As New York Advertising Week 2024 comes to a close, Miscellaneous The Executive Interview Studio, presented by Canva, concluded its week with an impressive list of industry innovationsrs and esteemed advisors. The interview studio has included major figures from companies like Spotify, NBC Universal, Ford, and even pop stars like Camila Cabello.
Managed by You canWith editors, Thursday’s conversations included Oscar, Emmy and Grammy Award-winning artist Common, Pinterest’s head of global brand experiences and programs Jodi Lee, and T-Mobile’s chief consumer marketing officer Vinayak Hegde, among many others.
Topics discussed included creating a brand, understanding the consumer, and keeping track of the rapidly changing trends impacting Gen Z consumers in today’s markets.
Here are some key takeaways from day two.
Canva and Pinterest: Redefining experiential marketing with creativity and connection
Jodi Lee, head of global brand experiences and programs at Pinterest, and Jamie Knowles, global head of experiences at Canva, sat down with diverseTodd Spangler to talk about the rapidly expanding world of experiential marketing.
Over the past two years, Knowles and his team have noticed that the desire for “IRL (real-life) experiences” among customers and Canva has “never been more evident.” Knowles, leading a relatively new team of experiential marketers, has succeeded in finding ways in which consumers can actually “see” and “feel” a brand.
“It’s been really rewarding. Unlike Pinterest, Canva is relatively new on the experimental side. We’re still building our team and still building the practice,” Knowles said. “It’s been exciting to see how our community has responded to that and reacted. We’ve been able to leverage these lessons to help shape our trial strategy and how that begins to unfold on the ground. It was an exhilarating process.”
For Lee and her team at Pinterest, the key to their success is planning ahead. Its event calendar is already full through January 2026 and carefully divided between B2B and B2C efforts.
“For B2C moments, we’re focusing on Gen Z and Millennials. “Gen Z continues to be our fastest-growing and largest audience on Pinterest, which is really exciting,” Lee said. “On the B2B side, where we work closely with a marketing team Our business, our entire strategy is to take the tedium out of B2B interactions. It can become such a sea of similarity. So this is really one of our most important creative strategies.
Global Marketing Director for Mars Inc. Explains how Mars uses artificial intelligence to sell you Snickers
Joined by Jolene Benge, Mars Inc.’s global marketing director. And Chief Growth Officer at Mars Snacking, To diverse Ad Week Studio to discuss how the century-old brand will continue to dominate the snack industry in 2024.
Bunge stressed that creating “personalized or customized” advertising experiences for each group of consumers is the key to success in today’s market. Embracing this truth, Mars created a creative AI that embodies Snickers’ famous slogan, “You’re not you when you’re hungry.”
“We worked with one of the most famous coaches in the European Football Championship, José Moreno, to use generative AI to help him deliver some banter to the fans,” Benjy said. “You know, Snickers stands for ‘You’re not you when you’re hungry,’ and this was a whole campaign making fun of the weird things or mistakes we do when we’re hungry.”
Common explains why T-Moblie was the perfect home for an ad campaign
Vinayak Hegde, Chief Consumer Marketing Officer at T-Mobile and Common, Academy Award, Emmy and Grammy Award-winning artist, and Andrew Panay, Founder and CEO of Panay Films, join diverse Ad Week Studio to discuss their collaboration on the latest batch of T-Moblie ads featuring the Chicago hip-hop legend.
Panai is always looking for talent with “authentic voices”. Since he’s been a longtime fan of Common and his “amazing sense of humor,” it was a “no-brainer” to include him in a campaign with T-Moblie.
“He’s completely honest and comes that way,” Panay said. “We love having artists be part of the conversation and part of the creativity. So we have an amazing partnership.”
When accepting a job in advertising, the product “has to be something I talk about in some way,” Common said. T-Mobile’s goal of connecting people through its products resonated with him, as he said his goal as an artist is also to “connect with people.”
“If something doesn’t work, doesn’t fit or doesn’t look right, I won’t make that product,” Common said. “That’s not really who I am. When you find that partnership that you can build on, that’s part of the criteria.
Warner Brothers Discovery CRO discusses the brand revolution and the future of the global content business
Bruce Campbell, chief revenue and strategy officer at Warner Bros., said: Discovery, he enjoys direct involvement with operational arms such as the advertising sales and distribution teams. He detailed the process of making each of these units work cohesively, pointing out opportunities for brands to interact with some of the company’s theatrical films like “Wonka,” “Barbie” and “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” as a way to generate revenue.
“We have to make sure we’re giving brands all the assets we offer,” Campbell said. “There’s a lot of amazing innovation happening. There are a lot of great products and technologies available to create more targeted products and reach audiences in a more focused way that goes beyond just traditional demographics.
