Hasta La Creative!

On “Good Morning America,” Kevin Hart deflected questions about past comments about homosexuality and said he would definitely not host the Oscars.

This is the time when pundits come forth with their prognostications for what will happen in the new year. Of course, with so much in flux, no one really knows what the heck is going to happen. So I’ve decided to adopt hope as our strategy and list five things I hope to see happen in the world of corporate responsibility and brands in 2019.

Brands will step off the political stage as government starts acting sane again

Let’s hope that the recent trend toward brands taking a stand on politics fades, as a two-party Congress restores some semblance of balance to our political landscape. Brands were trying to fill a vacuum here, playing the role of a loyal opposition at a time when the public had nowhere else to turn. It’s not something they’re necessarily cut out for, as we’ve seen in numerous gaffes. Even when the ads are done well, the profit motive tends to undermine the purity of the message. Was Nike’s campaign with Colin Kaepernick driven by brand values or by brand opportunism? The answer is probably both, as required for a publicly held company. Which is why companies should not overstay their moment on the political stage.

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Driven Brands parent to auto-service brands including Meineke Car Care Centers and Take 5 Oil Change has tapped Atlanta-based Publicis shop Moxie as its new lead agency after a review.

Moxie, the marketing solutions agency Publicis Media’s Zenith acquired in 2006, will work on brand strategy, creative and media buying and planning for Charlotte, North Carolina-based Driven, whose brands also include Carstar and Spire Supply. Driven Brands is a portfolio company of private-equity firm Roark Capital Group and says it has more than 2,500 centers in North America.

Charlotte-based agency Mythic was the previous agency of record for Driven. The shop continues to work on some projects.

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This past year has been an incredible year for women. Wonderful work has been done by so many different women. But it was Janelle Mon?e’s triumphant song “Django Jane,” which proclaimed the exhaustion of having your agency taken away, that finally made me realize I needed to write about my experience in advertising because I…

The parent company of the now shuttered data firm Cambridge Analytica has been fined 15,000 pounds after pleading guilty to violating UK data laws. According to The Guardian, SCL Elections pleaded guilty to breaching the Data Protection Act after it didn’t comply with a U.S. professor’s request for information about the data the company had…

Em sua primeira campanha do ano, a Heineken apresenta o seu novo posicionamento para 2019 e baseado no slogan “For a Fresher World”. O filme “Trouble to Connect”, protagonizada por uma brasileira e um inglês, mostra um casal que se conhece em uma balada e não consegue se comunicar verbalmente por conta das diferenças de …

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In a world overflowing with distraction and diluted with competition, it’s becoming harder and harder for businesses to connect with customers online. Today more than ever, brands need to step outside the digital box and find fresh ways to surprise and delight consumers in real, authentic ways. Experiential marketing has been climbing to the top of the brand-world totem pole for a few years now and shows no signs of slowing down. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts the event industry will grow by 44 percent from 2010 until 2020, and for good reason: 98 percent of consumers say they’re more likely to buy a product after attending an activation. Whether a company lives online, in brick-and-mortar or somewhere in between, in-person events carry the potential to leave a lasting impression on customers, whose attention has become a true commodity. But it’s not just about throwing a great party anymore. If businesses want to bond with their audience in a genuine way, they have to solve a problem and provide real value that customers can take home.

Heading into 2019, marketers need to think big and give customers a reason to engage. Markets are saturated and most consumers are in a perpetual state of sensory overload. To capture their attention, brands will need to make a big splash. The Concierge Club recently launched a “Zero Gravity Room” to get consumers excited about the HP Sprocket 200 photo printer. The highly Instagrammable experience allowed visitors to snap and print photos with the device while posing in a curated upside-down room. The Gravity Room had the wow factor to spark organic conversation, boost social sharing and invigorate online sales for the new product. We hired Toronto Raptor Danny Green to conduct a meet and greet with fans and drive awareness for the activation. As a result, expected turnout quadrupled and we secured nearly half a million impressions, plus it gained top-tier coverage on Canadian sports network TSN online. This unique, carefully curated experience is the kind of value brands should aim for to deliver customers to get them excited, drive product sales and win the experiential marketing game.

I launched The Concierge Club in 2011 to fill a white space in Canada’s premium events industry. From the beginning, my goal has been to curate full-service, exceptional events for top-tier clients, at any budget and always with a bold vision. With every activation we execute, the objective is clear: to exceed our client’s expectations and deliver tangible results.

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