can put pushback into context and shape creative so it can navigate those obstacles, “and you don’t fall into any of the traps that some brands have fallen into,” Evans said. “There’s always going to be some negativity and there’s going to be some pushback from some parts of the audience, but what testing allows you to do is understand whether or not that’s significant.”

With today’s consumers increasingly choosing brands based on values, emotions are more important to build lasting brand equity, said Evans. System1’s data shows that if consumers feel positively about a brand and its advertising, they are much more likely to tell someone about it, act on it and remember it in the future. 

“If you feel something, you’re more likely to remember the thing you felt. If you don’t feel anything, you’re likely to forget it,” he said. “So if you’re launching a new brand and you’re talking about features all the time, it’s a lot less likely to stick with people. But by talking about your values—who you stand for and your story—you create emotion in the product that’s much more likely to make people remember you and think about you in future. And when they’re considering buying whatever you make, they’re much more likely to act.”

System1 recently followed up The Extraordinary Cost of Dull with a new report, Compound Creativity, which quantifies how a consistent voice can be more effective than shifting messages to “freshen up” the brand. It found brands that stick with the same agencies and creative ideas experience a compounding effect over time and their advertising is 27% more effective. 

“We have learned that creativity has a bigger and bigger impact the more consistent you are with it,” said Evans. The same creative actually gets better over time, evoking more positive emotional responses the more familiar that consumers are with it, Evans explained. This runs against the idea that advertising wears out, he said. “We actually found the opposite: That good advertising wears in, and the return gets better and better over time, the more consistent you are,” he said. 

The caveat, of course, is that it should be good advertising, Evans warned. He noted the company study found that a video of cows eating grass beat the emotional response of nearly 50% of advertising tested.  

“If you’ve got a bad idea, and a bad campaign, it remains bad,” said Evans. “But the point is: Good creativity compounds over time.”

The post Innovator Insights: System1’s Jon Evans appeared first on Brand Innovators.

“Unlike previous generations, Young Latinos have not had to justify their existence in this country,” said Juliana Gomez VP, Strategy and Insights at TelevisaUnivision. The Spanish-language media company, parent of broadcast network Univision and ViX, the largest Spanish-language streaming service, was one of the sponsors of new research on Latino youth, released in September, which found Gen Z is having an outsized effect in culture, not only among their non-Latino peers but also among their elders. 

Latinos now make up 25% of Gen Z, according to the The LDC U.S. Latino Youth Report, and more than nine out of 10 Hispanic Zoomers are U.S.-born and raised, a much higher rate than any previous generation of Latinos. By comparison, only about half the previous generation was U.S.-born. 

“Younger Latinos didn’t have to adapt or change anything [as their parents often did],” said Gomez. “They were born into a society that has been increasingly embracing their culture and the Spanish language, so they are the ones changing society.”

Young Latinos, empowered by social media, are increasingly defining cultural trends and embracing their dual heritage. “They stand taller on the shoulders of their parents,” said Gomez, respecting the struggle of previous generations while also proudly acting as ambassadors and influencers among their non-Latin peers. 

Zoomers have a stronger bond with the Spanish language than previous generations that were forced to acculturate, even if their command of the language may not be as complete, said Gomez. While Millennials still felt a stigma from speaking imperfect Spanish, “young Hispanics don’t care anymore,” said Gomez. “They are saying to the world: ‘Listen, if you think that I’m different or strange, that’s your problem. You deal with it. I don’t need to explain anything to you. I’m going to speak the way I want, and that also goes for speaking Spanish,’” she said. 

And Zoomers are also increasingly exploring their roots, not only in their ancestral countries but even deeper, in their Indigenous origins, Gomez shared. She noted DNA tests in Mexico now delve deep enough to display the indigenous group—such as the Mayan or Aztec—and Zoomers are seeking out those tests to learn their indigenous parentage. 

Blended Values, Media Agnostic

According to Gomez, this interest in culture and language is translating into an interest in consuming media that’s relevant to this learning process. The survey found interest in culturally relevant content has increased from 51% of respondents in 2023 to 60% in 2024. 