Campbell added that the Warner Bros. relationship Discovery with Universal Studios allows the company to be able to compete on a global scale when it comes to licensed experiences like the Harry Potter theme park or Warner Bros. Studios rides. He said that Warner Bros. It is currently present in 65 countries around the world and has teams that can identify and sell local content in local ad sales markets and facilitate the company’s international growth.
Regarding AI initiatives, Campbell said many executives are reviewing and implementing potential uses of the technology at the company to market assets, enterprise efficiency and track customer engagement.
“When we look at how we can use data better, we have to offer more targeted products and segment our audience better. There are some great technologies out there to harness AI and machine learning to do that in a more effective way,” Campbell said. “When it comes to generative AI “Creating content is an opportunity, but it’s something we have to be very careful about.”
Sean Downey on YouTube’s growth and the transformative power of technology at Google
Sean Downey, president of America and global partner for Google, said that Google has applied artificial intelligence in its advertising products over the past decade. He discusses business applications across the industry, such as shift curves and modeling to predict audience behavior, build at scale, and identify key insights from data.
“AI has the potential to be a real jet pack for people’s businesses,” Downey said. “We have the privilege of going into a marketer or brand office and showing them how they can use AI to enhance their performance and drive better business results. We can show them how AI can ultimately help them transform their operations to make them more effective.
AI provides tremendous growth opportunities for industry leaders, Downey said. He explained that technology will not necessarily replace jobs, but rather will enable people to do their jobs better. Downey added that humans will continue to do current strategic work and build creative ideas, but will likely do so using insights from AI that will enable growth.
“We spend a lot of time helping people understand what fundamentals need to be right. How do they understand their data structures? How do they understand their campaign domains? Most people use some AI tools at Google, whether it’s in Google Ads,” Downey said. Or on YouTube… using AI to enhance insights, enhance media, buy at scale or enhance creativity in production.”
Downey shared his unique perspective on YouTube’s growth, having worked at Google just a year after the video platform was acquired. “It’s been an amazing journey to see it become part of culture and media and become a truly global phenomenon.” YouTube has gone on to launch a billion-dollar creator industry and has even earned several Emmy nominations for its contributors.
Disney advertising leaders discuss customer-focused strategies in sports and entertainment
Danielle Brown, senior vice president of sports brand solutions at Disney Advertising, and John Campbell, Senior Vice President of Entertainment and Streaming Solutions At Disney Advertising, we discussed the company’s partnerships and marketing strategies across various brands.
Brown said she likes ESPN’s tendency to lean on market innovations when it comes to broadcasting, data and relationships with consumers. Campbell has added sponsorship opportunities and a new accelerator program for underrepresented small businesses called Project Elevate, which embodies the company’s entrepreneurial spirit.
Brown explained that cross-functional team meetings are prominent at Disney to ensure all resources across the entire Disney advertising ecosystem are being used effectively.
“There is a great wealth of knowledge within The Walt Disney Company,” Brown said. “I think leveraging these resources helps us innovate… We’re simplifying things for our advertisers and agencies. It really starts with the client’s KPI. What goals are they trying to achieve? Are they a new brand? Are they an established brand? We’re working With Fortune 500 companies when it comes to integrations and making sure the brand recognition is maintained.”
Brown added that Disney’s use of artificial intelligence incorporates technology and the human touch. She said Disney had an audit audience chart centered around 260 million devices in 100 million homes. Machine learning and optimization across the consumer funnel also play a role, while the human element in Disney’s influence on brands and their desired goals remains prevalent.
“At Disney, we have a huge advantage in our audience chart,” Brown said. “We have a lot of rich data sets…Private Audience Graph has also allowed us to build clean room technology that allows advertisers to plan, activate and measure against their campaigns, all within the Disney Clean Room environment.”
Campbell detailed a key partnership with Hershey during the Halloween cycle regarding equity, sponsorships, social fulfillment and more. The campaign resulted in 89% positive social sentiment, which Campbell described as rare in today’s climate.
“It’s not just about integrating with Abbott Elementary on Hulu, but how do you find comedy fans throughout the ecosystem?” Campbell said. “It’s these layers through which we can extend our platforms to our partners…Disney Plus will be an immersive experience where consumers will spend more time.”
Parbinder Dhariwal, Vice President and General Manager, CVS Media Exchange, Talks about how to compete between ‘200+ retail media networks’
Parbinder Dhariwal, vice president and general manager of CVS Media Exchange, sat down in Variety’s Ad Week Studio to discuss how the pharmacy continues to reach new customers and leverage its 9,000 locations.
With “more than 200 retail media networks” in the market, Dhariwal’s goal is for CVS to always stand out from the crowd. It does this through two important key points: the brand’s “loyalty program” and its “leadership position and measurement.”
“It’s not just loyalty on a small scale, it’s on a large scale,” Dhariwal said. “If we want to compete as retail media with other, more established media that have been around for decades, we have to provide much stronger and more comprehensive measurement, and be able to report that realistically. But more importantly, (work) confidently and honestly with the market.” .