The popularity of Latin music is nothing new, but will only accelerate, as these younger generations share it with their non-Latin peers, as they do their love of all things fútbol (soccer). But they are also seeking out entertainment that explores “the stories of their communities—Latino representation on the screen that shows the everyday life of the Latino consumer and the Latino experience in America,” said Gomez. They will consume it on various platforms, both English- and Spanish-language, and both linear and streaming. 

“Platforms and language make no difference for young Latinos,” said Gomez. “They will watch the content that is right for them.”

Young Latinos will watch a soccer game on linear TV, or catch highlights on social media platforms. TelevisaUnivision is evolving to meet these viewing habits by leveraging its entire ecosystem—linear channels, ViX, audio, and social media platforms—to share content during major cultural events.

“Good content is no longer exclusive to linear (TV),” said Gomez. “We continue to find ways to adapt and distribute that content through other channels that can reach this consumer because they’re still interested in that content.” 

Advertising will also need to adapt to these younger consumers, who are acting as cultural influencers with their elders. Two-thirds of Latino Zoomers believe they can affect society through their choices, up from 55% a year ago, so that awareness is increasing. And Zoomers go beyond mere brand loyalty to “diving into the company story,” said Gomez. She mentioned one interview—part of the qualitative portion of the study—where a young man explained his decision to purchase a more expensive MacBook based on the presence of a Latino director on Apple’s board. 

For marketers, this means messaging needs to not only be relevant to their experience in this country, but it needs to be “very truthful to the power of the brand and the company behind it,” said Gomez. Zoomers are very keen spotters of authentic and truthful messages and will realize quickly if they are not, she said.  

“As the awareness of that influence increases, so does the power that they have when they’re making decisions because they’re such a large group and they represent such an important part of the youth in this country,” said Gomez. 

Just as Latino children traditionally acted as translators for their immigrant parents, Zoomers are interpreting social and cultural shifts for their elders, and transforming attitudes in the process. 

“They have blended values. They have their Latino values, but they also have their very American values, challenging traditional Latino norms,” said Gomez.  “They’re teaching their families and friends to be more modern. They want open-mindedness. They want inclusivity.” 

She already shared that this fluidity—in language, media attitudes, and social views—is unique to this generation, and this cultural transformation is expected to redefine American values in the decade to come.  

“They’re changing what it means to be Latino in this country, and they’re changing the influence of Latino culture in this country,” said Gomez. “The quintessential American experience will be transformed by young Latinos, they are redefining what means to be American.”

The post Innovator Insights: TelevisaUnivision’s Juliana Gomez appeared first on Brand Innovators.

“I would argue that in today’s day and age, mobile has turned into the first screen,” says Gabrielle Heyman, vice president of global brand sales & partnerships for Zynga, the parent of blockbuster games such as Words with Friends and Match Factory. Consumers today spend an average 4 hours and 37 minutes per day on their phones – over 6 hours daily among the Gen Z public –  and games are so engaging and interactive, it makes mobile gaming an obvious media buy. 

“The concept that you put video on video channels is antiquated. You can put video in gaming channels,” she said. “Mobile gaming has huge reach in the U.S. and Globally, and it should be considered a must-buy.” 

Marketers still consider mobile gaming largely as an experiment, but it is ready for a prime-time slot, said Heyman. It offers a brand-safe environment, and it has inventory, especially in an election year, when the scatter market for TV ads will be tight with political advertising buying up all available time.  

“I think that brands are still playing catch up when it comes to gaming, because there is a legacy perception that video is only purchased on video platforms,” said Heyman. Mobile gaming is “cordoned off as its own little thing.” 

To be sure, most adults are still consuming most of their entertainment on the larger TV screen, but Heyman noted “the advantage of mobile gaming is it does give you flexibility in terms of what time, when, and how you’re reaching this person throughout their consumer journey during the day.” 

Gaming is ascendant and mobile gaming in particular lends itself to video advertising in a way that gives other video channels such as CTV a run for their money. It’s no coincidence that video streaming services such as Netflix are prominently displaying games among their entertainment offerings. Even the New York Times has found more engagement in their games than on their new articles.  Brands have started to take notice, leading the IAB to launch an annual Playfronts presentation for media buyers three years ago, to showcase the opportunities for brands in gaming. 

“All of these companies have layered on gaming as a way to increase engagement and keep people on their property,” said Heyman. “That should give brands a clue to where they should be allocating their budgets—to channels that still have that deep attention and deep time-spent environment.”

The profile of mobile gamers does not match with the gamer stereotype: the audience skews female, many are over 35 and have children; they are tech-savvy, early adopters and Shopper Moms. Research conducted profiling Zynga’s gamer audience found that  90% are entertainment consumers, 63% go out to restaurants and 78% shop online (Source:YouGove Active Mobile Gamer Study 2024). 

Consumers carry their phones with them and return to their games multiple times per day, giving mobile gaming an advantage over TV. Additionally, consumers are already tuned into video on the go—via social media, streaming apps and other platforms. 

Fun & Interactivity

“There’s a reason why almost every single platform has gamified the experience, whether it’s the streamers or whether it’s apps like Duolingo or MyFitnessPal,” said Heyman. “Gaming is engaging and it drives results because of the interactive environment.”

The users are already ahead of the media buyers in engaging with ad messages on mobile gaming. YouGov also found that 73% of Zynga  gamers feel the in-game ads offer a unique way to learn about products and brands and 58% feel more connected to brands when they see an ad in a game they’re playing. 

Zynga has leaned into the interactivity to create “playable ads,” bite-sized games that serve to engage gamers, which also include a video message. It created a simulated scratch-off game to introduce players to a trailer for Jackpot, a Prime Video movie with a lottery plot, and a makeup game to lead into a video for a beauty brand’s mascara line.  

“Fun and interactivity is paramount to nailing it inside gaming,” said Heyman. “We leverage the attention and engagement of consumers that’s found in mobile gaming to advertising experiences. To bring more attention and time spent with the brand’s message ultimately drives the KPIs that brands are desiring.”

Creatives may have their doubts about the ability to make compelling ads for a smartphone screen, but Heyman said that proximity–and the fact that consumers carry them through their day–can be an advantage on its own. 

“Your TV is 12 to 15 feet away from you. Your phone is six to eight inches away from your face,” she said. “With aspect ratios and depth perception, what really is the bigger screen?”

For media buyers, mobile gaming offers a landscape that is still relatively uncrowded, as opposed to other video channels. The market is dominated by two players, Zynga and rival Activision. Much like the days of three broadcast TV networks, media buyers are not faced with a fragmented selection and don’t have to choose one over the other when allocating their budgets. There is very low duplication in audiences between the two, Heyman noted: “So brands should be putting both of us on their plans to reach audiences.” 

Additionally, as the nation races to the final weeks of the 2024 election, mobile gaming has inventory available for brands that are being crowded out of other traditional TV channels. Zynga has an extensive list of ad blockers, which includes political advertising, to protect the player experience in-game. While local and national broadcast and cable inventories are running low due to election media buys, mobile gaming offers “a safe space” said Heyman. 

The challenge ahead for mobile gaming is to educate brands and agencies about the evolution of video in gaming as part of the main plan. “Zynga wants to eventually participate in the video upfronts and become an integral part of the media plan for brands, not an experiment”, said Heyman.  

So will 2025 finally be the year Mobile Gaming becomes a must have for Video buyers?  You tell us.

The post Level up your video advertising in mobile gaming appeared first on Brand Innovators.

“Generative AI is changing the way that people work. They are rethinking or redesigning the entire business process to get the desired outcome,” said Hsu, director of product marketing at Azure AI, Microsoft. Microsoft’s 2024 Work Trend Index Annual Report shows AI “power users,” those who leverage the technology several times per day, save on average more than a half-hour every workday.  Nine out of ten power users say the technology helps them be more creative, productive and satisfied, because it lets them focus on more important tasks. 

“They feel like AI makes their workload more manageable,” said Hsu. “So they feel they are more motivated and enjoy work more. That is a really good step.” 

To get the most out of the technology, marketers need to zero in on the areas and use cases where AI can improve business outcomes. AI can assist in streamlining many of the data management tasks involved in business intelligence and make marketing teams more efficient, Hsu explained. 

Many CMOs claim to have a data-driven culture, but with AI they can truly integrate data and  

sentiment analysis to improve customer experience and make customer service more effective, noted Hsu. Generative AI transforms customer service and sales by offering more nuanced, personalized, and varied recommendations, ultimately leading to better customer satisfaction and higher sales, she explained.

Shopping assistants can offer truly personalized services in a conversational interface, integrating data from many sources to make recommendations, address pain points and offer a better customer experience. An AI-powered shopping assistant can take all the feedback and customer sentiment analysis available, analyze thousands of offerings and present the customer with truly relevant content at speed, rather than leave the user searching across thousands of “retroactive” recommendations based on past purchases, said Hsu. 

“It’s accuracy and speed,” said Hsu. “Maybe you only want to discover new gift ideas, and AI can curate a list from the millions and millions of products online, really tailored to what you like. Before generative AI, the recommendations were quite off.”

Shopping assistants can help build loyalty and customer lifetime value. Hsu noted she had a relevant experience recently, when she wasn’t able to get help with a malfunctioning power source on a recliner from the furniture retailer where she bought it, but was able to resolve the issue through a virtual assistant online. “I was super happy about the services that I got from the virtual assistant,” she said. “I already was a customer, now I’m a loyal customer.” 

How CMOs can enable AI 

CMOs can lead in the adoption of AI by first identifying those use cases where the technology can contribute to efficiency and user experience improvement. This is where humans are irreplaceable, said Hsu—by defining goals for AI, ensuring it can integrate with existing systems (such as customer relationship management platforms) and setting the framework for operating the technology ethically and mitigating biases. 

“We still need humans. As marketers, our role is to deploy strategies that effectively leverage generative AI to enhance customer service and sales. Before we deploy, we need to develop. We still need to do the ongoing refinement of our strategies,” said Hsu. “Because everything is changing so fast, you always have new capabilities. How do you use that technology and capabilities to continue improving and refining your solution? Humans, of course. It’s all about us and how we evolve remains essential.”

Marketing leaders can also lead that evolution by encouraging the development of those power users. CMOs need to become familiar and comfortable with the technology and encourage an environment where their staff are encouraged to do the same, said Hsu. It starts at the top, said Hsu, with leadership committing to training initiatives and passing learning certifications themselves. 

This buy-in is key to AI adoption; the Microsoft survey found AI power users were 61% more likely to hear from their CEO about the importance of AI at work, and 53% more likely to get encouragement from leadership to think about how AI could change their jobs. 

CMOs can facilitate AI development by enabling their staff to experiment with AI and encourage them to share their successes, said Hsu. Just as it helps improve customer satisfaction, generative AI can also help increase the job satisfaction of the marketing staff. 

Many business leaders feel their teams lack the strategic knowledge and the data and technical proficiency in AI, which could hold up AI adoption. But employees are already racing ahead, Hsu noted. 

Many staffers are already using generative AI on their own to make their lives easier and be more productive, said Hsu. Power users are 68% more likely than other employees to experiment with different ways to use AI and 48% more likely to stop before undertaking a task to ask themselves if AI could do it, according to Microsoft’s research. The survey found 78% of AI users are already bringing their own tools to work.

“The employees feel they want AI at work. And they don’t want to wait for companies to catch up,” Hsu said.

Leadership needs to focus on training and education, and encourage experiments in AI use among  their staff, by sharing the efficiencies achieved by those  independent experiments, so other employees can adopt them. 

“The employees are already doing the training and learning themselves. Why don’t we, in the leadership team, make AI training a priority?” said Hsu. This can help build a culture of continuous improvement, another imperative to keep up with a fast-changing technology such as AI. She noted Microsoft already has a number of free online training resources available. 

AI has become table stakes in many organizations; Indeed, more than three-quarters of professionals in the survey said they believe AI skills are necessary to be competitive in today’s job market. Power users are leading the way, but the technology is transformative at all levels. 

Employees “already see AI raises the bar and breaks the career ceiling,” said Hsu. “They feel like AI is the future.”

The post Innovator Insights: Microsoft’s Vera Hsu appeared first on Brand Innovators.